It is doubtful whether in his wildest dreams, the founder of the FIFA World Cup, Jules Rimet, would have been able to envisage a soccer tournament becoming a global wrestling ring and a litmus test to examine the phenomenon of global migration that has permeated the national teams. While in 1930, the players in the European teams taking part in the competition were almost all the children of native parents born in these various countries, in the aftermath of World War II, things changed drastically and the uniform nationality that had characterized most of the nation states was transformed, with an almost immediate impact on the world of soccer. Now, for the first time, the question of whom the local national side represents began to emerge.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Today, the national teams include a number of national ethnic minorities or immigrants who have come to reside in Western countries, and particularly in Europe.
Soccer, which has always enabled social mobility, gave expression to a variety of national and ethnic minorities, alongside immigrants and their children, seeking to settle in their new environment. Thus, immigrants who regarded soccer as their entry ticket to the society into which they had immigrated, also began to enter the national teams.
Post-World War II Europe became a melting pot of local refugees looking for a safe place to hang their hat, following the wholesale destruction it had suffered. Thus, internal-European migration was also a part of the story of incorporating nationality that began in the national soccer squads.
Britain, which had ended its dominion over remote colonies, was now forced to take in immigrants into what had always been a geographically isolated island. "The empire on which the sun never sets" had to contend with the naturalization of large numbers of the subjects of those countries it had ruled over, which led to a change in the way that many viewed British nationalism. Although black players were not part of the English national team until the latter part of the twentieth century, English soccer was quick to adopt immigrants from its various former colonies.
Having said that, black players in the England national team have suffered and to this day still do suffer from numerous manifestations of racism, which English society may well have believed to have been a thing of the past. Now, we have a new ingredient to throw into the pot, Brexit, as a factor that once again has served to differentiate the English from Europe, reawakening the sense of local pride and national supremacy. "We won two World Wars and one World Cup" is the popular chant sung by English soccer fans at every large tournament, taunting the fans of the other teams.
Winning FIFA is no guarantee of Utopia
But England is clearly not alone on this. France too, which ruled over vast swathes of land in North and West Africa, took in large numbers of immigrants. The French national squad that won the 1998 World Cup was aptly termed the "Black-Blanc-Beur" (Black, White and Arab), a play on the trilogy of the French flag's colors, blue, white and red. This nickname was a genuine reflection of the ethnic integration created among the native-born French and the immigrants arriving from Africa after the French sought to amend the wrongs of their colonial rule. The 1998 national team, arguably more than any other, brought to the surface the question of "Who is French", and racists such as Jean-Marie Le Pen even claimed that "The players don't know the words of the national anthem."
This phenomenon, by the way, is still part of the France national team that will represent the French in Qatar. Many citizens there still refuse to regard them as "genuine French", even though this is a national team whose stars were born on French soil. For the various Arab communities in France, the Muslim or African stars in the side are the most important, often taking precedence over the context of the French team itself.
The Dutch national team is also divided up into various ethnic minorities. Holland's rule over Suriname led to the integration of immigrants of Surinamese origin or second-generation immigrants into the Dutch national team, such as Frank Rijkaard and Ruud Gullit, who led the team to win the UEFA European Football Championship in 1988. Nevertheless, reports of divisiveness in the Dutch changing room have become routine, with ethnic origin clearly being a cause of friction.
Two further processes that had a profound impact on European soccer are the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Balkan War. Players of Russian, Serbian, Croatian and Albanian origin currently play in European national sides, mainly from Western Europe. Thus, for example, the two Xhaka brothers, Taulant and Granit Xhaka, grew up in Switzerland to parents of ethnic Albanian origin who immigrated there from Kosovo in the nineties. Granit, who plays for Arsenal, will represent the Swiss national team at the current World Cup, while his brother Taulant has represented the Albanian national team in the past.
The most complex national team of all
In 1938, after its annexation of Austria, the German national team took part in the World Cup. It was made up of six German and five Austrian players in order to prevent internal-German wrangling. After World War II, West Germany initiated a move to bring thousands of Turkish refugees in an effort to implement the US Marshall Plan aimed at rebuilding the country, and thus avoid the fatal mistake made at the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War II, which imposed unbearably heavy reparations on Germany at the time.
The next generation of Turkish immigrants began to play for the German national team, and this was followed by the African generation, completely shuffling the deck and changing the makeup of the national team, which also includes players of Polish origin, for example, helping it to shed its image of the boring national side, as the diverse racial blend has changed the very way they play the game. Though the national team might still be considered a popular and well-liked team amongst the Germans, in recent years racism and antisemitism have once again begun to haunt the Bundesliga, and many claim that this is merely a manifestation of a much broader social issue.
The question of nationality is currently assuming pride of place as we approach the World Cup games due to commence in Qatar this Sunday. It is also important to keep in mind the current political climate in which the games are to be played: the war between Russia and Ukraine, the mass social protests that have swept across Iran and the rise of right-wing governments in Europe. Soccer, as usual, will not only bring to the pitch the technical skills of its most talented players, but also the best seismograph for monitoring those processes and undercurrents currently affecting the world as a whole, and Europe in particular.
Will the upcoming games turn into fertile ground for various political activities – starting from social protest on the issue of human rights in Qatar, via support for the people of Iran and Ukraine, and on to an infinite number of internal issues that tend to crop up each time the referee blows the whistle and the game kicks off? For numerous leaders in Europe, the competition is a superb propaganda platform for showcasing their supremacy over other nations. During this tournament, we might get an answer to the thorny question of whether within the nation itself, in the Europe of 2022, everybody automatically stands behind the national team.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories
