Dr.Sc.Soc., Associate Professor E.V. Kargapolova¹
Dr.Sc.Pol., Professor A.P. Koshkin¹
Dr.Sc.Soc., Professor N.V. Dulina²
PhD, Associate Professor Yu.A. Davydova^1
1Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow
²Volgograd State University, Volgograd

Keywords: football, social capital, student community, region, questionnaire survey

Background. Football is ranked the most popular mass team sports and as such heavily contributes to the social capitals of different population groups across the regions. P. Bourdieu, one the authors of the social capital concept, interprets it as the cluster of social connections that may be prudently used for the cost-efficiency and investment luring initiatives (Bourdieu, 2002). Football culture may provide resource for the social capital and generate income flows for investments. As provided by R. Putnam, social capital includes the relevant social standards, social networks, and trust building aspects (Putnam, 1995). Football may heavily contribute to the social capital by its social networks of professional/ amateur players and supporters united by the mutual trust, respect and specific rules and codes of conduct that naturally develop in their communities. In addition, this mass popular team sport greatly contributes to the physical health protection and building culture that, as provided by R. Rose, forms a basis for the social capital (Rose, 2000). Foreign researchers emphasize that sports and mass media organizations have long served as the national identity building drivers. Even defeats of the national teams (e.g. the loss of Australia to Germany in the 2010 World Cup) are known to give new impetuses for the national progress in the production, design and national identity cementing aspects with support from the mass media (Nicholson, Sherry, Osborne, 2016).

Many analysts underline the positive influences of the popular football clubs (e.g. Barcelona Football Club and Catalonia Football Club in Spain) on the national identity and generation-specific political values. Thus an analysis of correlations between the Barcelona Football Club progress and national identity related sentiments showed that the seniors tend to consider ‘Barca’ as an emergency stress release valve when it comes to the Catalan nationalism and political freedoms; whilst the young generation, on the contrary, tends to stick to the good old tradition leaving aside the political values ​​historically rooted in the ​​Barca image (Barceló, Clinton, Seró, 2015).

An amateur football club in northeast England was taken by researchers for the case study of how different forms of social capital are being accumulated, with the club’s transformative resource analyzed in the context of the shareholders’ interactions in spatial and temporal terms. The P. Bourdieu's concepts of cultural fields, cultural capital, social capital and symbolic capital we used to analyze the individual gains of the players in terms of the “legitimate capital” of special importance for them; plus the capital employment methods applicable by the coaches and team managers (Tucker, 2016; Potrac, Nelson, O'Gorman, 2016).

Football plays a special role in the youth social capital accumulation aspects the world over as it offers ample opportunities for socializing, communication and grouping. Even the role of a football fan who enthusiastically supports his team with the crowd helps a young person make progress in the natural socializing needs, find its descent place in the social group and effectively contribute to the group interests and social agenda.

Objective of the study was to analyze the regional specifics of the modern football contributions to the youth social capitals.

Methods and structure of the study. We used for the purposes of the study findings of the online questionnaire survey ‘2018 World Cup: young peoples’ opinions’ run by the Russian Society of Sociologists in November-December 2017. We singled out the survey data for two southern cities of Astrakhan (n = 250) and Volgograd (n = 839) on the whole and responses to the question "Do you play football and how often? in particular (with the following options: “I play professionally”, “I play periodically”, “I play occasionally”, “Almost never”, “I played it before”, “Never”, “I hate football”). The survey findings cannot be rated representative albeit the large-scale sample (as is the case for every survey by RSS) gives grounds to consider the conclusions fairly informative (see, e.g. Kargapolova, Dulina, Kargapolov, Mironova, 2019).

Results and discussion. Foreign researchers have shown a growing interest in studies of contributions of modern football in the youth social capitals across the world. Thus M. Mauro emphasizes the trans-cultural nature of football in his analyses of the roles played by football in the immigrant youth lifestyles and subcultures in the industrial districts of Dublin city in Ireland. “Football grounds could be used for recreation, competitions and socializing. More importantly, they could be places where one can develop a feel of unity with the local community and gain access to national sports cultures. Football can also generate some forms of exclusion and discrimination ... A youth football club plays a special role as a self-identification logo for the local community. It is not unusual for teenage players of different African backgrounds to face a variety of inclusivity related challenges. They may either accept the local cultural codes of the football community, or opt for different forms of “resistance” to emphasize their own racial standing in the Irish society. On the whole, this diversity only demonstrates the importance of the grassroots football culture as a domain for the intercultural youth dialogues” (Mauro, 2016).

