In Search of the Lost Game

This is a trilogy of articles that will aim to shed light on the deep codes of social inequality through the critical analysis of various dimensions of sport. As any other cultural activity, sport is a magnificent tool to take a deep dive into society's code. Yes, that analogy is taken from the Matrix trilogy, and it's sometimes shocking to realize there is actually a thin line between science fiction and reality. The good thing is we don’t need to pierce through our spinal cord and go into trance for 3 hours in order to explore The Matrix. As I just stated, sport or any other cultural activity, are great tools to help us understand, and even experience, the way our society is programmed.

In this series, we will explore the social Matrix through three of sports main dimensions: economical, socio-political, and educational. In particular, we will explore how social inequality is deeply programmed into our society through these three dimensions, and how it is coded in such a way that it is legitimized and reproduced without much critical questioning in mainstream culture. I recognize there are movements of many sorts which act as counterculture to this naturalization of social inequality. However, for the sake of this series, we will assume we are some sort of robot-like biological being that is programmed to be on autopilot most of the time, simply decoding our reality and reproducing, in-action (see what I did there?), what society and culture dictates should be, is allowed, and valid. You might find it hard to believe this is the way most humans operate: eat, work, buy, sell, sleep, repeat. Ever heard that one before?

In the first article we will take a deep dive into the global (colonial) market for the beautiful game: football. Football (“soccer”, for the Americans reading this) is a great example of cultural programming because of its humongous reach. This reach has given football the power of coding certain symbolic messages into our mainstream culture and collective subconscious, which I argue legitimize social inequality.

In the second article we will look at the Sport for Development movement (S4D) where NGOs, Governments, and private institutions use sport’s popularity in order to reach deeply into vulnerable communities with specific agendas. Appealing to the positive externalities of these programs, the S4D movement argues it is an agent for “change”. Although I recognize that is partly true, I will argue that what society needs to tackle social inequality is not mere change, but rather structural transformation. Regardless of the positive outcomes of S4D, the mainstream use of S4D programs simply creates different and more subtle forms of inequality.

In the third and final article, we will build upon the previous discussions where sport has been portrayed as a medium to reproduce certain cultural programs, in particular legitimizing social inequality, and further perpetuating its reproduction. This is done through symbolic and enacted reproduction (or in-action). Sports media, thanks to its extensive reach into the codes of popular culture and the collective subconscious, allows inequality to be programmed at a large-scale symbolic level. The Sport for Development movement, on the other hand, allows private and public institutions to operationalize, and therefore program, in-action, widespread forms of social interaction which legitimize and reproduce social inequality.

I will conclude the series by proposing action research and critical pedagogy as ways to operationalize deprogramming, and therefore make room for genuine social transformation. It goes without question that this proposal is not only applicable to sport, but other areas of culture as well.