Study of how Sacred Matter is represented in the scope of Football

“Football” as one of the most popular and recognizable human phenomena, has been able to go high beyond the realm of politics, science and economics and reach the beliefs of the people of the world, to the point where it now speaks of an exchange among belief systems at the global stage. The present study is a phenomenological exploration of the relationship between “football and the sacred matter” which seeks to describe the religious manifestations becoming apparent in football. Given the multifaceted and interdisciplinary dimension of such an endeavor, this study first explored the nature of football’s phenomenon and dealt briefly with its history, then tried to analyze the concept of “Sacred matter” (as the essence of religions) and attempted to refer to this representation by drawing on evidence from the football world, especially the “Russia 2018 World Cup”. It can be concluded from all chapters of this thesis that football, as a social arena, plays the role of an unbiased narrator, and sincerely reflects on and develops behaviors derived from religious traditions and directs and shifts the attention of a wide range of its audience towards the beliefs of human beings, which are crystalized as symbolic and image-oriented paradigm. This phenomenon carrying symbolic meanings and contents of divine ideas and themes, has taken advantage of its intrinsic potential and inherent capacity, and has combined the heterogeneous combination of tradition and modernity into a process outside the conventional algorithm; and this has ultimately led Football to gain momentum, conquer the hearts all its fans and enchant them with its magical power and unveil the constant and invisible life of the sacred matter in the universe. Finally, one can analyze the way sacred matter is represented in Football through the influence of the following three factors: 1-The special capacity of “football” to contain and apply abstract concepts and religious themes 2-The flexibility to formulate and develop sacred concepts and religious beliefs 3-The use of “symbolic” language as a model of representation of religious concept in football.