Post-colonial outcomes: FIFA, overseas territory and national identity

Abstract

The effect of external rule has nearly always been both to cultivate and to prohibit nationalist activity. Partly in consequence of this, nationhood, as a positive expression of a unique collective identity, has proven the most successful strategy through which to resist and express a difference from the fixings and hierarchies of colonial power. 1 No sport has proven better at helping establish a sense of nationhood than football. As Guilianotti and Finn assert, football is the most important setting within popular culture for displaying a national identity that can then be mediated through mass communication. 2 A nation can be created, even if the teams on the field represent anything but in a political sense. This is illustrated by the number of sovereign states accepted by the United Nations (UN) and those admitted to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) (193 countries against 209 football states). With nine sovereign states still outside of FIFA, that provides an even wider divergence between real countries in a political sense and those seeking nationhood on the football field. A large proportion of this discrepancy is the legacy of the colonial era, particularly the imperialist expansion of France, Great Britain and the Netherlands. Many of these territories have subsequently accepted a status less than full independence and still resist colonial power culturally. Football is a powerful tool in this quest for an identity and 2013 was to prove a significant year in this struggle.