Why do we love football? This is a difficult question to answer—anyone who accepts the mantle of being a football fan is faced with a series of increasingly clear problems with the sport. The moral panic of the 1980s over violent, “thuggish” football fans (i.e. white working-class men) has lost its sway in the UK (though not in places like Germany), but all is not well with football. Putting aside the familiar (and justified) complaints about “simulation” (i.e. players pretending to have suffered mortal injuries at the slightest physical contact), the structure of the game has become distorted.
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