ABSTRACT
Sporting teams, as Hobsbawm points out, are often yoked to the task of representing national identity and a national consensus–one that may be sincere or ersatz. The stadium is also a powerful symbol of the collective hopes, anxieties, and sense of urban identity of a significant part of the population of Buenos Aires. These stadia, “new cathedrals” decorate the totems of partisanship: guides, posters, and ephemera of all sorts. In northern Europe, stadia were often “all-purpose sports parks,” conceived and realized as “part of major city-building projects and owned by the local authorities.” Stadia in France and Germany, especially municipally owned ones, were generally all-purpose as well and located in wealthier neighborhoods and suburbs in contrast to their UK counterparts. The long list of stadia built by undemocratic regimes highlights the extent to which sport and stadia have been deployed by governments to burnish the image both at home and abroad.
