Has football become a game where winning matches or even trophies does not matter?

The agreement is that all around this has been a sound economic exchange. BBC Sport’s Chief Football writer Phil McNulty makes that point. Manchester United are poised to make a handsome profit of some £68 million. Real Madrid will begin to make a commercial campaign with the likes of Kaka and Ronaldo by selling as much merchandise as possible with the club brand. One even wonders if it really matters that Real Madrid wins any trophies. We can speculate that not winning any trophies would bring more attention and thus fame to the club than winning anything.

Cristiano Ronaldo.
[image by Paolo Camera,
some rights reserved]

Has football become a game where winning matches or even trophies does not matter? A quick glance over the Deloitte Football Money League (2009) suggests so. Take a look at the league and you will find teams that won no trophies such as Fenerbahçe, a newcomer. But, from the point of view of the two clubs, apparently a sound investment has been made. So Ronaldo, we are told, will prove his worth and will make lots of money for himself and his clubs. 

About the author

Engin F Isin is professor in politics and international studies and director of the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance at the Open University.

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I often listen to sport on the radio in the car; my preference is for Test Match Special, when it’s on, but I do listen to football.

I am not alone in this; the average UK motorist apparently listens to football on the radio three times a month. 21% do so  every week and over 6% do so every day, which is two million people all tuning in to football daily as they drive. However, sport, at least not in all its forms, may not necessarily be good for your health. Listening to football commentary on the radio while you are driving could be dangerous and lead to accidents, according to a report commissioned by esure, the car insurance company. 

The research, carried out by the University of Leicester and published in a report called Football Focus, received media attention on 27 May 27, the day of the Champions League Final.

Football is emotional; there’s no doubt about that. Sport elicits powerful commitment and the thought of fans extending the exuberance and distress of the terraces to their driving practices is alarming.

Young man in a car, with raised fist.
[image © copyright Photos.com]

This research suggests that the behaviour of fans is very different from casual listeners, who do not adjust their behaviour behind the wheel in such extreme ways (tail-gating, erratic acceleration and sudden lane changes). I have, for a long time wondered about the embodied responses of spectatorship, for example in being a spectator at the game, especially, in the case of boxing, which I have written about in my book, Boxing, Masculinity and Identity, the i of the tiger (published by Routledge), where being at the fight is a very different experience from the more sanitised spectatorship of pay-for-view television.

However, I have also noted the physical reactions of the sporting follower who is listening at a distance, especially in the case of football with its distinctive style of commentary. I have felt disquiet as the rising crescendo of commentary increases my heart rate and seems to implicate the embodied listener in the waves of emotion evoked in the reporting of the game, even  when I care little for the outcome and my team is not involved at all. 

Sport is sensational, not only in the sense of media hyperbole - it appeals to and implicates all the senses of everyone involved.

The voice of the commentary could itself be a part of the total experience of sport. The research distinguishes between the fan and the uncommitted listener, but I think that there may be something more in the synthesis of the embodied experience that is particular to sport and specific to some sports, especially the genre of football commentary. It is clear that anxiety and exhilaration might lead to other embodied practices, such as accelerating.

This research demonstrates that it is not only sport, on the pitch, and spectatorship, at the ground, that is embodied; so too is the empathy and identification that people have with sport. As I demonstrate in another book, Embodied Sporting Practices (published by Palgrave Macmillan), sport is not only all about bodies, about embodied sporting practices (that is, what sort of physical activities make up what we call sport) it is also about the interaction between everyone involved, including those listening in their cars.  The research also indicates that sport is sensational, not only in the sense of media hyperbole - it appeals to and implicates all the senses of everyone involved.

About the author

Kath Woodward is Profesor of Sociology at the Open University, focusing on gendered identities. She has recently completed research into anti-racist organisations in sport.

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In a remote corner of western Ghana, close to the border of Côte d’Ivoire, is a new village. But it’s unlike the many villages you drive through to get there, with their mud houses and now seemingly ubiquitous mobile phone card sellers sitting under their bright, branded umbrellas.

This new village has around 250 Chinese in it, 60 Pakistanis, and 2000 Ghanaian workers, many with families. The houses are prefabricated cabins laid out in neat rows and it even has broadband connection. Barely twelve months ago this village did not exist, but is the work camp for the Bui Dam. This hydroelectric project is being built by the Chinese company Sinohydro and is one of a growing number of dam projects in Africa and the rest of the developing world being funded and built by China.

