• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: The Curious Drama of the President of a Republic Versus a Football Fan Tribe : A Symptomatic Case in the Post-communist Transition in Croatia : A Symptomatic Case in the Post-communist Transition in Croatia
  • Contributor: Vrcan, Srdjan
  • Published: SAGE Publications, 2002
  • Published in: International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 37 (2002) 1, Seite 59-77
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1177/1012690202037001004
  • ISSN: 1012-6902; 1461-7218
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:p> This article offers a sociological interpretation of the conflict in the 1990s in Croatia between the President of the Republic of Croatia, the late Franjo Tuðman, and a football fan tribe. It began as a family quarrel in the same Croatian nationalist ideological and political family about the imposed name change of a football club but gradually became the first public political contestation of the President's charisma with growing political consequences. The interpretation is based upon identifying the set of confrontations involved: social system vs life world, different deconstructions and reconstructions of social and football reality, expropriators vs expropriated, nation-state politics vs autonomy of the civil society, corporate politics vs sub-politics. In conclusion, it discusses a set of problems regarding football and politics in so-called transition and, in particular, those regarding football fandom and nationalism. </jats:p>