ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the transformative power that football has on the lives of so many people and the significance that violence has in this relationship. It examines that football does indeed supply many of the requirements that people seek and find in religion and that this is continually affirmed on a weekly basis. Religion can be defined as a 'set of beliefs, symbols and practices which is based on the idea of the sacred, and which unites believers into a socio-religious community'. Sociologists have identified a correlation between sport and leisure activities and the release of tensions. A recurrent theme that underpins sociological enquiry into the field of football is that of mimetic or 'staged' violence. Unlike the 'mimetic' violence which is contained within a ritualistic framework, what happens here is that the violence can no longer be contained. The connections between violence, the sacred and communal identity are made explicit in Girard's Violence and the Sacred.
