Football as a Political Passion. Football and the Political Life of Bosnian Serbs after the Dissolution of the SFRY
Football as a Political Passion. Football and the Political Life of Bosnian Serbs after the Dissolution of the SFRY

Summary/Abstract: Abstract. The dissolution of the Yugoslav state went hand in hand with an increasing ethnicization of political and social life for the citizens. This development can be reconstructed, as if through a magnifying glass, in the sport of football and its fans’ shifting loyalties to clubs and national teams. The process led to a transformation and regrouping of fan communities along ethnic lines, particularly in ethnically mixed Bosnia and Herzegovina. The politicization of football in Bosnia and Herzegovina is illustrated here primarily from the Bosnian-Serb perspective. The subject also raises an issue concerning the relationship between politics and sports. Is it politics that has so decisively influenced and shaped the subculture of football in the past 25 years? Or does this subculture play the role of a vanguard, in which certain developments during times of change become visible at an earlier stage than in the society at large? A current trend in Bosnian and Herzegovinian football is also noteworthy, in which a softening of the principle of strict ethnic loyalty appears to reveal itself. Could it be that a crisis of the ethnic principle is emerging in Bosnia and Herzegovina? Or do the boundaries of the ethno-political influence on sports become apparent only to the extent that the national team is successful? Are the events in the football stadium purely a reflection of political developments, a recasting of what takes place in the parliaments? Or does a glance into the football stadium reveal something else entirely?

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