Beyond ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fans: exploring the mechanisms enabling football fans’ position as a stakeholder in the management of circulations

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores mechanisms enabling football fans’ position as a (safety) stakeholder in the context of European football. It is clear that fans, in the eyes of some football and political authorities, are considered to be ‘potential troublemakers’ or ‘risks’ that must be governed or controlled. However, at the same time, fans are also increasingly considered as contributors towards ‘safe’, ‘secure’, and ‘enjoyable’ football events. Borrowing theoretical insights from Foucault’s writings on security and circulations, this article locates the football fan within what he calls a ‘security dispositif’. By examining processes through which ‘bad’ and ‘good’ fan circulations and populations are enabled, this article looks at the conflicting and (sometimes) contradictory public fan identities that football and political authorities attribute to football fans. It is argued that fans’ stakeholder role represents a counter to ‘security’ becoming defined solely on the terms of football’s governing bodies and political authorities.