Football Fandom Research Articles

Women’s football fandom and stadium attendance in Iran: a form of everyday resistance?

ABSTRACT To date, there is a scarcity of research examining women’s leisure lives in Iran, particularly their football fandom. In this study, we examine the development and negotiation of women’s fan identities, their experience of stadium attendance and alternative forms of fandom, as well as the extent to which their fandom is a form of everyday resistance. To do so, we draw on semi-structured interview data with ten women who attended matches at Azadi Stadium in Tehran. Utilizing identity theory and concepts of everyday resistance, we found women have highly salient fan identities, developed through various forms of fandom. This is despite gender and other factors such as geographical location acting as identity constraints. Due to historic restrictions in women attending stadiums, interviewees used alternative fandom as types of everyday resistance, opposing gender norms in subtle ways. Moreover, stadium attendance in itself symbolizes everyday resistance for women, a means to challenge others’ opposition to their fandom, and resist cultural expectations including ideas about “appropriate” gender norms. The significance of this article is demonstrated by the potential for women’s football fandom to contest gender inequality in Iranian society and we suggest it is both a form of activism and a leisure activity.

‘When I walk through the stadium’s gate, I have to be a man among the others’: doing gender by female Tunisian football fans

ABSTRACT Focusing on female fans of professional football teams in Tunisia, this article highlights the ways in which gender is performed within the specific context of football fandom. Based on a qualitative sociological study conducted through 23 semi-structured interviews with a group of women who identify as football team fans, this article analyses fandom's feminine performance. By examining the behaviours of women in the stands, a space dominated by male fans, the article explores the values, language, and gestures they adopt (and do not adopt) in reference to the characteristics valued in Tunisian society. The existing patterns of male dominance are reinforced by the various dimensions of the fans’ gender performance in this ‘male bastion’. Although women seem to accept male dominance and gender hierarchies in order to be recognized as authentic fans, the results show that women both construct and deconstruct their gender, highlighting the kaleidoscopic nature of gender.

No longer sidelined? Football fandom, belonging, and the boundaries of Europe

ABSTRACT In times of ‘polycrisis’, numerous challenges threaten unity and cohesion on the European continent. European identities can play an important part in navigating these challenges and fostering solidarity. One key to understanding European identities is analysing the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, as constructions of belonging form an essential component of individual and collective identities. Football fandom, a popular and highly Europeanised cultural phenomenon, has the potential to shape constructions of belonging to Europe. Given the diverse participation in European football, we posit that the identities of football fans are more inclusive than those of non-fans. Our analysis indicates that football fans are more likely to count countries outside of what is commonly associated with Europe as European. This points to a distinct effect of cultural integration through football and underscores the role football plays in fostering a sense of unity and shared identity across the continent. The findings highlight the importance of leveraging cultural avenues to strengthen European cohesion and unity in times of uncertainty.

Predatory fandom and autoimmune community – Polish football fandom in the search for a pure homeland

ABSTRACT One of the crucial aspects of football fans’ identity is their antagonistic attitude towards rivals and real or imagined enemies and threats. This article investigates Polish football fans’ antagonistic way of building group identity by applying the terms ‘predatory identities’ and ‘immunized communities’ as the guiding concepts. The article is based on a content analysis of the performances that Polish football fans present during football matches. An analysis of the cultural patterns presented by fans demonstrates that football fans react to changes in the political and social situation by establishing antagonisms towards ever-new groups and ideas, through which they maintain the immunized character of their own community. The radical search for the opposition between ‘us’ and ‘them’ results in an increasingly hermetic nature of fandom. The effect of building radical opposition is the constitution of an ‘autoimmune’ community, which can lead to the demise or significant diminution of fan culture.

Becoming a Chinese football fan: an examination of the influence of national and local identities on the development of Chinese football fandom

ABSTRACT The article explores how national and local identities influence Chinese football fandom. Previous research has failed to provide detailed analysis about how these two social identities influence the process of fans’ self-identification. This study uses fans of Henan Jianye Football Club and Shenzhen Football Club because they can typically represent native and internal immigrant fans in China as examples to fill the knowledge gap. By combining the experiences of these two fan groups, the article reveals that international games and the feeling of supporting the nation can strengthen the influence of national identity on fandom for the national football team. It also reveals that fans’ recognition of their teams’ local symbolic status stimulates local identity in developing native fans’ support for local football clubs. Although internal immigrant fans do not share their local identities, their desire to acquire local affiliation also allows local identity to affect their fandom.

