Football fandom, consumer culture, and the politics of visibility

It is intellectually stimulating to think about the idea of the subaltern. The concept evokes questions of marginality, exclusion, silence and resistance. Yet its implications often become far more tangible not in grand political struggles, but in the ordinary experiences of everyday life.

I was reminded of this not through an encounter with an oppressive institution or a political movement, but while trying to buy football jerseys for my daughters during the FIFA World Cup.

Replica jerseys of Argentina and Brazil were everywhere. Many shops also stocked those of France, Germany and Spain. Some even carried Iran's colours. Yet Portugal – despite being home to one of the world's most recognisable footballers – was virtually absent. At first glance, this seems like nothing more than a matter of consumer demand. But the experience reveals something deeper about how markets shape visibility, legitimacy and belonging.

Markets do not simply respond to demand; they also help create and reinforce it. By deciding which products deserve shelf space, they determine which identities become visible and which quietly disappear from public view.

I know very little about football. I cannot discuss tactics, formations or playing styles. My two daughters know even less. Their relationship with the sport has been shaped almost entirely by social media. Like millions of children around the world, they have watched countless short videos of Cristiano Ronaldo. Through these emotionally charged digital moments, they developed an affection not only for Ronaldo but also for Portugal.

Their fandom is mediated rather than inherited. It is not rooted in family tradition, national identity or even a detailed understanding of football. Instead, it has emerged through digital culture, celebrity influence and repeated emotional engagement.

Naturally, they wanted Portugal jerseys.

To fulfil what seemed like a simple request, I visited around 30 shops. I could find Portugal jerseys in adult sizes, but none suitable for young children. After searching unsuccessfully, I suggested they choose an Argentina, Brazil or Germany jersey instead. Those were readily available.

They refused.

Their refusal was not childish stubbornness. It was a quiet assertion of identity. They did not want to wear what happened to be available. They wanted to wear the team they genuinely supported.

That experience brought to mind Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's enduring question: "Can the subaltern speak?"

Spivak's argument, however, is often misunderstood. She did not argue that marginalised people are incapable of speaking. Rather, she questioned whether their voices are recognised within dominant political, cultural and economic structures. People can express themselves perfectly well and still find their voices ignored, distorted or rendered invisible.

My daughters can certainly speak. They expressed their preference clearly. They rejected alternatives and insisted on supporting Portugal.

The problem was that the market did not acknowledge their preference.

Their choice could not find material expression because it had not been recognised as commercially worthwhile. Their fandom existed, but it remained invisible within the marketplace. In that sense, what was absent was not voice but recognition.

This distinction between speaking and being recognised is important. Individuals may express preferences freely, yet still find themselves constrained by institutions that privilege majority tastes over minority ones. In this case, the institution was not the state or a political authority. It was the market.

Of course, it would be analytically inaccurate to describe my daughters as "subaltern" in Spivak's sense. Her work addresses far deeper forms of structural exclusion experienced by historically oppressed communities, particularly within colonial and postcolonial societies. Children unable to find Portugal jerseys are not comparable to colonised women, peasants or Indigenous peoples who have been systematically denied representation.

The anecdote is therefore not an example of subalternity. Rather, it serves as an analogy that helps illuminate how systems of representation function. It illustrates how institutions determine what becomes visible, available and legitimate, while other preferences remain peripheral.

In the football marketplace, Argentina and Brazil occupy the centre. Portugal, despite its global popularity through Ronaldo, remains comparatively marginal. The centre is displayed, promoted and repeatedly consumed. The periphery exists, but less visibly.

Retailers, of course, have perfectly rational reasons for this. They stock products that are most likely to sell. Argentina and Brazil enjoy enormous fan bases in Bangladesh, making their jerseys commercially safe investments. Children's Portugal jerseys, by contrast, may not generate sufficient demand to justify shelf space.

Yet economic rationality does not eliminate the politics of exclusion.

Market calculations begin with assumptions about whose preferences matter. Minority demands are frequently dismissed because they appear too small to justify investment. Over time, this becomes self-reinforcing. Products remain unavailable because demand is assumed to be low, while demand appears low precisely because consumers cannot access the products they seek.

