At a time when radical right-wing movements are asserting themselves throughout Europe and nationalism is making a comeback, sport can appear at best as an escape from too heavy current events, at worst as a guilty diversion. However, it has played an important role in the construction of nation states, whether through the formation of a common imagination demarcating borders, in strategies for distinguishing between social classes or in public action in matters of health and morality, particularly in times of war to sculpt the bodies and minds of citizen-soldiers. Recently, the politicization of the material and symbolic stakes of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games or the speeches of the players of the French football team once morest the extremists during the legislative elections have offered new illustrations of this.
Moving from the national to the supranational, the 2024 European Football Championship is an opportunity to reflect on the influence of sport on the feeling of European unity. Like cultural events such as Eurovision, major sporting events constitute pan-European (and beyond) media rituals that reach audiences that no political event can match. They are nevertheless assimilated to a popular folklore that is undervalued. The sociology of nationalism, however, underlines their importance in connecting the “high culture” of the elites to the “low culture” of the masses, as in the “reassuring fratricides” that cement “imagined communities” (Benedict Anderson) or the “banal nationalism” that nourishes identities through impregnation (Michael Billig).
Rivalries weakened or revived?
A classic question is whether the simulations of conflict offered by sport – the confrontation of one nation once morest another – attenuate differences in the mode of play or, on the contrary, revive them. In other words, is football a catharsis producing European unity or a reactivation of nationalist rivalries? As part of a broader research on the vectors of the relationship with Europe, a survey (online survey carried out by Ivox-Billendi on behalf of the ULB between June 21, 2024 and June 26, 2024, representative panel of the Belgian population with 1,000 Belgians, margin of error of 3.02%) invites respondents to say whether they consider that Euro 2024 contributes to strengthening European unity by sharing a common moment or, on the contrary, to diminishing it by stirring up national rivalries. The territorializing function of the event is also explored by a question on the fact that it can blur the borders of Europe by integrating countries whose Europeanness is the subject of debate (like Turkey or Georgia in this edition). Finally, the effects of football as a bearer of values – too progressive or too conservative depending on the point of view, as illustrated by the recurring controversies on the homophobia of athletes or the presence of LGBTQIA+ symbols – are also studied.
Three trends
The raw results of the survey suggest an impact – but limited – of the sporting event in building a European community. In response to the question “The 2024 European Football Championship, held every four years, is currently taking place. In your opinion, this event contributes to…”, respondents were asked to rank six proposals in order of importance. Three trends emerge from the first choices. A large third of respondents consider that the event contributes to “strengthening European unity, by sharing a common moment” (21.8%) and “uniting Europeans by showing a spectacle that celebrates tolerance and minority rights” (12.9%). A sixth believes that such a sporting event might “blur the borders of Europe because it integrates non-European countries (such as Turkey or Georgia) (9.7%), “reduce European unity, by reviving national oppositions through competition” (4.3%) and/or “divide Europeans by showing a spectacle that offends traditional values and decency” (3%). Finally, another large third are of the opinion that it has “no effect” (36%) while 12.1% prefer not to answer.
Read also
The logics structuring the responses are fairly widely shared across the Belgian population, with some variations. French speakers are more numerous than Dutch speakers in recognizing that sport has both positive and negative effects on European unity. A partial explanation may be the imminent confrontation with France, a country with which cultural imbrication is deep, at the time of the survey. We would then be in a sort of cross-border “reassuring fratricide”. A more right-wing positioning of the respondents predisposes them to accentuate the divisive effects of sports competition. Conversely, a high level of confidence in the EU leads to attributing cohesive effects to it, as does the fact of feeling European at the same time as Belgian.
Nuancing political issues
In summary, the cohesive effects of the sporting event are attributed more to a shared agenda (according to the idea that “doing together” reinforces “being together”) than to the normative message conveyed by sport. The question of the values expressed through football, which is the subject of many media and political controversies, appears more secondary in the respondents’ responses. Even those who see sporting competition as a factor of division consider it less important than the question of otherness and borders introduced by the controversial Europeanness of certain countries.
This observation, combined with the fact that the relative majority of responses suggest that Euro 2024 has no effect on European unity, invites us to qualify without neglecting the political stakes of such a sporting competition. The Red Devils lost, Europe may have gained a little, but the essential thing is played out elsewhere…
Also read: For Georgians, the Euro is an opportunity “to prove to everyone” that they are European
