ABSTRACT
Sports events can be examined both in their overlaps with international politics and also as modes of expression of international collective imaginaries.1
The Latin Cup, running from 1949 to 1957, lends itself to this type of analysis, since the competition was part of an international environment that saw the countries on the northern side of the western Mediterranean validating the notion of Latinity as an element of cultural mediation and as a policy tool for rapprochement and solidarity within the space defined by the Mediterranean.2 In this context, Spain, followed by Portugal, proposed to hold a competition reserved for Latin clubs from the continent of Europe. The Spanish Football Federation offered a trophy and chaired the Latin Cup organising
committee, on which it asserted its dominance with three representatives out of seven members, with four representatives from the other participating nations, who, in addition to Spain and Portugal, were France and Italy.3
The study that follows is based on a reading of the French press and of one Italian sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport. It looks particularly at the comments and the often influential stands taken by the specialist sporting press on the organisation and fate of a competition that was essential in the genesis of the European Club Champions Cup. An explanation will be proposed as to how a competition based on a cultural, political and sporting ideal saw its success restricted by the uneven interest taken in it by its participating clubs and federations and how this limited success was able to be used to invent the European Club Champions Cup competition.
