Exit, voice and loyalty: the dislocation of football fan communities

Abstract

The creation of a new non-league community-led football team, borne out of opposition to the commercialization of the modern fan experience, presents a range of challenges both on and off the football pitch. FC United of Manchester emerged from the fan protests at the Glazer family takeover of Manchester United FC (MUFC) in 2005. Positioning itself in direct opposition to the corporatization of league football, it has come to prominence as a model of democratic and innovative cooperative social enterprise and, as such, a viable alternative for football fan self-organization. The sustainability of the FC United model requires long-term financial and cultural security. This article applies Hirschman’s lexicon of exit, voice and loyalty to the process of dislocation of fans from MUFC and their relocation to an area of relative deprivation in east Manchester to illuminate the challenges of creating shared community assets between an extant community and football’s arrivistes.