Contextualising this history within the wider Belgo-British political, economic and cultural contacts is, indeed, much more revealing than recounting a superficial story about the three medals the Belgian Olympic delegation actually obtained in London. Finally, we will focus on the issue of foreign players’ limitation and Belgium’s actual performance as a national team.Īnswering the legitimate call for a more transnational approach to the history of sport in Europe, we seize upon the 2012 Olympic Games as an opportunity to look back on Belgo-British contacts in sport since the Middle Ages. Third, we will approach the mobilisation of supporters, both at national and club levels. Then, in the second part, we will deal with the first rivalries that emerged on Belgian pitches, looking at their roots as well as the degree to which they still exist. First, we will tackle the controversial birth of the sport in Belgium and the way it was structurally adapted to the country using a chronological approach. The main aim of this chapter will be to cover different social phenomena by approaching several aspects of Belgian football. More than 150 years since the first balls were kicked on Belgian pitches, football is now the most played sport in the country, with the national federation counting more than 400,000 members among more than 1500 clubs. From the moment that it appeared and became widespread in the middle of the nineteenth century, football has succeeded in making itself one of the most popular sports in the world, a trend in which Belgium has been no exception.
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