ABSTRACT
The current stage of globalization-epitomized by mass mobility, economic and cultural flows-and the growing complexity of what ‘diversity’ means these days have radically changed the sociocultural domain of association football (soccer; henceforth, football) (Giulianotti, 1999; Giulianotti & Robertson, 2009; Kytölä, 2013; Besnier, 2015). Whereas the mobility of what I call ‘actors-in-the-field’ (professional and amateur football players, coaches, journalists, audiences, fans, etc.) has always been an important feature of football culture, the past two decades have seen such mobility accelerate and acquire more complex patterns and outcomes than hitherto. Simultaneously with the competitive strand of club football (e.g., FC Barcelona, Manchester United), the ethos underlying national teams based on nationality2 (e.g., France, the Netherlands, Finland) has undergone major transformations. National teams in men’s football have long been multicultural to some extent, whether mainly due to a country’s ethno-cultural composition (e.g., the Spain team with Catalonian and Basque athletes) or colonial history (e.g., players of varying background in the France team). In focus here is the growing ethnic and cultural diversity of European national teams, which once were more homogeneous, more predictable in terms of their ethno-cultural composition (Giulianotti & Robertson, 2009; Markovits & Rensmann, 2010, pp. 267-270; Besnier, 2015). The sociocultural history of football is inextricably linked to more general sociocultural historical developments (see, e.g., Giulianotti, 1999; Giulianotti & Robertson, 2009; cf. Blommaert & Rampton, 2011).
