Myths of Nation in the Champions League

Abstract

The UEFA Champions League (UCL) tournament has become a showcase for the most elite and well-resourced clubs in Europe. In this paper, we explore whether the European flavour of this competition and the multi-national composition of the teams involved influence the sport media’s well-documented nationalistic discursive traditions. The analytical frame draws on Barthes’ work on mythologies and Wenner’s conceptualization of communicative dirt to analyse discourses relating to nation found in the coverage of the 2011 UCL tournament. We identified the presence of nationalistic discourses in the form of symbolic Englishness, intertextual references to insider English knowledge, football history and conflicts, and ‘othering’ representations of England’s opponents. The re-imposition of war imagery, stereotypes and ideological Englishness in UCL media coverage was conceptualized as the importation of communicative dirt into a multi-national context. We argue that the presence of this pervasive nationalistic discourse tarnishes the contemporary sporting landscape and suggest that ethical reporting could entail creating more creative and inclusive journalism.