A.A. Peredel'sky, associate professor, Dr.Hab.
A.G. Alekseev, postgraduate
Yu.A. Tsegel'ny, master student
Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sport, Youth and Tourism (SCOLIPC), Moscow

Key words: sports culture, philosophy of sport, case studies, football fans, system arrangement of physical culture and sports sphere.

Introduction. One can join the scientific debates on the philosophical, sociological and other studies of sports culture only on the basis of a clear understanding, first, of what this culture is in its essence and, secondly, the influential trends of its modern philosophical and sociological analyses.

Let us assume as a working definition of the term "sports culture" the following statement: sports culture - values acting as a backbone, integrative factor for sport, most stable agonistic and sports traditions and customs, fundamentally expressed in the relevant religious and secular ceremonies and rituals, within the competitive activity and events accompanying it.

The purpose of the study was to identify the major conceptual vectors of modern philosophy and sociology of sport for a further scientific analysis of sports culture as an integral phenomenon that has strong traditions of both positive and negative nature.

Main points. Over two centuries of its development scientific sociology has been gradually, but consistently reforming, moving from qualitative to quantitative, from abstract to case analysis. This reforming process has progressed to such an extent that in the last thirty years global sociology has been calling for reconsidering even the classical theories and historical evolution of the sociological concept itself from the perspective of "powerful" programs for case studies.

Such evolution of sociology serves as a method of consistent expression and realization of the overall program of positive philosophy.

On the one hand, positivism and classical sociology were not associated with the analysis of the sport sphere. According to, for instance, William Morgan, positivism is not actually effective and is not meant for this purpose. But on the other hand, the use of positivist theoretico-methodological constructions may result in impressively interesting epistemological solutions to the issues of sport science. Besides, the subject matter of the articles from the latest and the only Ethics in Sport. Anthology, co-edited by William Morgan and Klaus Meier, suggests that the authors' studies are not only of the pragmatic, but also of the positivist orientation.

In many cases, such orientation incites the authors of the Anthology to go outside the framework of both philosophical and strictly scientific analyses and move towards religious-mythological creativity.  

The mentioned tendency is presented by Hans Lenk as a predominant strand of global philosophy and sociology of sport; he delivers the project of foundation of philosophical anthropology of sport, with which he perfectly clearly and unequivocally identifies the so-called new or modern sport mythology.

At least one more widely recognized and authoritative religious-mythological doctrine has gone down in the history of modern sport and Olympism. It is the doctrine of " athlete’s religion" by Pierre de Coubertin, based on the appeal to ancient, not modern, mythology, though.

However, the difference between the two doctrines is, frankly, illusive and relative. It does not prevent Coubertin from opposing carefully, but quite evidently, the anthropological religious spirit of Non-Olympism to theological, for instance, Christian religiosity. Obviously, that is why he needed a much too free translation of the edict made by Theodosius I the Great, Roman Emperor, on November 8, 392, which is believed to contain the prohibition on hosting the Olympic Games. The in-depth analysis of the original texts, conducted by P.V. Nesterov in his thesis (2010), definitely proves that there were no direct attacks at Hellenic competitive traditions neither in this edict nor in any other law of the Theodosian Code over the period of 392.

Nevertheless, a fatal blow to Olympism as a pre-Christian, and by that time Greco-Roman religion, was delivered in this edict, indeed, since it contained the prohibition on sacrificial rituals and worship of the pagan deities, on which ancient Olympism was based both in Hellenic and empire hypostases [1].

It must be confessed that modern Olympism still involves the mentioned ancient religious traditions, though in secular interpreting:

- the principle of competitiveness (derived from the coming-of-age ceremonies), if isolated, contains a taboo prohibition on the participation in sports competitions of non-athletes, that is of people who did not devote or sacrifice their lives for gods for the whole period of competitions or training for competitions;

- the principle of cyclicity of sports training was only partially related to the annual cycle of the agrarian cults, instead it is totally associated with the religious-ritual periodicity of staging the Olympic Games;

- the principle of "Fair Play" is nothing but the principle of the reborn spiritual and physical "purity" of athletes, who were allowed to participate in a competition only upon religious ablution, purification ceremonies and rituals of propitiatory sacrifices;

- the origin of the Olympic flame itself has several religious versions, but from purely physical standpoint the Olympic flame has always meant the rite of burning of sacrificial white-coated animals in honor of gods, which was honored as a life rite as opposed to death rites, during which black-coated animals were burnt. The Olympic flame keeps its sacrificial meaning in this day and age.

However, there is probably something essential that separates the modern Olympism in its secular form from the ancient religious Olympism and which, consequently, sharply negates its religious-political effectiveness. What is meant here is a critically weak capacity of modern Olympism, consisting in providing religious-political moderation of ancient "dark" religious cults and beliefs (totemic, fetishistic, magical, agrarian, regarding smithcraft, and the four elements, etc.), which requires regular human sacrifices.

