Carl Rommel, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, has written an intriguing anthropological study on Egyptian football and politics set against the background of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Using media analysis, interviews, and fieldwork, this study reveals how prevailing political and emotional attitudes toward the game changed after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's fall. Rommel's central argument revolves around what he refers to as an “emotionally charged and highly politicized ‘bubble’” (2): the intertwining of Egyptian football with the Mubarak family's political agenda, with hegemonic masculinity, and with an outpouring of uncontrolled emotion. When the regime fell and the bubble burst, Rommel claims, images of the game were transformed and stigmatized due to fear of the game's ability to produce extreme emotions that could be cynically exploited for political ends that do not benefit the people (siyasa).
This thought-provoking argument is written in a clear and engaging...