“There are only two ways to organise human relationships: dialogue or violence.” (Flecha, 2022, as cited in Hanafi 2025)
Whether or not one accepts this statement as an absolute truth, it provides a powerful way of understanding both human history and the evolution of sport. Civilisation has never been about eliminating conflict. It has been about finding increasingly human ways to decrease and to manage it. From this perspective, football is far more than a game. It is one of humanity’s greatest inventions for transforming violence into dialogue.
Competition has been part of the human relations. Individuals, communities and nations will always compete for recognition, resources, prestige and identity. The real question is not whether conflict exists, but how societies choose to organise it. The sociologist Norbert Elias described civilisation as a long process through which violence becomes progressively restrained by rules, institutions and self-control. Conflict does not disappear; it is channelled into forms that allow people to coexist without destroying one another. Sport represents one of the clearest expressions of this civilising process.
History illustrates this evolution. In Ancient Empire of Rome, military values found expression in the gladiatorial games. They remained brutal, but they channelled violence into ritualised spectacles, partially replacing the will to war. Medieval tournaments represented another step, replacing many battlefield encounters with contests governed by codes of honour. The violence had not disappeared, but it had begun to decrease submitting it to rules.
Another transformation came with the codification of modern football in nineteenth-century Britain, then the head of the greatest Empire. Football did not abolish rivalry and violence; it redefined it. Instead of armies, there were teams. Instead of battlefields, there were pitches. Instead of victory through destruction, success depended on skill, cooperation, discipline and respect for common rules. Opponents accepted the authority of the referee, recognised the legitimacy of victory and defeat, and returned home to meet again another day.
Football has often been interpreted through the language of war. George Orwell famously described serious sport as “war minus the shooting”, highlighting the intensity of sporting rivalry. Eduardo Galeano, with his unique poetic vision, celebrated football as one of humanity’s most beautiful cultural expressions while never ignoring its contradictions or passions. Both perspectives reveal important truths. Yet perhaps they do not tell the whole story.
Rather than seeing football as the symbolic continuation of war, we might understand it as one of humanity’s greatest achievements in replacing war with dialogue. Football does not suppress conflict; it civilises it. It creates a space where rivals recognise each other as legitimate opponents, where competition is governed by shared rules, and where victory acquires meaning precisely because the defeated remain partners in the same game. Football, then, is not simply “war minus the shooting”. It is dialogue plus competition.
This civilising process has not stopped. Football itself continues to evolve. Campaigns against violence, racism and sexism, together with the promotion of fair play, inclusion, respect and child protection, are sometimes portrayed as external pressures imposed on the game. In reality, they are the natural continuation of its historical mission. If football emerged as a more civilised way of organising conflict, it is entirely consistent that it should continue moving towards more respectful, more inclusive and more dialogic forms of competition.
The same principle extends beyond sport. Families, schools, workplaces, democratic institutions and international relations all face the same fundamental challenge: competition is inevitable; violence is not. Every step that replaces violence with dialogue represents another advance in humanity’s civilising journey.
Perhaps this is football’s deepest contribution to civilisation. It reminds us every week that rivalry does not require enemies, that passion does not require hatred, and that competition can strengthen coexistence instead of destroying it. Every match demonstrates that shared rules, mutual recognition and respect are stronger than force. There is a strong rivalry between the clubs Athletic de Bilbao and Real Sociedad, but in both pitches, the supporters of both are friendly together.
In an age marked by global interdependence, this may be football’s most enduring lesson. The future will not belong to societies that eliminate competition, but to those that learn to transform conflict into dialogue. Football is one of the clearest demonstrations that such a transformation is possible.
References
Hanafi, S. (2025). Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology. Liverpool University Press.
1st with the most total citations of all categories, among those authors including in Google Scholar "Gender Violence" as one of them.