No Place for a Left-winger: The Historical Relationship Between Football and the FARC in Colombia

This article explores the relationship between the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and football in Colombia. It argues that until the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos, the FARC had been excluded from being part of the national ‘us’ when celebrating successes of the national men’s football team. In fact, sporting nationalism projects articulated around World Cup successes in 1962, 1990, 1994 and the Copa América in 2001 projected the national football team as being symbolically representative of a nation against an ‘other’ that was Colombia itself. This other was the ‘Narcolombia’ of the FARC, drug traffickers, violence, terrorism and criminality that had become notorious internationally, and was the image most associated with the country. This rhetorical positioning shifted under Santos, when football became a bridge to allow the FARC back into the nation given the political backdrop of the peace negotiations between the government and the FARC.