Millennial football fan participation: the influence of football video games on play and engagement

Purpose Traditional sports have seen declining participation at many levels, with football being no different. This is occurring at a time when emergent technologies present new challenges, particularly to the crucial yet ignored cohort of millennials. Without meeting the needs of millennials, football cannot be successful in the future. This research seeks to understand how millennial football fandom (sport, not team) in Australia impacts football participation, whilst empirically examining the impact of football video games (FVGs).Design/methodology/approach Survey data are collected from online groups, forums and social media pages of Australian football (soccer) fans. Quantitative analysis of millennial fandom and its influence on football participation (for the first time demarcated into play and engagement) is undertaken, including the moderating influence of time spent playing FVGs, amidst covariate influences of age and number of children.Findings Results highlight the multi-dimensionality of millennial football fandom in Australia, reveal the typical hours spent playing football across a range of participation types (including play and engagement), support fan involvement’s influence on engagement with football, establish that a desire to interact with other football fans manifests in playing more football, specify how playing FVGs moderates these relationships, supports the covariate influences of age and evidences that playing FVGs does not hamper football play.Originality/value This is the first study to examine millennial fans of football (the sport, not tied to a club) and the influence of fandom on football participation. By separating football participation into two forms, play and engagement, we highlight discrete influences, whilst evaluating for the first time the moderating influence of the time millennials spend playing FVGs. For sport managers and administrators, these are important findings to facilitate better segmentation, recruitment, retention and participation, each with broader societal health benefits. This is undertaken in Australia where football is not a dominant code, relegating fandom to a niche, thus revealing important findings for sports and business management.

The moral economy of the English football crowd: The European Super League and the contingency of football fan activism

On 18 April 2021, six of the most storied clubs in English football – Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur – announced they would be joining a new breakaway European Super League. These proposals triggered vehement opposition from football fans, which catalysed the intervention of the UK government in the form of a fan-led review of football governance. The reaction to the European Super League – which collapsed within 48 hours – demonstrates that the commodification and globalisation of football is contested. This article applies the lens of moral economy to analyse the contemporary mobilisations of football fans in England counter to these processes. The novel application of a moral economy framework provides a fresh perspective within the extant literature on football fan activism. This article represents the first systematic application of a moral economy approach to the political sociology of contemporary sport and its fandom. Employing an expanded understanding of moral economy, the article extends its application beyond the analysis of pre-modern food riots popularised by E.P. Thompson, incorporating the insights of Karl Polanyi and Andrew Sayer. Adopting this broader meaning, the concept of moral economy enables us to explore emergent and dynamic forms of fan activism, which seek to contest the commodification of football. The supporter mobilisations against the European Super League are examined to illuminate this perspective. Through an exploration of the contingency of the moral economy of football fandom, this article expands, in conceptual terms, the literature on football-based social movements, connecting it to the wider commodification and financialisation of football (as an important aspect of everyday life) and the internal contradictions and crisis of advanced capitalism.

Football Fan Tokens as a mode of “serious leisure”: unveiling the dual essence of identity and investment

ABSTRACT With the field of cryptocurrency in sports being primarily discussed from the material and financial standpoint of industry producers, in our study, we conduct a qualitative exploration into the consumption of Fan Tokens within the realm of football fandom in order to elucidate the experiences and motivations of football fans in their consumption of Fan Tokens. Data collected through 10 focus groups with 60 fan token consumers were used for this study, revealing a nuanced landscape in which Fan Tokens serve a multifaceted role in the construction of fan identity and engagement within the context of football’s serious leisure markets. As such, we uncovered the concept of Fan Tokens as ‘tokens of identity’, where fans employ Fan Tokens as symbolic expressions of their unwavering allegiance to football clubs. We also identified a subset of participants who approached Fan Tokens as ‘investment tokens’, and thus viewed them as a simple rational investment opportunity. Our research unveiled the intricate ways in which the consumption of Fan Tokens intersects with fan identity, engagement, and financial motivations in the world of football fandom, while indicating that Fan Tokens themselves represent a potential form of serious leisure within the broader context of football fandom.

Songs to learn and sing

Based on over 50 years of the author watching Liverpool FC (LFC) football matches, this article examines the use of songs in and around such matches, locating it within wider debates about the use of song at football matches.The development of modern media’s relationship to football will be considered in three main areas – the importance of television in the modern age, the availability of songs on the internet and the use of the sound systems to control fan behaviour at matches. The article aims to provide some insights in to one of the most important – but often neglected – aspects of football fandom. It does so by examining the place of Liverpool Football Club (LFC) within the city, football and the media, fandom, singing at football matches and the particular nature of LFC songs. The article concludes by suggesting that it is in the singing of songs that true football fandom is found.Keywords: singing at football matches, Liverpool FC, popular music, football fandom, Spion Kop

Regional Identity and Football Fandom in Jiangsu Province: A Study of Inter-City Alienation and Provincial Identification

Regional Identity and Football Fandom in Jiangsu Province: A Study of Inter-City Alienation and Provincial Identification

Home versus away: legitimizing and challenging home claims and social exclusion through football in Turkey

Claiming spaces as homes indexes hierarchies. I focus on the home/away (deplasman) binary in football (soccer) where through the case of Turkey, I show how affective football fandom layers the normative charge of home versus deplasman. Home attachments and away antagonisms are formed and solidified as fans connect emotionally to stadiums and to neighbourhoods. This carries over to the national scale when (footballing) home is conceptualized as homeland. The emotionality and power-laden implications of the home/away binary leads to (the acceptance of) social exclusion but this acceptance is challenged through the very spaces of football. I refer to migrant experiences in Istanbul and to the cases of stereotypically nationalist Trabzonspor and Kurdish Amedspor to offer a novel way to conceptualize exclusion vis-à-vis the emotionality of home/away. This article is based on over a decade of ethnographic research on football in Turkey including men’s professional football, women’s football, and migrant footballers.

