Why England is the country of football – COUNTER-FOOT
The facts are there: what are the results of its national team, England did invent (Site notre bureau spécialisé) and gradually unified its rules, forged its financial model. Brazil and France can flaunt their sense of the game, the English will remain, whatever happens, the guardians of this sport which has become, thanks to its global presence, a caricatural allegory of economic globalization.
The invention in itself is not due to the game as we know it but to its propagation as a social and commercial vehicle. Indeed, the folk (Site notre bureau spécialisé) exists since the xve Century, as Manuel Schotté very precisely explains in his very instructive book The value of the (Site notre bureau spécialisé)er (CNRS editions, 2022). But its practices were diverse, rather rural, often violent, undefined and above all these games knew no common rule according to the localities where they were held, and the teams fluctuated.
There would have been no intention at first to want to channel and organize these spontaneous vulgar encounters. We have to wait until half of the nineteenthe Century so that the students of the Public schools, therefore the children of the British elite, introduced to the be of the universities these games and that the professors see there a new sporting support of education, in particular to channel the violence which develops there, but also to instil in the pupils of the Values morals, self-control as well as a way to fight against the « effeminateness » of students and alcoholism. At Rugby College, a first regulation (37 different rules) sees the light of day (1845), as an early version of modern (Site notre bureau spécialisé) which could have been evaluated in very directions at this stage. Because if this (Site notre bureau spécialisé) allows the game by hand, the ball (a famous pig’s bladder) must pass above the goal bar at Rugby, while at Eton it must pass below. The test (or try, provisional) existing only to authorize this ancestor of the transformation or penalty. We are still very far from the (Site notre bureau spécialisé) that is played in Qatar. Rugby (Site notre bureau spécialisé) allows tackles, scrums to fight for the ball and it is the captains of the teams of the establishments who agree on the principles of the game before the matches so that, all the same, it makes sense. Quite quickly, in about twenty years, the colleges make their own rules.
On the part of the appearance in (Site notre bureau spécialisé) in general of great principles: the equality of the number of players per camp, various dimensions of fields and, finally, the playing time. But basically, there is still no will to play the same game, insofar as the Public schools, jealous of their rules, preferably winning with their adversary at each meeting of ephemeral common rules, therefore, which will disappear as quickly as they were adopted. In professional boxing, this way of doing things has survived. The agents and promoters arranged between you to set up the conditions of combat in one of the four major federations.
It was not until 1863 that there was a radical advance towards, first of all, the distinction between rugby (Site notre bureau spécialisé) and (Site notre bureau spécialisé) as such. The creation of the (Site notre blog d’information) Association ((Site notre blog d’information) Federation) and in 1871 of the Rugby (Site notre blog d’information) Union (Rugby Federation) will bring the two collective sports out of the sole direction of schools and universities in an attempt to unify their rules, but this , in a radically opposite way. These federations are born thanks to former practitioners who, having entered active life, want to promote their game. Whereas, in rugby, young leaders are part of the economic or military elite of the nation, those in (Site notre bureau spécialisé) are from the upper middle class, products and agents of British economic growth, which means that they are, for many, salespeople. The wish of the FA is to unify the rules of (Site notre bureau spécialisé). But initially, it establishes only one more regulation among all the others. At the same time, British sport is structured around rugby clubs and (Site notre bureau spécialisé) clubs with local identities that are still strongly marked; rugby (Site notre bureau spécialisé) then still remains largely in the majority. Even if we now distinguish the two after a divorce on a fundamental aspect of the game: physical contact and hand play.
