Contemporary Basque nation within the frame of football culture

Abstract

Basque identity and football have gone hand-in-hand since the birth of both the Bas- que nationalism movement and the pioneering press that favoured it, which were created at the same time as the arrival of the British sport during the late Industrial Age. Football was the bastion of the symbols of the Basque nation during and since the long-lived Francoist dictatorship in Spain, and nowadays it has become a reflection of the complexity of the Bas- que nation. The absence of a Basque State, the divisions within the Basque movement, and the different perceptions to the sentiment of belonging to the Basque national collective have made it difficult for the Basque Country to embody an unitary notion of a nation. This article uses football culture as a social research tool to analyse the crossroad of the nation. It exami- nes the distinctive composition of the Basque clubs and the impossibility of having an officially recognised Basque national team.