Football As a Mediating Activity In Labor Relations: Who Used Who

Abstract

         In the first decades of the 20th century, in the context of the popularization/democratization of football, the Brazilian labor movement was noisily positioned. Despite the government's repressive action, the nascent Brazilian industrial bourgeoisie, restless in the face of proletarian union mobilizations, would have made use of less harsh mechanisms such as supporting and financing the sport that had fallen into favor with the workers and several other popular segments. However, to say that football was an invention of the dominant classes to manipulate workers or an appropriation in the form of resistance by the dominated social segments, sounds small. There is quite possibly a larger context. The structuring of several soccer associations based on the popularization of the sport (overcoming the elitist nature of the practice) would have met several other intentions, in addition to controlling workers' free time.