ABSTRACT
Introduction As a competitive sport, football has a necessary history of endearing rivalries, diversity and identities that draw millions to its various grass-roots and international events year on year. As a social phenomenon and signi cant cultural product it is replete with markers of both the good and bad of global humanity. As Allport re ected upon social relations in his classic text the Nature of Prejudice (1954: xiii), rivalries and hatreds between groups are nothing new. Yet in football what we witness are these rivalries and hatreds being manifest in such variegated fashions that it is testimony to the sport that many maintain their initial childish enthusiasm in relation to its innocent rekindling of notions of a ‘level playing eld’ and meritocracy.
