The adoption of football in Spain: the role of networks and territorial configuration

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, Spain had several seaports and was a peripheral country in the European context. Therefore, Spain showed a particularly favourable territorial configuration to the introduction of civilising innovations at the same time through several gateways and by different forms. In this article, we intend to evaluate the role of Spanish territorial configuration and the influence of international networks (mainly those linked with the British imperialism) in order to comprehend some aspects of the process of football adoption in Spain. We identify diffusion centres and agents (internal and external), as well as different stages and ways in this innovation diffusion. This is the first step in order to comprehend the introduction of football in Spain in a geographical approach.