The workcamp for Ghanaian workers.
[Image by Giles Mohan © copyright Giles Mohan]

The case against such dams is persuasive. They are seen as ecologically damaging and socially disruptive and they often arise out of non-transparent governance arrangements. Moreover, some people question whether such energy-intensive development should be encouraged at all. On the other hand, for many African countries, their infrastructure is so poor that basic welfare is compromised as roads are often impassable and electricity for basic activities is erratic or non-existent. So things like the Bui Dam can be seen as absolutely vital for Ghana and countries like it. Such questions are important and there are no easy answers. One approach is to evaluate them on a case by case basis.

The company contracted to build Bui Dam is the Sinohydro Corporation. It was one of the main contractors on the Three Gorges Dam in China and, as part of the government’s “Go Out” policy, has embarked on an ambitious internationalisation strategy with projects in 50 countries. However, according to the International Rivers Network, Sinohydro has repeatedly received low grades by China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission for its poor safety record, construction and environmental accidents, and pollution. Indeed, some even blame the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008 on geological problems created by dam construction in the region.

The Bui Dam, and others built by Sinohydro, are “EPC” projects, meaning “engineering, procurement, construction”. This is the preferred route for many African governments since the price is agreed up front and fixed. The Chinese favoured the dam project as opposed to the Ghanaian Government’s preferred option of a railway from the coast to Burkina Faso in the North, because the sale of electricity would guarantee repayment in a way that a railway could not.

When it comes to these large Chinese projects, rumours abound about the importation of labour, some of it even sourced from convicts, and also that the Chinese import all the capital equipment and inputs and that they treat local workers badly. How true is this?

Much of the capital equipment is Chinese. Most of the heavy vehicles and the quarrying and aggregate plant are Chinese (although the aggregate crusher is American). The dam is the first in Ghana to be built using roller compacted concrete as opposed to rock fill and so requires huge amounts of cement which is coming from Ghacem, in Ghana’s main port city of Tema, which is German-owned.

The dam site.
[Image by Giles Mohan © copyright Giles Mohan]

The contract with Sinohydro specified the upper limits of Chinese labour on the project, which meant recruitment of unskilled and semi-skilled labourers from within Ghana. Interestingly, the Chinese have brought in 60 Pakistanis to drive the heavy equipment who count as “Chinese” for purposes of the imported labour quota. Communication is a problem but the Chinese organise in small work teams with one Chinese foreman and one Ghanaian foreman, both of whom have some English, and 3-4 Ghanaian labourers under them. Even then much communication is via drawings. Chinese corporations in general do not encourage trade unions, and originally did not allow for it at Bui. But a deputation from the Ghana TUC argued that it was enshrined both in Ghanaian law and the contract and so they had to. The union has pushed for better protection from the debilitating black fly which comes during the rainy season, although this threat affects all workers and is being dealt with through a daily insecticide programme.

All the Chinese labour is male and they sleep in the dormitories. In theory, they are not allowed to drink alcohol, but socialise in a club with TV and table tennis. Mixing between Ghanaian and Chinese workers of all levels is limited although there are “inter-national” soccer games, which one Ghanaian official told me proudly were always won by the Ghanaians and that in general the Chinese were “not friendly”. The Bui Power Authority’s role during construction is essentially to monitor the delivery of the contract and so it has its own engineers to report on quality and progress, and to monitor health and safety and environmental standards. One engineer joked that the Chinese don’t care about hard hats and pointed to a tree that they had saved given that the Chinese were too willing to remove it.

Chinese and Ghanaian workers.
[Image by Giles Mohan © copyright Giles Mohan]

Sinohydro and other Chinese firms are looking to deepen their footprint in Ghana and Africa more broadly. Although the Chinese seemed to have got a foothold in Africa through these semi-commercial, Chinese government-supported projects they are now competing more openly for tenders and, as one European aid official told me, “winning in straight fights”. For example, one Chinese firm is building roads in Northern Ghana funded by French aid, and Sinohydro also has plans for four smaller dams in Ghana.

But these are essentially turnkey projects and so have limited multipliers locally, which is why it is so imperative that African governments ensure that local content agreements are written into contracts. That said, African infrastructure needs are so chronic and have been so overlooked by donors for years that the Chinese are welcome for the investment they bring and the speed of their operations. They look set to continue for many years to come.

For more information on China and Africa see http://www.geography.dur.ac.uk/projects/china-africa/. And on the Bui Dam see
http://www.sinohydro.com/ and http://www.buipowerauthority.com/.

About the author

Dr Giles Mohan is a Reader in the Politics of International Development at the Open University. His research has examined politics in Africa, particularly ways in which rural communities access the government as well the role of diasporas in national politics.

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