The
Backlash Against Globalization
Soccer at least in its modern
iteration was created in England from which it was able to spread
to the rest of the world. Seeing the connection between soccer and
globalization author Franklin Foer wrote the aptly named book on the subject How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely
Theory of Globalization. In Chapter six of his book “How Soccer Explains
the Black Carpathians” Foer focuses on how globalization spurs countries to
focus on their comparative advantage and the resulting backlash of racism in
these countries.
Globalization forces countries who
want to be competitive in the market to focus on the production of the goods
they are best at making. No country will buy from you if another country makes
a cheaper and better quality product. This phenomenon happens in soccer as
African countries are exporting their best player to play in European Soccer Clubs.
Foer explains that “Agents scoured places like Gboko for teams they could sell
to European Soccer Clubs” (146). These African players are perceived as more
skilled at soccer than their European counterparts and are imported to improve
the performance of various soccer clubs around Europe. Why would a team waste
time producing their own soccer players when they can import better players
from other countries to play for them?
While this benefits not only the soccer teams but the world economy the
native populations of the importing countries always fight globalization.
Globalization has the unfortunate
tendency to create an us vs. them mentality. Workers feel that they are losing
their hard earned jobs to forces that they could never compete with even in
soccer. These feelings often tend to lead to racist sentiments in two forms
depending on how large the group of “job-takers” are. If the group is small
such as in Lviv, Ukraine the population will act like “an eight year old
refusing to try dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant.” (156) When a Ukrainian kid
sees an African in real life they are stunned as they have never seen one
outside of TV. There will be off handed racist comments made at the Nigerian
soccer players but nothing worse. They do not know why they do not like the
people they just feel like they should not. The real problem occurs in
countries like Poland where there is relatively large group of these “job
takers”. In Poland when African soccer players arrive on the field the crowd
throws bananas at them. There is an active culture of racism here galvanized by
nationalist elements that can lead to harmful outbursts. In these types of
countries nationalistic elements are actively looking to harm them.
While globalization benefits the
world many people do not see it that way. They see it as a parasite taking
their hard earned jobs. Through the lens of soccer we can see how soccer clubs
follow the rules of comparative advantage to make the best soccer club possible
and the racist backlash that occurs as a direct result. Soccer is the perfect
microcosm of globalization.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very well written analysis of how soccer connects to globalization. I think it is really interesting that you talk specifically about the backslash of globalization on local communities. This brings up the importance of perspective when talking about the positives and negatives of globalization. If you are looking at globalization at a larger level, it is very beneficial to the world market because each country is only making products that they are the best at making. However, when you look at it in a much narrower lens, globalization could hurt smaller communities. For example, if African countries are exporting their best players to the European soccer clubs, those local European communities lose the ability to produce their own home-grown soccer players. Ultimately, globalization clearly has both pros and cons, but these depend on whether we are looking at the situation with a broad or narrow lens.
Hey Elana,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that your view of globalization depends on what level you look at it, though we should focus on what benefits the most people. I would compare this to the whale oil industry when electricity was invented. Just because the whale oil industry will collapse, and a loss of jobs will occur, when a majority of people go over to electricity does not mean we should not preface the more efficient technology, electricity.
Hey Evan,
ReplyDeleteThat is a very interesting point about "globalization being a parasite". Your argument that African soccer players are taking jobs of European soccer clubs. I agree with you that this side of globalization is horrible. It also defeats the purpose of the clubs to represent a country when most of the players of the team are not natives. This trend of globalization of soccer could lead to the parasite of American football. Although, your argument is valid, how about the situation of the Africans players home. Playing soccer may be the only way out for them to succeed in life. This correlates to the stereotypical actions of black males that mostly play football and basketball. If you look at the roster of any college or pro team, you will find numerous teams with more than half of the players whom are black. The ideology that playing these two sports is forced on young black males to have a better life. Africans soccer players may not being playing for money per se, but rather to live a better life.