Transformacoes recentes na geografia do futebol em Portugal.

Abstract

Football is one of the main leisure activities and is immensely popular in the whole of the country. Both at international level and within the country itself, football provides the opportunity for dialogue. It makes spectators forget or divert social tensions, in that matches are perceived - above all by the public - as struggles to affirm ownership or consolidation of rights over a territory; hence the inter-class nature of the evolution of the football phenomenon in the different spatial strata. Up to 1974, football can be said to have spread in close connection with urban-industrial growth, with special stress on the industrial function, having gained great popularity both as a sport and as entertainment. However, after 1974, this trend was to a certain extent reversed. There has been a regression of football potential in highly industrialized areas, while at the same time other areas - namely those situated in tertiary centres - have witnessed the rise of clubs. -from English summary