The market, in other words, creates its own evidence.

The episode also reveals the complexity of the relationship between the dominant and the marginal. Cristiano Ronaldo is hardly a marginal figure. He is one of the most celebrated athletes in the world, with immense commercial and symbolic value. Through social media, his image reaches almost every corner of the globe, shaping aspirations and identities across cultures.

Yet the circulation of images does not always translate into the circulation of goods.

My daughters encounter Ronaldo every day on their screens, but finding a Portugal jersey in a local shop proved remarkably difficult. This paradox reflects one of the defining characteristics of globalisation. Ideas, images and celebrity travel effortlessly across borders, but the availability of products remains shaped by local market calculations.

Global capitalism, therefore, both fulfils and frustrates desire. Social media creates emotional attachments that local markets are often unwilling or unable to satisfy. In the digital world, Portugal feels omnipresent. In the physical marketplace, however, it occupies only the margins.

This disconnect creates a subtle form of consumer alienation. The identity consumers are encouraged to embrace online is not always one they are able to express offline.

The experience also made me reflect on my own role. Like many parents, I tried to solve the problem pragmatically. I suggested my daughters choose Argentina, Brazil or Germany instead. Those identities had already been validated by the market. They were readily available, socially familiar and commercially successful.

But my daughters refused.

Their refusal may seem trivial, yet it challenged the logic of availability itself. They rejected the idea that identity should be determined by what the market happened to offer. They insisted that preference should precede availability, not the other way around.

In that limited but meaningful sense, they resisted assimilation into the commercial mainstream.

Their response also raises another question inspired by Spivak's work. When those on the margins express their preferences, do dominant structures genuinely accommodate them, or do they simply classify those preferences as commercially insignificant?

What initially appeared to be a practical inconvenience gradually became something more symbolic. The issue was no longer about finding a football jersey. For my daughters, wearing another country's colours would have felt like a betrayal of the identity they had chosen for themselves.

Their rejection was therefore not about clothing alone. It was about representation.

This is where the anecdote becomes useful—not because it demonstrates subalternity in the strict academic sense, but because it illustrates how systems of visibility operate. It encourages us to ask who is considered marketable, whose identities are represented, and whose preferences quietly disappear because they do not fit dominant patterns of demand.

Consumer markets are often imagined as neutral spaces that simply respond to people's choices. In reality, they also shape those choices. What is visible becomes desirable, and what is repeatedly unavailable gradually becomes invisible. Markets do not merely reflect culture; they participate in producing it.

The episode also illustrates how family dynamics, commercial logic, celebrity culture and digital media intersect in shaping identity. None of these forces operates independently. Together, they determine what people can see, desire, purchase and ultimately express.

The politics of visibility, therefore, extends far beyond electoral representation or public institutions. It is embedded in ordinary acts of consumption—in the products displayed on shop shelves, the advertisements we encounter and the identities that commerce chooses to recognise.

In the end, resistance does not always take the form of organised political action. Sometimes it appears in quieter ways—in a child refusing to wear a jersey that does not represent the team she loves.

Despite the dominance of Argentina and Brazil in both the marketplace and popular culture, my daughters remain Portugal supporters. They may occupy only a small corner of the consumer market, but they are not voiceless. Their persistence demonstrates that identities can survive even when they are denied material recognition.

Perhaps that is the more enduring lesson of this experience.

The question is not simply whether people can speak. It is whether institutions—political, cultural or commercial—are prepared to recognise what they are saying.

Who is listened to? Whose preferences are considered worthy of representation? Which identities are accommodated, and which are quietly overlooked because they are deemed commercially insignificant?

A missing Portugal jersey may seem like a minor inconvenience. Yet it reveals something fundamental about the politics of visibility in contemporary consumer culture. It reminds us that markets normalise majority preferences not only through pricing or demand, but through presence itself. What fills the shelves comes to define what appears ordinary, while everything else risks fading into the background.

My daughters' refusal to compromise did not change the market. But it challenged one of its underlying assumptions—that people will always choose from what is available.

Sometimes, they choose to wait instead.

Dr Md Adnan Arif Salim is an archaeologist and associate professor at Bangladesh Open University, Gazipur.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.