Augusta DellÕOmo: Welcome to Right Rising, a podcast from the Center for the Analysis of the Radical Right. I'm your host Augusta DellÕOmo. Today I'm joined by Mike Cole, a PhD Candidate at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He's here with us today to talk us through the relationship between football and right wing populism. Mike, thanks for being here. Michael Cole: Thanks for having me, Augusta. It's great to be involved. AD: So let's start off more big picture. So why is sport so important to the populist right? MC: I think sport is important to the populist right for a lot of reasons. I'm primarily studying populism, I think it's probably important to start by just briefly explaining how I understand populism. Populism for me is a style of doing politics, which primarily is based around this antagonism between the pure people on one side, and the elites or the enemies on the other. So there are so many ways in which sport can be an arena in which this antagonism plays out. Even as a football supporter, if you know, for example, you support Real Madrid, it's almost part of the job description that you hate your enemy who would be Barcelona in that case. So I think sport is really in one way, way of projecting this kind of antagonism into an area that ordinary people can can relate to. AD: Thanks. And I know that there are a lot of historical legacies, if you think about the Nazis and fascism and the importance of physical fitness, is that kind of masculinity, something that is important to the populist right, as well? MC: I think it's part of it. I think it's not the most part of it, I think. I mean, in some cases, of course, using the like, you mentioned the Nazis with the Olympics in Munich. And of course, Mussolini used the World Cup in Italy in the 1930s as a way to legitimize his regime. I think there's elements of that perhaps we could see that in Russia with Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov. But I think actually, there are there are several of the ways in which I think populists are actually using sport to to legitimize themselves and also to present a particular image to the world. AD: And you work on football specifically. So also for our American listeners, when we're saying football, we mean soccer, but we're not going to use that that term on here. But so why is football - Why is football specifically being used by populists for political gain? MC: I think that's a great question. Um, as I said, I, I started looking at studying populist politics. And I just seem to find so many ways in which I could relate to it and compare it to my experience of being interested in football. So as I mentioned, firstly, this, this antagonism between the pure people on one side and the elites or enemies on the other seems to in football terms, maybe the pure people are the fans of your club, and the enemies might be in my case, I'm a Liverpool fan, so the enemies might be Manchester United, or Chelsea. And this just seemed to represent the same kind of thing that happens with populist discourses where, you know, the pure people who are part of the nation are the good guys, if you like, and the enemies of the elites could be immigrants, it could be the corrupt elite in Washington, or it could be the liberal media. I also think that one of the key features of populist ways of doing politics and one of the reasons why certain populists are able to be successful, is when the leader is very charismatic. And I think this is evident as well with a lot of football managers, managers that show a great deal of charisma, for example, someone like JŸrgen Klopp at Liverpool or in the past, JosŽ Mourinho when he was at Chelsea, tend to really be able to build a lot of rapport with the supporters. And this can sometimes help them to get through difficult periods. So I think we can also see this with populist leaders where they try to create this image of the people and present themselves as one of the people, and they try to do it in a way which is as authentic as possible. And probably the third thing that that I find really interesting is, it seems like nowadays, we talk a lot about post-truth and alternative facts and fake news, as if it was something that was invented in the last few years by people like Donald Trump. But having watched football for most of my life, I'm fairly sure that football managers were quite well-practiced at this art before people like Trump came along. Whether it's blaming referees for bad decisions or claiming that they didn't see a particular incident where one of their players injured an opponent, and later on also attacking the media and claiming that they had some kind of agenda against them. These are all things that we see that are quite common practice in football as well. AD: I think that context of how sport actually incentivizes in many cases, not telling the truth and deception is is a really smart way to contextualize this inside of questions about how populists operate. So can you walk us through a few specific cases of what this looks like in practice? And maybe some similarities and differences? MC: Sure. Um, I, I basically, I feel like there are three main ways in which populist leaders have tried to use football to gain politically. The first one seems quite obvious footballers are some of the most famous people in the world. And in a place like Brazil, it's really, you know, such a great connection between football and national identity. So Jair Bolsonaro gained a lot of support from footballers during his election campaign, and this ranged from the the