Real Madrid: “Franco’s Club” or “Ambassador of Spain”?

Abstract

Some observers consider the team to be “Franco’s club” while others consider it as an “Ambassador of Spain”. This paper argues that both attributions were closely intertwined. To demonstrate this, in the first section the analysis delves into the Spanish nation-state and describes how the centre-periphery cleavage determined Francoist nationalism. The second section then sheds light on the ways in which Real Madrid’s identity shifted between monarchist, aristocratic, bourgeois and republican throughout the first half of the 20th century and yet always remained a fundamentally Spanish one. The focus here lies on the 1950s and early 1960s, when Real Madrid became the most successful football club in the world, and one of the most respected Spanish entities abroad. Thirdly, in order to achieve a more differentiated picture of the club’s own identity and self-perception (how the club perceived itself), for one, and external perceptions of it (how the club was perceived by others) for another, four groups or places, which comprise the entity Real Madrid, are analysed in greater detail: (1) club functionaries, (2) the players, (3) club outsiders, the press and politicians in particular, and finally (4) spectators especially those who tend to assign a certain significance to the club. Particularly notable was the behaviour of the functionaries who voluntarily carried out tasks on behalf of the Spanish government. Thus, the article cautions against the widespread assumption that sport is unilaterally instrumentalised by politics and calls for always viewing the role of a football club in context of dictatorship in relation to other clubs and institutions.