Football-related patriotism in Germany and the 2016 UEFA EURO

Abstract

This paper coins the term ‘football patriotism’ to describe the open, expressive handling of national symbols (e. g. flags, anthems, national colors) in the context of international football events. Based on a representative online survey of the adult German population (N = 1092), which was carried out in the course of the 2016 UEFA EURO, this paper presents, for the first time, empirical findings on three essential questions: (1) Which proportion of the German population was involved in which forms of football-related patriotic behavior? (2) To what extent does this proportion vary between different social demographic groups? (3) Which political and ideological attitudes are associated with football patriotism? The results illustrate that roughly 15% of German adults were involved in three or more different patriotic actions during the EURO. This proportion was lower among older, East German and immigrant respondents and higher in families with children. Football patriots positioned themselves less often as politically ‘left’ and endorsed patriotic and nationalistic statements more strongly.