outright, you know, salutes towards him at matches to just the kind of sharing by football players of some of his social media posts. So, I feel like this was a way in which he managed to connect to the ordinary people in Brazil, through through people that they liked anyway, because they were so good at football. I think another really interesting sort of way that populist leaders have tried to use celebrities was seen as well in Turkey. So Recep Tayyip Erdo?an is a huge football fan. There's some really interesting stories about his past career as a footballer, and not so long ago, he he was running for election, and he really needed to appeal to the very large Turkish diaspora that lived in Germany. This wasn't really okay according to German law. So he actually posed for some pictures with some famous German footballers of Turkish heritage, most notably, Mesut …zil, who plays for Arsenal at the moment, and when the World Cup is part of the Germany squad in 2014. Now, I'm sure you can imagine this, this was really controversial, particularly in Germany, there was a lot of questions about …zilÕs loyalty to Germany. And it actually led to him resigning from international football. So he stopped playing for the national team. He claimed that he was being subject to racism and disrespect. And he talks quite movingly about feeling like he had two hearts, he felt like he didn't belong either in Germany or Turkey. And maybe this is something that the Turkish diaspora could really associate with. So in the end, this this could actually benefit Erdo?an electorally, interestingly, as a as a kind of afterthought, Erdo?an then later turned up …zilÕs best man at his wedding. So he's really, yeah, he's really reinforced this kind of friendship. AD: I knew I knew the, the first part of that story. I remember following it with …zil deciding that he was not going to play for the German national team anymore, but I did not know that Erdo?an was his best man. MC: Yeah, that's right. It was quite bizarre, to be honest. AD: Yeah. Yeah. It is bizarre. Yeah. But I think that it really shows that connection that you're talking about. MC: That's right. And I think, you know, it was a really opportunistic use. I don't think Erdo?an expected it to become such a close connection. But I think it was very much an opportunistic use of a, you know, somebody who was very, very well loved in the Turkish-German community. And yeah, he really benefit from that. I think so a second kind of theme that I, I found if the way that that populist leaders are using football, is to demonstrate their credentials of as one of the people. So of course, this is a very, very important part of the populist persona, you know, they want to present themselves as an ordinary person. And I don't know if you remember, during the World Cup, Croatia were very, very successful. And, yeah, one of the one of the kind of most memorable images of the World Cup involve then President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovi?. She was seen at many of the games during the tournament, wearing the red and white checkered shirt of Croatia, which, of course, is very famous. She visited players in the dressing room after they'd won the games. And then it kind of later came out that she actually paid with her own money to go to the matches, she traveled on the plane with ordinary supporters. So she was really showing that she was one of the people. I think even The Guardian ran a story saying that actually, she was probably the real winner of the World Cup. And if you look at Kitarovi?Õs Instagram, you can still see that she quite often shares photographs of herself with Croatian National players, the national coach, and these receive a lot more likes and a lot more comments than her overtly political posts, which which kind of shows I think, in the Croatian context, how important football is to their sense of national identity. And she really, really kind of took full advantage of that for her own her own popularity. AD: And do you find that these right wing populist groups or politicians, do they target specific players or specific clubs. I'm specifically thinking about the English context, right that there's, there's lots of clubs in the English-premiership, are there different clubs that perhaps have more of that right-wing agitation. I know with like Serie A in Italy, there's been a lot of controversy surrounding racism in the league. Are there specific hot-pockets or hotspots that you have found? MC: Yeah, I mean, was kind of related to that. There's a club Millwall in England. I don't know if you've heard of them. So Millwall has a reputation and certainly in the past, maybe not so much now, for being a lot of hooliganism and stuff going on there. It's a London club, and it's not a very big club, but they play in the lower leagues. But actually, they found a supporter, a populist supporter in probably one of the most unlikely places, Finland. We don't normally associate Finland with football. The Finnish national team until recently when they qualified for the European Championships have have actually not performed very well. But the Euroskeptic right-wing leader Timo Soini, former leader of The Finns Party, actually adopted Millwall as his team. So it seemed quite a strange choice, but he would turn up to political meetings wearing a Millwall scarf. And every time he's interviewed by the English speaking press, he seems to mention Millwall. But when I looked at it a bit further, I realized that they fit perfectly with his image as an outsider. MillwallÕs most famous song is ÒNo One Likes Us We DonÕt Care.