The unification of the rules will ultimately not be done from the top but by a series of compromises between actors so that a national competition can be held. After 1880, the FA managed to mount a Cup (cut) which will implement more and more clubs. By creating a simple national trophy, the FA will win and force clubs wishing to participate to refer to the same rules. Rugby (Site notre bureau spécialisé), he continues to prefer matches without other than that of « meeting », by reciprocal invitations in a very diplomatic mode. Where rugby will develop in an environment limited to its elites, (Site notre bureau spécialisé) will ensure its promotion by tournaments towards the popular classes, those of the folk (Site notre bureau spécialisé), to swell its ranks. Moreover, AF is driven by genes from more diverse social classes. But, no doubt, these same leaders, who are no longer just former players but also business leaders, will, by establishing professionalism (rugby must be amateur), boost the financing of these same clubs. In the minds of people that the quest for social ascent could, with (Site notre bureau spécialisé), try to obtain new profits but also to acquire public notoriety. In fact, those who finance (Site notre bureau spécialisé) then are mostly bosses of the new rich who see it as a way both to discipline the workers and to charge for tickets to the stadium. It should also be noted that the majority of the patrons in question are alcohol merchants…
At the same time, the Church looks favorably on (Site notre bureau spécialisé) as a popular sport and a space for socializing. Mickaël Correia considers in A popular history of (Site notre bureau spécialisé) (La Découverte, 2018, pocket 2020) that the clergy think that (Site notre bureau spécialisé) can help « fight against the decadence of an entire working-class youth », but also that the bosses’ (Site notre bureau spécialisé) can make it possible « to improve the physical constitution of players, to sharpen the spirit of competition between workers and to divert the working class of any protesting inclination ». Thus, the parishes and local businesses of participation in the expansion of (Site notre bureau spécialisé) according to the FA. Note that rugby was intended to train decision-makers, captains of industry and therefore the sport itself was a recreation.
From 1888, thanks to the development of the railway, a new mode of competition was set up: the championship. The model comes from cricket, but especially from the professional American leagues. By multiplying the matches on a regular basis according to a pre-established calendar, the income from (Site notre bureau spécialisé) becomes tangible: a public identifying with its city, its company or its parish, will defend its colours. A single league was born after the First World War (the (Site notre blog d’information) League made up of regional leagues) and was to develop in parallel with the Cup of AF. This calendar justifies the existence of a governance to ensure its organization and especially to guarantee the sporting aspect of the affair. Obviously, the best team must win. Outside, the championship will be structured by levels of sports skills, while the Cup (direct elimination) concerns all clubs. With the time saved on « weekend » work, (Site notre bureau spécialisé) will thrive as a distraction from days without work, where the worker will embrace the system that exploits him and pay for the spectacle in which he participates in a partisan fashion.
This sport, therefore now involving professional players, paying spectators, industrialists and the bodies that govern the game, is in place. All that remains is the propagator in the world. It will be exported by senior executives of British companies or former foreign students who stayed in England on the European continent before reaching the world. While money obviously circulated in the other English professional sports of the time (cricket, boxing, running, etc.), especially in the form of betting, (Site notre bureau spécialisé) was the first to become a business in itself. Here again the English are schooling.
What we see in Qatar remains the logical continuation of an entertainment enterprise aimed at the popular masses, serving the interests of now globalized capitalism according to Anglo-Saxon precepts. Even if the government of the game is based in Switzerland (which has obtained a lot from the development of (Site notre bureau spécialisé) in Europe), what is at stake in the World Cup for England is therefore not to see the conceptualization of its model come true, it’s done, but to be able to postpone the trophy to be crowned the best team in the world so that its domination is total. The other nations can only assert their greater sporting competence. Consciously or not, it is precisely because England has given birth to its rules and competition formats that other nations like nothing more than to beat it at its own game. Finally, this is what makes the most badly for the English: one, for having been dispossessed of their game by broadcasting it, where the Americans were careful not to export baseball or their (Site notre bureau spécialisé) in order to remain masters of it at home for their sole benefit; two, not to be part of the great nations of current (Site notre bureau spécialisé) in the same way as Brazil, Argentina, Italy or France. In summer, the appropriation of culture becomes here an existential weapon of combat to leave England only the paternity of the organization of (Site notre bureau spécialisé) in the private sporting prestige.
Olivier Villepreux
