Anglistik

The Three Lions and England’s ‘identity crisis’

Will the Euros affect the election?

By Silvia Gerlsbeck

1 July 2024

„Fans don’t want politics brought into football.” This often-repeated mantra – here quoted from England’s Tory MP Lee Anderson in 2021 in the wake of the “taking the knee” debates - has always been a misconception and often a mere attempt to downplay unwelcome social or political claims: one needs not only to be reminded of sportsmen and women using their platform to make a political point, think of Muhammad Ali in the 1970s, Colin Kaepernick’s initiation of the taking-the-knee protest in 2016, or the U.S. Women's National Team's decision to not visit the White House following their World Cup victory in 2019, but beyond such open political statements are the more intricate and subtle connections between global politics and the commercialization of football (in the context of “sportswashing”) that politicians and sports officials often want people to forget, frequently to the detriment of human rights standards (not only relevant but most prominently discussed when it comes to the World Cup in Qatar in 2022), or the fact that a renewed sense of patriotism that results from a national team’s victory in a major tournament easily lends itself to instrumentalisation in the interest of a national(ist) political agenda. This year, football’s supposed claim to neutrality has again crumbled in the wake of a right-wing shift with the European elections on June 9, with, for instance, France’s national team, led by superstar Kylian Mbappé, openly warning of the threat of a right-wing government after the subsequent legislative election in France and urging (young) people not only to vote, but to not vote for the far-right Rassemblement National.

While no such open political appeals have been made by England’s squad in the context of the upcoming general election, this by no means suggests that football and politics are completely unconnected. For one, there is the fact that a successful tournament tends to benefit the incumbent, whose political profile and perceived leadership usually profits from a major national sports victory. After all, as myth has it, Labour prime minister Harold Wilson is said to have been reelected due to England’s (only) triumph in the world cup in 1966, and, maybe in an attempt to repeat history, has called the 1970s election during the world cup in Mexico, where England was then defeated by West Germany - just as Wilson’s Labour Party, which was defeated by the Tories. Rishi Sunak, himself a football fan, has avoided appearing in football stadiums this year for a fear of an unpleasant welcome by fans but has nevertheless used football to warn of a Labour victory, claiming that England should not just be afraid of opponents like Denmark or Serbia in the Euros, but that people “should be worried about Captain Flip Flop and his band of socialists.” Sunak’s critics, on the other hand, have (unfavourably) pointed towards similarities between the Three Lions and the Tories, with both having “a lavishly funded team, struggling to string together a decent passage of play and enduring jeers even from their own supporters” (The Guardian, 23 June 2024). Sunak’s opponent, Labour candidate and aforementioned “Captain Flip Flop” Keir Starmer, in turn often uses his love for football – Arsenal in particular – to fashion himself as a ‘man of the people’ and has emphasised his similarities with Three Lions’ coach Gareth Southgate: “I’ve been changing my party, getting us to a position where we hope to win this election and along the way, almost everybody is giving their view. (…) The same is happening to Gareth now.” (Independent, 27 June 2024). What is more, football and its media reception – like every cultural text and practice – are shaped by and shaping larger social contexts and thus are also always expressive of the current political climate. In the wake of Brexit, the pandemic years, the current cost-of-living crisis and the politically chaotic recent years, there is widespread talk of an English (political) ‘identity crisis’, a term that is currently also used excessively when it comes to the national football team, and, consequently, it is now up to Southgate to unify the nation.

So with an eye on the election, the question remains: Can Rishi Sunak benefit from England’s – admittedly – narrow and unexciting victories after all? Or will Keir Starmer ‘pull a Southgate’ and lead his team to victory after recent struggles? We’ll know more on 4 July.