Should football be abolished? Sport and contemporary new left philosophy

This paper analyses the role of football in the theories of contemporary leftist philosophers and cultural critics Chantal Mouffe and Terry Eagleton. Mouffe (2005) takes an affirmative view of sport and football-fans culture, albeit as a metaphor to her demand for a passionate politics. Namely, she opposes current post-political belief in democratic consensus and advocates ‘agonistic’ political sphere where participants express their political beliefs with energy, collective spirit and loyalty similar to the football fans. In contrast, Terry Eagleton (2010) recently proclaimed football to be the friend of capitalism, and even demanded the game to be abolished altogether, as it cements the existing political order and prevents any social change. It is argued that the aforementioned approaches announce the re-entrance of football and sport in general in the mainstream philosophical debates but, even more so, testify to the diversity and, to some extent, the confusion of the New Left nowadays.