Football: Origins, Paths and New Dimensions

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Health - Sport - Miscellaneous, grade: 1.0, University of Leipzig (University of Leipzig - University of Vienna), course: Global and International Studies, language: English, abstract: Football's consolidation as the world's most popular sport is a result of both the inherent attributes of the game, that is its simplicity and universality, as well as the historical processes that have contributed to the unprecedented expansion of the geography of the sport throughout time. Today, football represents a professional activity, an instrument to mobilize the masses, a profitable business, a focus of violence and unrest and most recently, a tool for social development and peace. Although the sport has undergone very little structural transformation in the last decades, the major development in the world of football has taken place in the new application of the sport as a tool for social change. This has generated a true global social movement encompassing a multitude of actors such as national governments, the private sector, international organisations and NGOs around the issues of development and peace through the power of the sport. With this background, the purpose of this thesis is two-fold: 1) to provide an overview of the history and evolution of football and to analyse the processes that contributed to its emergence and consolidation as a global phenomenon and 2) to bring to light the recent transformation experienced by the sport as a social movement and as an agent for transformation and change. This part includes the grassroots project 'Goals for Peace' in Colombia and the Philippines which aims at assessing the ways and extent to which the sport can be a transformative tool.