1970, 1925, 2009. Whistling in the stadium as a form of protest

Abstract

The discovery and documentation of a clandestine handbill dating from the end of Franco's regime calling on supporters to whistle in protest at the dictator at the Camp Nou provides the departure point for a revision of the relation between football as the game of the masses and citizen protest in the case of Catalan political (and sporting) culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is based on antecedents and more recent cases of protests at big sporting events, in view of the continuing use of whistling at anthems or government authorities under different political regimes.