The sociocultural domain of football (soccer) is being radically transformed by complex globalization flows and processes, such as the increasing mobility and precarity of career-driven players. This is accompanied by the cultural and ethnic diversification of clubs, teams, games, competitions, supporter communities, and online communities (Giulianotti & Robertson 2009; Hassan 2013; Author 2017, in press). While diversities in football culture – particularly those pertaining to ethnicity, citizenship and nationality – are becoming more complex and multi-layered, there is ongoing rapid mediatization of various types of football discourse, exemplified by the diversity of participatory digital communication (e.g. Androutsopoulos & Juffermans 2014; Author 2017, in press; van Sterkenburg & Spaaij 2014).). With a critical sociolinguistic, multimodal-discourse-analytic approach to football discourse across various online sites, this paper discusses the tensions between racist and anti-racist discourses emerging from the inclusion and integration of ‘Black’ football players with an African origin in national teams and clubs in Europe.
After a brief comparative overview of key European contexts, the empirical focus of this paper lies on debates on the Sierra Leonean talent, former asylum seeker Medo and his life trajectory in and out of Finland as a professional footballer. This vignette is contrasted with typifications and essentializations of African players in predominantly ‘White’ national teams and Finnish clubs expressed both in institutional and "social" media by prolific football-cultural actors and (mainly anonymous) discussants in key affinity spaces online. Representations of the ‘Other’ in football cultures, voiced via complex, digitally mediated communication contexts, open a window to Late Modern experience of ambivalence and ever-changing ethea of prejudice, discrimination, equality, and inclusion.
References
Androutsopoulos, J. & K. Juffermans, K. (Eds.), 2014. Digital language practices in superdiversity. Discourse, Context and Media 4–5.
Giulianotti, R. & R. Robertson, 2009. Globalization & Football. London: Sage.
Hassan, D. (ed.), 2013. Ethnicity and Race in Association Football: Case Study analyses in Europe, Africa and the USA. New York: Routledge.
van Sterkenburg, J. & R. Spaaij, 2014. Mediated football: representations and audience receptions of race/ethnicity, gender and nation. Soccer & Society 16(5–6), 593–603.
