The soccer stadium as a disciplinary space

Abstract

The modern stadium emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, diffused worldwide in the first decades of the twentieth century, and became a generalized feature of modern cities. This article examines the stadium as a disciplinary space. Following Michel Foucault, we consider stadiums to be spaces and places where ludic festivals are controlled in conjunction with an increase in social control, vigilance, policing and panoptic mechanisms. We also intend to examine the increasingly disciplinary nature of the stadium by looking at changes in architecture, spatial arrangements, acceptable social behaviors, not only within the stadiums, but in society at large.