Dariusz Wojtaszyn and Maroš Melichárek, eds. <i>Football in the Balkans I: Internal Views, External Perceptions</i>

Dariusz Wojtaszyn and Maroš Melichárek have undertaken to publish a volume on the political, social, and economic aspects of football in the Balkans. Some of the authors are based in the Balkan countries covered, others live and work in other parts of Europe, so the subtitle (“Internal Views, External Perceptions”) is very appropriate. The time frame covers the period from the end of the Second World War to the present day, with any necessary retrospection of historical premises not being omitted.The two editors are the authors of an introductory chapter, which deals with the particularities of the South-East European football scene, and a summary, which draws conclusions from the preceding chapters. These two articles frame two contributions on Romanian football, three on football in Yugoslavia and its successor states, and two on aspects of Greek football. The choice of these three regional examples in particular can be described as very skillful, as they represent different political developments in the respective states after the Second World War, which are also reflected in the social significance of local football events—football and politics are closely intertwined.The two essays dealing with Romania start by tracing the history of Romanian football from its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century to the present day (Andrei Antonie’s “A Popular Game in Dracula’s Land? A Socio-Historical Overview of Romanian Football”), before using the example of a traditional club to highlight a whole series of problems that have arisen in the postsocialist era (Razvan Papasima’s “From Commons to Commodity and Back Again: Football’s Great Transformation in Post-socialist Romania”). In his article, Antonie succeeds very well in portraying the ups and downs of the various eras in Romanian football with their political and socio-cultural entanglements. In the second essay, Razvan Papasima chooses the traditional club Universitatea Craiova as an example of the development of Romanian football in the postsocialist era and of clubs that are under pressure to succeed in changing socio-political times: You sign players who think first and foremost of their own economic profit, immediately change coaches who can’t show success quickly, make yourself dependent on investors who have little connection to the club but spend money that is supposed to yield a quick return, etc. On top of this, there were power struggles between officials, so that Universitatea Craiova was relegated from the first division, then dissolved due to insolvency, before two competing clubs with slight differences in name are founded after renewed disputes, both of which currently play in the first Romanian division and both of which claim the former successes for their club history.The fact that football is a mirror of socio-political conditions is clearly shown in the three articles dedicated to Yugoslavia and its successor states. Davor Kovačić (“Yugoslav Football from Tito’s Death to the Breakup of Yugoslavia: Situation and Problems in the Climate of Political Conflict”) sheds light on the situation in the 1980s after Tito’s death, when the socio-economic situation in Yugoslavia began to falter, which also had an impact on the national football structure. Maciej Górski’s contribution (“Football and Politicians: Tito, Tuđman, and Milošević and Their Political Instrumentalisation of the Social Phenomenon of Football”) demonstrates the extent to which football was instrumentalized by politicians. While football was a unifying force for Tito to hold the multiethnic Yugoslavia together, for Tuđman, it was a means of establishing the independent state of Croatia. The role of Slobodan Milošević was different again: He tried to recruit volunteers for his military operations from the ranks of football fans; he initially enjoyed great sympathy from supporters, particularly of the Belgrade clubs, but gradually lost their support in parallel with his political failures.A prime example of the problems in the successor states of Yugoslavia is the existence of two rivalling clubs in Mostar, which Giordano Merlicco, Danilo Kovać, and Luca Alteri discuss in their article (“Competing for the Nation on the Football Pitch: Ideology and Sports in Mostar”). The rivalry between the two clubs in Mostar has a very different basis than that in Craiova, Romania: Mostar is known to be a city in which there are frequent clashes between members of different ethnic groups, especially between Croats and Bosniaks. Both groups have their own club, the Bosniaks Velež Mostar, the Croats Zrinjski Mostar, so that sport is proof of the ethnic division of the city.The last two contributions dedicated to Greece shed light on very different aspects. Artur Pasko (“Greek Football of the 70s and 80s in the Memories of Polish Coaches and Footballers”) deals with a facet that is certainly less well-known outside Poland and Greece: In the 70s and 80s of the twentieth century, several Polish coaches and players were active in Greece. The author can make clear that not only did Greek football culture benefit from this, but that it also did a lot for Greek–Polish relations on a human level, turning Polish footballers into ambassadors for their country. The intertwining of football and socio-cultural conditions then takes center stage again in the final article: Theofilos Pouliopoulos (“The Odyssey of Greek Football: Politics, Corruption and the Spirit of Division”) concludes that football merely reflects Greece’s general socio-political problems.The two editors have produced a volume that provides a wealth of information about football in the Balkans and its socio-cultural interdependencies so that one can look forward to the announced second volume.