ABSTRACT
The symbolic functioning of sport and sports mediation, within the ideological and political constitution of the national dimension, is inevitably related to many large topics in the social sciences. These include questions of sign/object relationships; of hegemony and the state; of structures of media output, institutions and audiences; of identity and collective identity; and of media imperialism. Despite attempts to fly the flag in tennis, the sport is to a great extent a carrier of myths and ideologies about individualism. It is true, of course, that football is also marketed to a varying degree through the use of individuals as stars. The Italian Gazzetta dello Sport, for example, describes the game between Germany and Holland as “the metaphor of the war”, and Austria’s Kronen Zeitung entitles its report on the same game, ‘The Thirty Years War’.
