The Curious Drama of the President of a Republic Versus a Football Fan Tribe

Abstract

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.