J. Esson analyzes the progress options and expectations of the young males in Western Africa that strive to make success in professional football. A professional football career is generally perceived by them as a high-income and self-assertion progress field (in the situation of the ever failing neoliberal reforms and growing impoverishment) that makes it possible to do without education which is believed to contribute to unemployment and dilute the labor market. The sports capital accumulated by a young football professional offers ample opportunities to assert his maturity, masculinity, resourcefulness, and demonstrative wealth. This is the behavioral model dubbed by the young Ghanaians as the ‘X-Way’, i.e. the life path for a self-made man (Esson, 2016).

As for the modern Russia, the success made by the national team at the FIFA 2018 World Cup was found to give a great boost to the national and patriotic sentiments. The local professional football players also are not shy to demonstrate their demonstrative wealth and consumerism - , as is the case for the countries of global South. It should be noted in this context that football is popular the world over largely due to the local football celebrities from the leading national clubs – whilst the Russian clubs are still lagging behind in the match attendance statistics, with the wide gaps in the popularity, when some matches gather full arenas and the others only a few thousand fans – that may be indicative of the sagging popularity of the national football in modern Russia.

We designed this study to analyze the modern football net of the passive forms of social capital measurable by the match attendance statistics, self-identifications with football fan communities and variations of the passive informational preferences. We instead concentrated on the active forms of the football-related social capital including active football trainings and competitions. Football is reasonably considered (Bolter, Kipp, Johnson, 2018) as a human capital building factor with its sport excellence aspects that are ranked high on the lists for priorities by the school physical education system and many youth sports organizations. We have analyzed the popularity of active football in the modern Russian student communities – viewed by many as the vanguard of society (Dulina, Kargapolova, Strizoe, 2017) actively accumulating its social capital (Koshkin, Novikov, 2018). Of special interest for us are the contributions of modern football to the regional social cultures across Russia (with the Astrakhan communities taken for the case study).

Our analysis of the Astrakhan subsample of the online questionnaire survey ‘2018 World Cup: young peoples’ opinions’ found only 2% of the subsample (and 2% of the Russian sample) engaged in professional football. One of ten in the subsample was found to play football periodically; one of six in the Russian sample and one of four in the Astrakhan subsample was found to play football occasionally. One of six-seven in the Russian sample and one of five in the Astrakhan subsample reported playing football before. On average, 47% and 36% in the Russian sample and Astrakhan subsample reported ‘virtually never’ playing football; and 8% and 5% ‘definitely never’, respectively; i.e. the Astrakhan students play football more often than the Russian average on the whole. This may be the reason why that the supporter community is wider in Astrakhan than the Russian average (28% versus 17%).

Furthermore, 41% and 30% of the Russian sample and Astrakhan subsample, respectively, believe that their hometown gives every opportunity for playing football. Approximately one of four in both of the samples believes that the local progress options for football are short of some services or aspects. Those in the Astrakhan subsample and Russian sample who believe that the hometown offers little or no opportunities for progress in football were estimated at 20% and 12% (little) and 7% and 4% (no), respectively.

Conclusion. Modern football holds great shares in the youth social capitals in the Russian regions, as demonstrated by the survey of the Astrakhan student community – that was tested to include only 4% of professional football players and, hence, the future professional careers of the local subsample have little to do with its high interest in football. The interest, as we believe, is explained by the generous socializing opportunities and contributions of the modern football to the social capitals of the Astrakhan subsample, all the more that one of four local students was raised in villages and little towns with their traditional sporting cultures (versus only 18% in the Russian sample). Football was widely popular in the Soviet times, and this popularity is still high in the post-Soviet socio-cultural countryside settings even when they are abandoned, dilapidated, with the former stadiums and football clubs turned into marketplaces – despite all that the local amateur football remains the most popular pastime for many local young people. This may be the prime reason why the Astrakhan youth subsample was tested more supportive of and more active in playing football. It should be mentioned, however, that the Astrakhan football infrastructure still lags behind the national average and, hence, less facilitating for the local social capital accumulation agenda.

References

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Corresponding author: k474671@list.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to analyze the regional specifics of the modern football contributions to the youth social capitals.
Methods and structure of the study. We analyzed information from foreign sources devoted to the results of relevant studies conducted in various regions of the world. We used the results of a specific sociological study "The 2018 FIFA World as viewed by the young people", which had been initiated and implemented by the Russian Society of Sociologists in November-December 2017. The data array totaled 4,703 profiles of students from 50 universities in 25 cities of Russia, including 250 students from Astrakhan.

Results and conclusions. It was shown that Astrakhan students play football more often than those throughout the Russian Federation. Therefore, football occupies a special place in the structure of social capital of the natives of Astrakhan, but the regional sports infrastructure potential is lower than in the whole country.