Ó They also they also wear blue and whites, which are the colors of the Finnish flag. And there was even - and I'm not sure how much to believe the story - it was in one of the British tabloids, but there was a suggestion that Soini would come over to a Millwall game, where he would discuss Brexit negotiations with the, the Brexit MP during the match, because, you know, while he's in Britain, why not? And so yeah, I mean, he really made this a part of his identity, which was, which is quite strange. AD: Yeah, I mean, it is it is strange, that kind of especially because if you think about the sort of stereotypical right-wing populism in many cases, it's very nationalistic, right? It's very internally focused, a lot of populist parties are anti-immigration. So it's strange that he would form a bond with a club that's not in Finland and we look to the this English London, very city, in my mind, club of all places. MC: That's right. And I think the thing is it. Of course, there's a lot of nationalism within within football as well. But thereÕs also football's also a space where regional identities are expressed, and even supranational identities. I think it kind of brings me quite nicely to the third trend that I observed that populist leaders are using football for, which is the way that they use football to present or construct their image of the nation. And it brings us to, you know, one of the the archetypal populist if you like, Viktor Orb‡n. Viktor Orb‡n absolutely loves football. I don't think that's a big secret. And he used to be a player himself, and he was quite good. But one of the things that he's done is he's poured a lot of money into football in Hungary, but also into football projects amongst the Hungarian communities who find themselves outside the Hungarian borders. So in Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Ukraine. He's funded football projects, including academies and actually supported some football teams there. And it seems like this is part of his way of expanding the idea of what he sort of believes to be greater Hungary, and create some kind of loyalty to the central Hungarian power from those communities. He actually said that sport is a common language, which binds us all together when describing these groups. AD: I think that example is is so apt, and I think it really captures that tension that you talked about with the nationalism and national pride surrounding football with the reality of football being an international, one of the most global sports, that has a reach in almost every country. So how have states and international organizations like FIFA, one of the main governing bodies for they run the World Cup for those of you that don't know, how have they dealt with this rise of right wing populism using football? MC: I think the answer is they haven't really, well, I think I mean, it's very interesting, because, I mean I mean, I think what's actually probably very interesting to talk about is the upcoming European Championships, which is supposed to be happening around now, but will now be taking place in 2021. So of course, Hungary is one of the host countries, they'll be hosting games featuring Portugal, who are the current European champions, and France who are the world champions. So I was recently in Budapest and I've seen the new stadium it's it's being built it's, it's fantastic. And I would definitely expect Viktor Orb‡n to be taking the opportunity to you know, pose with a selfie with Cristiano Ronaldo, and so on. So I think that'll be really interesting to see how he uses the the opportunity, the the kind of spotlight of the tournament for his own publicity. But also, quite interestingly, the semifinals and finals are scheduled to take place at Wembley in England. And by that time, probably the England will have left the European Union finally. So it's also quite an interesting thing to keep an eye on how that will be hosting a European final whilst simultaneously having left the EU. So I think there's lots of interesting dynamics and narratives that might play out throughout that tournament. AD: Thanks for that, Mike, in that context of the inter-European rivalry, and especially the tensions within Europe, especially Hungary's positionality within Europe, and really taking a very autocratic, anti-democratic turn and sport is supposed to be something where countries can come together, and you know, that tension, I think it's going to be really interesting, like you said, especially with Britain leaving or with England leaving the European Union. MC: Yeah, that's right. I mean, and I think, I bet we saw this also again, in the last World Cup in Russia. And I, I've recently I'm going to plug my my forthcoming book chapter here, AD: Do it. MC: So I've written a book chapter about the way that Ramzan Kadyrov used to the opportunity where the spotlight was on him during the World Cup, to try and forge this idea of Chechnya as something of a pivot between the central power in Russia and the Middle East. So he hosted the Egyptian national team, even though there were actually no matches played in Chechnya during the tournament. And similar to what I expect, Viktor Orb‡n might try to do he he took the opportunity to take lots of photographs with EgyptÕs star player, Mohamed Salah. So this was a really interesting situation where it was quite awkward for Mohamed Salah, I don't think he really wanted to be involved and they were later rumors that he actually threatened to quit the Egyptian national team because of it. But Kadyrov seem