Manuel vázquez montalbán: A critical theory of sport

Abstract

Despite the suspicions that the sport aroused among the Spanish intellectuals in the seventies, Vázquez Montalbán approached his study from a subcultural, critical and humanist perspective. In the first third of the twentieth century, sport had become a means of mass communication at the service of political and economic interests. Faced with this situation, Montalbán denounces the hidden deception in sport (myth) and its use as an imaginary adventure replacing one’s life. The recovery of the more human sense of the sport requires its democratization, the reinforcement of its more pedagogical dimension and the adaptation of the social structures to the needs of the citizens.