Somali international referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan waves to supporters while draped in the Somali flag as he is welcomed ahead of a solidarity football match after returning to Somalia in Mogadishu on June 10. Artan, who in 2025 was named men's referee of the year by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), was barred from entering the US on Saturday.
Benedito Tadeu César
I've followed football for almost my entire life, not only as a fan, but also as a researcher. In 1981, I defended my dissertation, " The ' Gaviões da Fiel and the Eagle of Capitalism or The Duel'," in the Postgraduate Program in Social Anthropology at Unicamp, considered the first academic master's thesis in Brazil about an organised fan group.
In that work, I sought to understand football as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon, far beyond the four lines of the field.
At that time, football and sport in general were not yet considered "serious" subjects by much of Brazilian academia. Many saw these manifestations as minor issues, unworthy of the attention of the social sciences.
