ABSTRACT
Soccer, the most popular mass spectator sport in the world, is a game where humanity comes alive with one goal. The game has always remained a marker of identities of various sorts. Behind the façade of its obvious entertainment aspect, it has proved to be a perpetuating reflector of cultural nationalism, distinctive ethnicity, community or communal identity, cultural specificity as well as representative of models of development and international status for post-colonial nation states. For those nations, which still remain at the periphery of world soccer, the game signifies a vision of potential commercialization of sport capable of generating foreign reserves and of flexing economic muscle. The imaging and prioritization of the game as a ‘national’ or ‘international’ event in public opinion and the media also play a critical role in transforming the soccer culture of a nation.
