In anticipation of the FIFA World Cup in Russia in June and July 2018, an article in Le Monde highlighted a seeming paradox: Tunisians appeared to be more invested in their domestic league clubs than in the national team. This observation compels us to examine the historical trajectory of football in Tunisia, particularly during the French Protectorate, and its ensuing political significance in the lead-up to independence and, more recently, during the Jasmine Revolution of 2010-2011. Football, the most popular sport in Tunisia in terms of registered players, both relies on and contributes to the significant territorial inequalities between the coast and the interior, the North and the South, through the location of the main teams participating in the most prestigious championship, that of the First League.
Football and the Jasmine Revolution
The stadiums of football became a focal point of protests during the Jasmine Revolution, which culminated in the departure of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. The history of football in Tunisia is inextricably linked to the nation's broader narrative. Ultras groups openly resisted the police and criticized the government, marking a turning point in Tunisian society. The stadiums became a space where the police's authority was diminished, an impact that resonated deeply with the population, especially the youth.
Football During the French Protectorate
These protests echoed those that took place before the country's independence in 1956. The existence of football teams in Tunisia also refers to the way this sport spread during the French protectorate from 1881, according to spatial, social and economic proximities but also, in a less central way, according to the urban hierarchy. Such dynamics have also been studied in other contexts, for example in France (Ravenel, 1998a, 1998b, 2004) by adopting a spatial approach to the diffusion of innovations (Saint-Julien, 1982,1985; Sanders, 2001). These proximities and hierarchies refer to spatial and territorial inequalities, which have sometimes been maintained and sometimes reinforced since the country's independence (Belhedi, 1994, 1999; Gana, 2011; Signoles, 1978).
Distribution of Football Clubs in Tunisia
From 2012 to 2015, each of the 12 regional leagues that organize Tunisian football had at least one representative in the top of the championship, even if it was for only one year. There is certainly a very high concentration of Ligue 1 clubs present during all seasons in Greater Tunis and, to a lesser extent, in the large coastal agglomerations (Sousse, Bizerte, Sfax, Gabès). But there are also clubs with a perennial presence in the South (Gabès, Zarzis, Ben Guerdane) and in the interior regions (Béja, Metlaoui, Gafsa). The calculation of a potential presence of Ligue 1 clubs within a radius of 50 km draws a configuration ultimately quite close to the image of the population potential within the same radius in 2014.
The Trajectory of Football in Tunisia
The question then arises is whether the configuration observed in 2012-2015 constitutes a break with previous trends or whether this "egalitarian" configuration is only the result of a diffusion within a long-term historical process. Is it a temporary parenthesis or does it define a lasting balance? Does it result from a deliberate action of the political power and the sports authorities, in particular from the territorial divisions used to organize all the competitions?
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One cannot obviously understand the current distribution of football clubs in Tunisia without placing it in a multi-scalar spatial and temporal perspective (according to Gaubert's approach, 2016 studying the differentiated, hierarchical and segmented implantation of football practices in the global and then French geographical space). First, we will therefore characterize the ways in which the first football teams were established on the territory of the Tunisian protectorate. Secondly, from a database accounting for the trajectories of football teams in the main Tunisian championships from 1956 to 2016, we will present national inequalities from the distribution of Ligue 1 clubs throughout the Tunisian territory and its dynamics since independence.
Early Football in Tunisia
The objective of this first part is to understand to what extent the initial diffusion of football in Tunisia may have influenced the current inequalities in the distribution of high-level practice.
If football arrived with the establishment of the French protectorate in Tunisia in 1881, it was only in 1906 that the first football team was created: the Racing Club de Tunis (RCT). It was not until four years later that the first official football competition was organized under the name of the first series championship, in which 6 clubs participated, all located in the capital, Tunis. It was a championship organized and played mainly by French people even if, the same year, the Tunis Jews created their first club. Effects of affinity grouping by district or social groups were present within a football which was then an essentially urban phenomenon (therefore with particular functions as Grosjean studies, 2004 in contemporary France).
It was not until after the First World War that the Tunisian Football League (LTF) was created in 1921, affiliated to the French Football Federation (FFF). Source: M. Zoubeidi (2007).
Even if football was perceived as a revealing of the presence of Europeans on the territory of the French protectorate, the practice of this sport spread until independence in 1956 in all groups of populations: French of course, Italians and Maltese, but also the native populations of Jews and Muslims. It became by far the first sport practiced by Tunisians, as revealed by the number of licensees in the early 1960s: with some 4,590 licensees, football concentrated 39% of all licensees in all sports federations in the country, far ahead of athletics and basketball, which each represented about 10% of the same group (UNESCO, 1960). Even today, it is the sport with the most licensees: 56% of the 55,640 licensees of the top five Tunisian collective sports federations.
