ABSTRACT
The 14th European Football Championships (Euro 2012) was held between 8 June and 2 July 2012, hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine, the first ex-Soviet bloc countries to host the final stages of this tournament. This special issue of Soccer and Society brings together a range of prominent authors to reflect on the event itself and its wider social, cultural and political consequences. This introduction set the scene. Firstly, by reflecting on the tournaments origins as a cold war Legacy and how ‘legacy’, interpreted dialectically (active across past, present and future), illuminates an understanding of the recent Euro 2012. And secondly, by introducing each author’s contribution to this special issue. The Euros are the culmination of the interweaving of the national and the local across time, linked by the cultural threads of imperial expansion. The Euros are also evidence manifest that the origins of football, although driven by imperial expansion of trade and labour power, are truly European. Therefore, before we go any further, it is worth reflecting on the Europeanization of football, as its movement and development weave together the national and the local.
