Napoli – Campione D’Italia! The Ubiquitous Football Iconography as a Tool for the Reinforcement of Collective Identity

In 2023 for the third time in history Napoli won Scudetto – the national Italian football championships. In this city football constitutes a significant part of collective identity on diverse levels: anthropological, social, cultural, economic, even spiritual. Sanctified footballers like Maradona (D10S), shrine-like street decorations along with festive ceremonies dedicated to the members of the local football team who also regularly become protagonists of traditional Christmas presepi (nativity scenes), omni-present street art side by side with officially commissioned murals dedicated to football protagonists, are part of the local, grassroots self-mythologizing practices. Practices which acquire crucial moral dimension considering the historical and political context of Naples faced with decades of social negligence, as well as economic recession which led to its unjust depreciation. Hence, football victories become a tool for cultural reinforcement and a method for social rehabilitation against perpetuated prejudice and racism. Moreover, football constitutes an inseparable part of the informal and spontaneously created iconography of the quotidian observed in the decor of street-level apartments and small businesses, which sometimes also enters the institutional realms. The very particular collective identity of Naples is projected through the picturing football as cultural and anthropological phenomenon.