FOOT-BALL! TURNING COLOMBIAN BOYS INTO PATRIOTIC MEN: HOW SPORT AND EDUCATION DEVELOPED WITH EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY COLOMBIAN NATIONALISM

Abstract

In 1948 a collection of ten football (soccer) teams from across Colombia joined together to form the División Mayor (Major League) the culmination of a thirty-year-long process to form a national league. Colombian sports enthusiasts were not motivated by their love of the game, but rather saw football, and sports in general, as a means to modernize their country. Journalists and enthusiasts wrote that the practice of sport, as part of physical education programs or participating in the spectacle of a match were essential to the “modern man” and “modern women.” Colombian nationalists also embraced sport, and a national league, as a cultural means of overcoming regional differences and binding the country together. At the same time, poorer Colombians embraced sport, especially going to the match, as a space where they could socialize and release pent-up emotions. This dissertation tracks the development of Colombian football from a game played by the elites to the national sport which was enjoyed in some way by all levels of Colombian society.