The Social and Political Significance of Football Gatherings: Escape to Freedom

The chapter grasps the theory of forbidden football, more precisely the social-political significance of football gatherings as special form of consumption of transboundary media transmission. The phenomenon presented itself along three dimensions: sports consumption; the expression of ethnic/community identity; and resistance against the Romanian political system of the time. Football gatherings created and alternative social space characterised by volunteer co-operation (as opposed to the compulsory activities imposed by the system), openness (as opposed to closed society) and coercion-free discourse (as opposed to coercive discourse). The opposition of alternative expert networks and legitimate and illegitimate counter-expert networks stood in the field of forces of the grassroots movement .