Based on the research findings, particularly by A.G. Alekseev (scientific supervisor - S.D. Neverkovich), the movement and subculture of football fans serves as a kind of a remix of the mentioned "dark" cults.

Any modern football club of the major or A league goes for launching its own fan club and supporters' groups. However, it is just a small and officially established part of the fan movement, which sooner or later comes under the influence of the independently organized fan movement and its subculture. The movement is composed of active fans ("kuzmichi") and supporters' groups (firms, mobs). The core of the supporters' groups are the so-called "athletes", hoolies, elite, skeleton; periphery - members, rooting fans, tifosi. The main striking power of "fistfights" (fights) are "athletes", "psychos", hooligans. They are also the main representatives of the football fans subculture.

At the surface, political, level this subculture manifests itself as "ultras" -  an extreme right, mainly, nationalistic movement (which, in fact, was proved once again by the recent events in Ukraine). At the deeper, essential level the given subculture unites religious organizations (like phratries) that practice the whole range of totemic, fetishistic rites and ceremonies, maximum precisely explaining all the details of scandalous hooligan campaigns involving football fans, starting from the 70's of the 20th century.

The studies by Alekseev, as well as the implemented methods of involved observation and expert assessment allow drawing special attention to the following key points:

- the rise of the fan movement should by no means be considered as a process of natural succession or as a result of development of the mass football "rooting". The fan movement and especially the subculture are a purposefully organized artificial formation which is focused on the solution of the strictly defined tasks;

- despite the age specificity of the Russian version of fan movement, it can hardly be classified as an informal youth movement. Each and all fan groups (mobs and mini-mobs) in all forms of their existence are ruled by a close-knit team consisting of people of "the second mean age" (older than 50 years) who were spotted in the football crowd disorders of the 70's and 80's of the 20th century;

- one should not consider political leverage and political moves of the fan movement as spontaneous or accidental, as they are coordinated by a widespread network of schemers. Irrespective of the degree of awareness of particular firms and ordinary football fans, they all are viewed as a potential backup for the ultra-right opposition to the official public authority subjected to the common plan and accepted scenario;

- ruffian and obviously thuggish moves of football fans, that have already involved hundreds of victims, should not be treated as unfortunate mistakes or incidents either. Criminal ties of the leaders of football fan organizations are quite traditional nowadays. They are typical for "black PR", "hidden" political influence peddling, terrorism and staging of coups;

- in spite of the influence of the new style called "casuals" (from English "Casual") and the changes in the social structure of the modern fan community, as well as despite the obvious self-sustainability of the Russian and Ukrainian fan mobs, the basis of organization and the educational doctrine of the fan subcultures is formed by religious-totemic cults and Celtic fetishes, which point at the English, or to be more accurate, at the Irish background of the world fan movement and at its modern directing centre.

Religious and political constituents of the modern sports or circumsports culture are determined not only at the level of the analysis of the essence of Olympic religion or, let us say, the religious cult game cuju (the prototype of the contemporary football), which, by the way, were often banned due to this by English kings (way back in 1314 by Edward II and up to 1687 by Jakob II).  According to the results of the detailed descriptive case studies conducted by Yu.A. Tsegel’ny (scientific supervisor - A.A. Peredel’sky), the mentioned constituents are displayed also during the analysis of the organization of the system arrangement of the physical culture and sports sphere at the level of specific municipal units.

 Using the sociological methods of analysis of the documents, involved observation, and expert assessment Tsegel’ny singles out and conceptually substantiates four typical models of the specified system management: private-economical, career-political, disciplinary-hierarchic and organizational-architectural. Of which only the latter model is not based on corruption and conforms to the active Russian Legislation. However, for a variety of reasons, this model is less spread and popular, for instance, within the municipal units of the Moscow Region. The comprehensive guidelines by the above-mentioned author imply the consideration of the conditions for the all-round implementation and the principles of rise of the popularity of the non-corruptive model of core management.

The conclusion can be limited to a single thesis and one appeal. The thesis is that sports culture is what it is in its own essence, and not what we would like to see. The appeal is that it is time to move from duplicating someone else's thoughts and trite glorifications to the actual scientific research of sports culture, no matter how unflattering and distressing our conclusions could be.

References

1. Peredel'sky, A.A. Greek physical education and agnostics, ancient Roman sport as an ontological basis for genetic definition of "physical culture" and "sport" / A.A. Peredel’sky, S.L. Konikov // Fizicheskaya kultura: vospitanie, obrazovanie, trenirovka. – 2010. – № 5. – P. 59–64. (In Russian)

Corresponding author: filosofia@sportedu.ru