| dc.description.abstract | The objective of this thesis is to be the first systematic study of the
political instrumentalization of football in Francoist Spain from 1939
to 1975.
Seven separate and contrasting aspects of this political
instrumentalization may be isolated, and, accordingly, this thesis will
consist of a chapter examining each one of these seven aspects in turn.
After a first introductory chapter, Chapter Two will examine the
application of Fascist concepts to Spanish football. In the third
chapter, the questions of whether and to what extent football was used
by the Franco regime as a political soporific will be discussed. The
theme of Chapter Four is the lack of democracy within the structures of
the game, a situation that is alleged to have been deliberately imposed
by the regime in order to not create an uncomfortable comparison for
itself with the lack of national and local political democracy. The
poor working conditions of the footballers, which mirrored those of the
great majority of Spanish workers during the Franco period, are the
subject of Chapter Five. In the sixth Chapter, the political
significance of the presence in Francoist Spain of a group of refugee
players and coaches from Europe will be examined. The diplomatic
and ambassadorial significance of football, in particular of the
spectacular international triumphs of the Real Madrid club, will be
discussed in Chapter Seven. The political significance of football as a
focus for Basque and Catalan nationalist sentiment, in opposition to the
centralist Madrid regime, is the subject of Chapter Eight. | en_US |
