The essays in this book examine football as a key cultural site within Southeastern Europe. It will be of interest to all academics and policy makers concerned with matters of reconciliation and social and cohesion within the region.

This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

1. Introduction 2. Fighters, footballers and nation builders: wartime football in the Serb-held territories of the former Yugoslavia, 1991 - 1996 3. Fertile land or mined field? Peace-building and ethnic tensions in post-war Bosnian football 4. 'A lofty battle for the nation': the social roles of sport in Tudjman's Croatia 5. 'A Croatian champion with a Croatian name': national identity and uses of history in Croatian football culture - the case of Dinamo Zagreb 6. Football matches or power struggles? The Albanian case within historical conflicts and contemporary tensions 7. Stronger than the state? Football hooliganism, political extremism and the Gay Pride Parades in Serbia 8. Football, hooliganism and nationalism: the reaction to Serbia's gay parade in reader commentary online 9. Football after Yugoslavia: conflict, reconciliation and the regional football league debate

John Hughson is based at the International Football Institute, University of Central Lancashire. He is author of Making Sporting Cultures (2009); principal author of The Uses of Sport (2005); co-editor of The Containment of Soccer in Australia (2010); co-editor of Sport in the City: Cultural Connections (2011); principal editor 'The Routledge Handbook of Football Studies' (2014 forthcoming). All published by Routledge.

Fiona Skillen is a lecturer in Sport and Events at Glasgow Caledonian University. Her research interests focus on the history of sport, in particular aspects of gender, politics, social policy and health. She is particularly interested in the influence which dominant discourses concerning gender and modernity had on women's popular culture. Dr Skillen is the author of 'Women, Sport and Modernity in Interwar Britain', (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013).