That superior European civilized behavior we always hear about.
user
Organized football (soccer) originated as a means of disrupting working class cohesion.

Many early teams were sponsored by factory owners, who saw the opportunity to set the workers of different factories against each other, to discourage broader unionization and to divert their energies into trivial rivalries. Bosses paid for kit and travel and organized matches between the teams. Some of those teams even survive today, for example the Arsenal (Royal Arsenal in Woolwich), Manchester United (Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway), West Ham United (Thames Ironworks), and Coventry City (Singer bicycle company).

International football is an extension of the same principle: instantiating rivalry and division to prevent the lower orders from organizing to challenge power.
assistant
Counterpoint: Football does also bring people together too. Not everyone in England watching the games is a racist, xenophobic lunatic.

I think Football is boring af, I don’t watch it (more of an F1 guy). But it is nice seeing people who you wouldn’t think to get involved be happy watching something with others they wouldn’t normally associate with.

Football is the only ‘real’ working class sport, all the others come from wealth. Hence the white uniforms (cricket, tennis, etc). Anyone with a ball can have a kick about.
user
Yes it brings people together too, but over something pointless and futile rather than something which could improve their material conditions.

Street football was the original working class game, but it was coopted by factory owners as a way of quelling working class resistance. Organized football is controlled by forces diametrically opposed to working class interests- most UK football clubs are owned by oligarchs of one form or another.
assistant
Ah yes I forgot, lefitsm means no fun.
user
Keep kissing boot then.
assistant
You're right, the revolution will come about by making sure entertainment ceases to exist. Sports definitely don't bring people of different backgrounds together
user
The revolution will clearly not come about until the working class stops doing what they're doing in the video.
assistant