to be using this up this opportunity to bond with the Muslim community and in countries like Egypt, in order to position himself more strongly within Russia. And in a sense, yeah, bring countries together, but kind of in his own way, I guess. AD: Well, I think that point that you brought up about how players are being used by politicians is really interesting, especially because we think about these football stars is really larger than life and having so much power and autonomy and you know, they have these incredible sponsorships. But you've actually talked through two examples where maybe a player wasn't comfortable with the kind of attention that they were getting. So I was wondering if you could talk any more about how players have really responded to this increased interest in using them for Instagram, all of these really powerful social media platforms, by populists? MC: Sure, I mean, I think not so much about using on social media, but a really good example, happened recently in Britain. Of course, as the coronavirus pandemic really started to take hold the health Secretary Matt Hancock, he basically said, Premiership footballer should be doing more to help. And it kind of built on this sort of long-standing idea that, you know, footballers earn so much money. They're not doing a job as important as doctors and nurses, which okay, fair enough. But a lot of footballers were quite angry, and they responded, because a lot of them do support charities and also a lot of them come from working class and, you know, low-income backgrounds, they're not as highly educated usually. And so it seemed like a very, kind of easy target for him. But actually, what was nice to see was the there was one particular reaction from a football player for Manchester United Marcus Rashford. And he reacted to a situation where basically it was revealed that the the government were not going to provide free meals for children from low income households during the the pandemic and over the summer holidays, which is something that they usually do. And so he really created a very popular campaign on Twitter to make sure that the government didn't shirk their responsibility for these children. And in the end, Boris Johnson was was forced to make a U-turn and they decided that they would actually fund this this campaign and and provide the meals for these children. So I think I think what we're really seeing like, football is becoming more and more active because they're being pushed and perhaps because they have this connection to people through social media, we're seeing that they are actually now becoming a lot more involved in politics, whereas particularly in the UK context, this was very, very unusual in the past. AD: That context is really important. I want to pull out these two trends that you've mentioned of footballers having an increased platform that they're more comfortable using to talk about social issues and then, as we've discussed throughout the whole podcast, increased populism focus on football. So I'm going to ask you to speculate a little forward. We talked about the 2020 [sic 2018] World Cup and the upcoming European Championships. But how do you think these trends are going to come into play in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which has already been mired in a great deal of controversy? MC: Yeah, it's very interesting. I mean, of course, there's so many issues surrounding the the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar, the all the kind of human rights abuses with the workers and things like this, which which have really been the main focus, and rightly so. I'm not sure I mean, it, there's definitely possibility for footballers to be using their platform by going there and using the opportunity to protest against things. I think I mean, it's difficult to say because, I mean, there's a lot of money in football, and there are often opportunities, where footballers are expected to respond with political statements and so on and they tend not to, but I think it could be really interesting. I mean, I think I guess it really depends a lot on Yeah, where we are in 2022. I, I kind of feel like a lot of the time these World Cups have a lot of controversy surrounding them and in the end, not so much happens. But yeah, Qatar definitely has the potential to to be a different very different type of World Cup for this reason, I think. AD: Mike, I think that last point really captures the uncertainty that all of us are facing both in terms of what our world is going to look like in two years, but also how dynamic and fluid these trends are in terms of populism and player activism that these are questions that all countries are wrestling with. So thank you for working through this with us today. MC: You're very welcome. I really enjoyed it. AD: Thanks. And where can our listeners find you? Are you on Twitter? Is there anything coming out that they can read? Where can we find you? MC: Yeah, you can find me on Twitter. My address is @NotTheMikeCole. Of course, you can find me on the Center for Radical Right blog. There's a really, I'm really pleased with a piece I recently wrote about far right populism in Georgia and football. And also the book chapter that I mentioned about Ramzan Kadyrov and the World Cup in Russia. I think itÕs due to come out later in the year so yeah, get in touch with me and I can send you more details if you're interested. AD: Awesome, thank you again for being here Mike. This has been Right Rising a podcast from the Center for the Analysis of the Radical Right. See you next time.