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The Spread of Football Beyond Tunis
Besides Tunis and its districts, the main centers of appearance and diffusion of football in Tunisia, other cities sometimes close to the capital, characterized by an industrial specificity, housed football teams very early. Among these cities, Ferryville - current Menzel Bourguiba located 60 km north-west of Tunis - presents an original example of spatial diffusion of neighborhood, based on social and economic networks. It is a new city created by the French in 1897 on a strategic site between the lakes of Ichkeul and Bizerte, this to make it an arsenal. In 1900, three years after its foundation, Ferryville already has 5,000 inhabitants, including 1,800 Tunisians, 1,000 French and 2,200 foreigners (Maltese, Spanish and especially Italians from Sicily). Ferryville is one of the first cities in Tunisia to have adopted football outside Tunis. The Stade ferryvillois thus sees the day in 1909, then it is the turn of the Sporting Club ferryvillois in 1912. Beyond that, the diffusion of football in this new city presents many similarities with that of Tunis. Indeed, before the First World War, football was practiced only by Ferryvillois of European origin. After the First World War, Tunisians began to be integrated into the teams. This period between the two world wars is especially marked by the affirmation of a Tunisian nationalist sentiment, which is expressed in political, cultural and trade union movements. Football participates in this movement with the creation of the Stade Africain de Ferryville, composed only of Tunisians. It is also during this period that three football stadiums are built in Ferryville: "It is therefore not surprising that the Arsenal, the main employer in Ferryville, is also the great sponsor and provider of means for the sport. The Arsenal but also the Navy. Obviously in Ferryville more than elsewhere one is almost inseparable from the other." After 1956, the Stade Africain de Ferryville will change its name to Stade Africain de Menzel Bourguiba and remain the only football team in the city. The example of Ferryville underlines the decisive influence of industry and the army in the diffusion of football. At the same time, no ethnic and community dimension is apparent in the naming of the teams since most of them have taken the name of the city, which was not the case in Tunis where community names were numerous. The case of Ferryville is obviously particular. It does not allow to understand how football has spread over longer distances, especially in the South of the country. Is the diffusion more driven by the location of colonial industries or by the proximity of large cities?
Football in the Gafsa Region
Even if the French were concentrated mainly in Tunis and in the large coastal cities, with time and, especially, with the discovery of natural resources in the interior of the country, the settlers settled in parts of the country further away from the coastal areas. Among the areas rich in natural resources is the Gafsa region with its phosphates used as fertilizers in agriculture. The first Tunisian deposits were discovered in 1885. The Compagnie du Chemin de Fer et des Phosphates de Gafsa, which receives in concession the mines of Metlaoui and Redeyef, was created in 1896. Finally, to ensure the transport of phosphate to the coast, the Sfax-Gafsa railway was created in 1913. There was then a significant international recruitment: French (executives), Italians, Kabyles and Souafas (Oued Souf in Algeria), Tripolitans and Moroccans (workers). The Gafsa region thus concentrated the highest proportion of foreigners in Tunisia in 1926: 17%, compared to 3.4% for the national average. It is once again the presence of many settlers, especially French and European, which contributed to the adoption of football in this region. Even if the first practices of this sport are indeed mentioned before the First World War, it was not until the years 1920-1925 that the Com-Phos club was officially created by workers and executives of the Compagnie (Com) des phosphates (Phos) de Gafsa. The example of the mining basin of Gafsa underlines the role of colonial industry in the diffusion of football, as in Ferryville. It also highlights the effects of proximity diffusion between the cities of the basin.
Factors Influencing the Spread of Football
Until independence, the spatial diffusion of football in Tunisia is thus multifactorial and refers to at least two different geographical models. The first corresponds to an intra-urban model of diffusion according to the principle of proximity, as in Tunis: the practice of football spread from the European districts to the Medina, according to a process both spatial and social, the contact and the neighborhood of different components of the population having had a direct influence on the propagation of this sport (illustration 1) (process, studied by Lefebvre et al., 2013 in terms of territoriality within the city). The second is an inter-urban model of diffusion linked to the economic influence of colonial companies with the networking they induce, as in the case of Ferryville or the mining area of Gafsa.
The locations of the main football clubs before independence mainly opposed the North and the South, in relation to the structure of the protectorate: civil administrations in the North and military administrations in the South (Signoles, 1978). These locations only imperfectly followed the urban hierarchy because they were initially linked to intertwined logics of economic networks, social proximities and political domination. The situation changed radically with independence, if one observes the spatial distribution of Ligue 1 (L1) clubs. Extraordinarily concentrated in Tunis and in the coastal metropolises at the end of the 1950s, first division football only very gradually spread to the interior of the country or to the lower-ranking urban centers.
The distribution of L1 clubs by major periods highlights a very slow but continuous movement of deconcentration of the clubs of the football elite (illustration 3).
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The years preceding and following independence (1955-1969) correspond to an almost absolute concentration of the L1 championship on the coast, from Bizerte to Gabès… The two Tunisian Ligue 1 clubs that are relegated to Ligue 2 at the end of the 10th and final day of the play-offs are known. These are Olympique de Sidi Bouzid, 5th with 12 points, and Hammam-Sousse, 6th with 11 points. These two clubs will be replaced next season by AS Marsa and El Gawafel Sportives de Gafsa from Ligue 2, who have validated their rise to the elite this season. Finally, Stade Tunisien, Club Athlétique Bizertin, AS Soliman and finally Metlaoui remain in Ligue 1.