We won! Since its inception, football, commonly referred to as “soccer” in the U.S., has represented a unique platform for the public performance of identity. The football pitch has unified and divided, bound together and separated apart. Germany’s 1990 World Cup win represented the first display of the newly-reunified country’s national identity since the start of the Cold War. Similarly, at a time when the Republic of Moldova, a country in Eastern Europe, seemed more divided than ever along ideological and geopolitical lines, a significant football win consolidated the Moldovan national identity. Not all football is unifying though. On quite the opposite end, the 1990 match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade transformed the football pitch into an initial battleground for the Croatian Independence War, resulting in the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Bridging the Two Sides of the Dniester
This year’s Champions League confirms the inextricable link between football and identity politics. On September 28, Sheriff Tiraspol, a Moldovan football club, made history in the Champions League: it defeated 13-time winners Real Madrid. Moldovans around the world were nothing short of ecstatic. The UEFA Champions League is one of the most prestigious tournaments in world football, bringing together clubs such as Real Madrid, Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, and the like, which are top tiered in their respective country leagues as well. And this time Sheriff Tiraspol, “one of ours” as Moldovans say, beat the best of the best.
Based in Tiraspol, Sheriff is the first Moldovan football club to even make it into the group phase of the competition. “Moldovan football club” itself is a somewhat contentious categorization though. Sheriff is a club playing in the Moldovan national division, but it would not necessarily label itself “Moldovan.” Tiraspol, the city where Sheriff is based, is actually the capital of the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, also known as Transnistria, an unrecognized breakaway state within Moldova’s territory and one of the many “frozen zones” in the post-Soviet region. Transnistria has repeatedly made the news for being an infamous crime haven and a major transit point for the illegal trafficking of weapons and human beings.
In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, tensions between Transnistrian separatists and the newly-formed Moldovan government escalated into a war that killed around 1,000 people. Since the ceasefire agreement between the Moldovan government and Transnistrian authorities was signed in 1992, the Moldovan government has exercised virtually no control over the region. Since proclaiming its independence in 1990, Transnistria has created its own government and adopted its own constitution and currency. With a statue of Lenin guarding their Parliament building, Transnistrians openly embrace their Soviet heritage, whereas, with European integration at the top of the agenda, the current Moldovan government is determined to leave the country’s Russian-dominated Soviet past behind.
The Transnistrian economic model closely resembles the command-and-distribution model inherited from the USSR with some rudimentary elements of a free-market economy. The only relatively independent and profitable economic entity in Transnistria is Sheriff. So, Sheriff is not just a football club, it is also the main conglomerate in Transnistria. The owners of Sheriff control the entire Transnistrian economy; they run the supermarkets, the television network, and the gas stations. That’s how Sheriff got the $200 million for building its stadium complex and that’s how it affords to pay its players $15,000 a month (yet little compared to the million-dollar remunerations of Real Madrid players).
From the perspective of the Moldovans, Sheriff Tiraspol’s historical win against Real Madrid bridged — even if only for a little while — the gap between Transnistrians and Moldovans. Granted, the Sheriff players did not talk about Moldova at all during their post-match interviews, referring exclusively to Tiraspol and Transnistria. Nonetheless, this did not stop Moldovans from labeling Sheriff’s win as a “Moldovan victory” on social media. A Facebook user declared that “these guys did more for Moldova in an evening that all the politicians put together, for 30 years [of independence].” After all, some Moldovans say, Sheriff is playing in “our national division” and the team would not even be able to compete in the Champions League if they were not representing Moldova —Transnistria is not recognized by any UN Member State and hence does not have an international presence.
Football is thus one of the last things keeping the two sides of the Dniester River together. As a self-governing state, Transnistria no longer shares any commonalities with Moldova, except on the football field.
Football as a Unifying Force
Moldova is not the only place where football holds such a strong place in national identity and division. Football has acted as a unifying force numerous times throughout history. This is clearly illustrated in West Germany’s win in the 1990 World Cup – a final played out in the shadow of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The triumph of West Germany was celebrated as a “German win,” as the official party newspaper of East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party reported celebrations all over the country with firecrackers and rockets. This win has symbolically brought together the East and West for the first time in decades.
The unifying nature of football is consistent with the idea that a group’s identity is strengthened when confronted with a rival – an outgroup. Loyalty towards one’s in-group is amplified by the fear and distrust towards “the other.” Winning a football game is just another form of establishing superiority over one’s rivals. The resulting national pride makes individuals coalesce into a group in opposition to the outgroup. It does not matter who the outgroup — more simply named “the other” — is: it can be a rival football club, an ethnic group, or a country. Any victory against “the other” makes people more passionate and more inclined to affiliate with their identities.
Differences Exacerbated by Football
However, football can also widen the gap between individuals and communities within the same nation-state. Whether football serves as a unifying or a dividing force depends on who is labeled as “the other.” The Croatian War of Independence, for example, has gone down in history as a war that started on the football field, following the game played by Dinamo Zagreb against Red Star Belgrade. The match took place on May 13, 1990, just weeks after the shocking win of the pro-independence Croatian political parties in the country’s first multi-party elections. Given the heightened ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia, the small outbursts of a couple aggressive football fans were enough to trigger a mass riot that ended up wounding over sixty people. The rivalry between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade reflected the internal ethnic conflicts within Yugoslavia, which resulted in a series of wars that ultimately led to the collapse of Yugoslavia.
Even today, numerous football games have turned into confrontations on ideological issues. Controversies surrounding the treatment of footballers with mixed heritage backgrounds resurfaced after Germany’s elimination at the group stage of the 2018 World Cup. Following the defeat, the Arsenal midfielder Mesut Özil announced his decision to quit the German national football team, accusing the fans and the federation of racism and disrespect. “I am German when we win but I am an immigrant when we lose,” said Özil. Football has once again brought to light the political tensions in Europe in the aftermath of the refugee crisis and the surge in popularity of far-right anti-immigration rhetoric.
Football has thus the power to promote reconciliation, as in the case of Moldova, but it can also set the field ablaze with conflict. In times of increased geopolitical polarization and heightened nationalism, such as the Cold War and the European migrant crisis, football is more likely to enhance divisiveness. Nevertheless, given the resources that major football federations possess and the influence they exercise over public opinion, not only is it within their power to reverse this trend, but it is also their responsibility to constrain the conflict-inducing potential of football and transform it into a tool for positive change.
Image Credit: Image by Eurasian PMG is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
