Opinion – Bernardo Guimarães: Cheering for our national team to be ours

The World Cup begins with Brazil divided into political tribes. Can the Cup ease this polarization and reduce the scope for conflicts? Can cheering for the national team make us see ourselves a little more like Brazilians and a little less like members of the tribe?

Academic article by Emilio Depetris-Chauvin (PUC-Chile), Ruben Durante (ICREA, Barcelona) and Filipe Campante (Johns Hopkins), published in the American Economic Review in 2020, poses an optimistic answer to this question.

The authors study how football teams in African countries affect people’s identification with the country and the possibility of ethnic conflicts.

Many countries in Africa are home to multiple ethnicities, and conflicts sometimes occur. In addition, there is an edition of the Africa Cup of Nations every 2 years. This makes the continent a good source of data for statistical analyzes that seek to understand effects on conflict and identity.

The article begins by comparing responses to questionnaires just before and just after a football game. When the national team wins, there is a reduction in the number of people who feel strongly identified with the ethnic group. The identification of people with the country grows.

In addition, a national team victory also leads people to report more trust in people of other ethnicities.

But do these questionnaire responses translate into action?

The second part of the article studies how national team triumphs affect conflicts. Using statistical techniques, they compare countries that narrowly qualified for the African Cup of Nations with countries that almost qualified but missed out.

Qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations is associated with a reduction in the reported amount of conflict. The number of occurrences drops by almost 10%.

Football, of course, does not solve the problems, but the study indicates that the triumphs of the selection help a little to unite the country.

An often-cited example of the football team’s influence on a country’s conflicts and politics is Côte d’Ivoire’s qualification for the 2006 World Cup.

By 2002, the country had reached the point of civil war. Armed conflicts did not last long, but tensions persisted. This is how the country was in 2005, when the team managed a dramatic qualification for the World Cup.

In the locker room, the team’s top scorer and star Didier Drogba, a great man of movement, gave a one-minute speech that went down in history. Along with the other players, he urged his countrymen to forgive each other, seek peace, and hold elections.

Of course, this did not end conflicts and bring peace to the world.

But it is believed that the victory of a selection with members from different groups in the country, together with the appeal for peace, made people identify a little more with the country and a little less with their group. This would have reduced the disposition for conflict.

The work of Depetris-Chauvin, Durante and Campante shows that the data support these beliefs.

The authors also show that the effects depend on country and national team characteristics. It is difficult to know how the effect will be in Brazil today. But for me, that brings one more reason to root for the national team.

It would be really cool if, with the World Cup, the jersey of the national team could once again represent the entire country.