Understanding the Outcomes of Associational Involvement in Football Fan Clubs: Assessing the Validity of Socialization and Selection Hypotheses

This study examined how associational engagement within a football fan club renders influence on individual members’ extended civic participation. In order to present evidence whether such an effect actually occurs, the study first sought to determine the existence of prosocial outcomes that might arise from members’ involvement in their respective fan clubs. Then, by utilizing critical ethnography as the methodological base, the study next scrutinized whether acquiring such outcomes can be solely attributed to their associational life. An accurate assessment of these two research objectives (i.e. existence and attribution of prosocial outcomes) enables the authors to determine the appropriateness of two contending theoretical bases (i.e. the socialization hypothesis and the self-selection effect) in the context of football fandom.

‘Inclusivity for who’?: An analysis of ‘race’ and female fandom at the 2022 UEFA European Women's Championships

This article explores the experiences and identities of minority ethnic women at the UEFA Women's Euros (UWE) held in England in 2022. It does so at a time when women sports fans have become more visible in the historically male-dominated environs of football fandom, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK), and when questions of ‘race’, ethnicity and gender are longstanding, contested elements of British culture and society. Through a Black feminist thought methodology allied to critical race theory principles, the study contributes an essential intersectional account of minority ethnic women's sports fandom experiences at a major international event. The findings confirm that the growth of women's football in the UK, motivated minority ethnic women to attend the UWE. However, the current visibility and inclusivity of professional women's football demonstrates a lack of diversity and cultural sensitivity, which often inhibits minority ethnic women from presenting their identities to further engage with and support the game's growth.

Football Culture and Domestic Violence: Dissecting the Link among a Focus Group of Non-Abusive Youth Football Fan’s

Increased reports of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) have been identified following football games. Yet, the relationship between DVA and football culture remains qualitatively underexplored. To better understand this phenomenon, we conducted a focus group with male, non-abusive football youth fans to gain their perceptions of why domestic violence increases following football matches in England. Using thematic analysis, we present a unique insight into the link between DVA and football culture. The findings align with previously identified risk factors for DVA, including the role of alcohol consumption, gambling, and other violent behaviours. We also identified game-specific (e.g., the intensity of winning or losing) and individual factors (e.g., previous exposure to violence and awareness of what constitutes DVA) as heightening the effects of these cultural behaviours, alongside an increased sense of identity with ‘football culture’ after attending a game. We conclude by considering the implications of these findings for policy and practice, such as considering placement of advertising campaigns during matches to increase awareness, increasing threats of punishment and considering the scheduling of matches to reduce triggers of such cultural, and often violent, behaviours associated with football fandom. In addition, we call for further research in this area.

Alcohol consumption among UK football supporters: investigating the contested field of the football carnivalesque

Aim This paper investigates alcohol consumption within cultures of football fandom through the innovative combination of theories of the carnivalesque and Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, and capital. Methods Focus groups (n = 79) were conducted with football supporters in England and Scotland. Semi-structured interviews (n = 15) were also conducted with key organizational stakeholders. Research explored the importance and role of alcohol consumption for supporters when watching or attending matches.. Results Participants confirmed the cultural significance, perceived normalcy and historical links between football and alcohol consumption. Supporters highlighted the importance of the sociability, friendship, and social capital aspects of alcohol consumption. Participants believed football supporters are perceived differently in comparison with supporters of other sports, arguing that legislation surrounding alcohol consumption at other sports allowed supporters to enhance the carnivalesque by drinking alcohol, whereas football fans were more restricted. Participants agreed the habitus of excessive drinking and violence associated with football supporters led to a bad reputation, however, this view was outdated. Participants also recognized a growing drug culture in football. Conclusion The findings draw attention to the alcohol-sport relationship and the contested relations, and diverging interests and influences, within the social field of football.

A digital ethnography of association football fandom responses to corruption

ABSTRACT Rationale: Despite the extant literature on sport fandom and the prevalence of corruption in sport, fans’ responses to it remain widely understudied. This study focuses on fans and examines how football fans experience and react to corruption. Design: The context is Blackpool Football Club, an English league team, which following the owners’ corruption allegations, saw the fans leading a large-scale boycott of the club’s matches. Qualitative data generated through cyber-ethnography are used. Findings: We found that in response to corruption, some fans begin engaging with other football teams, while some can move away from football entirely and focus on other aspects of their lives, unsure if they would return. Practical implications: The study shows that fans can lose contact with fellow fans as a result of not inhabiting the same space in the stadium or due to disagreements centring around the protest action, while also noting that new relationships can be built around the boycott and the protests. Research contribution: In view of the findings, we propose an extension to the supporter’s matrix to encompass the newly observed activities of fans following corruption, so that these martyr fans can be accurately reflected in future studies on the subject.

Transnational football fandom in Hong Kong: attitudes towards commercialization and local supporters

ABSTRACT Although Asia is an important market for elite European men’s professional football clubs, scholarly attention about transnational supporters from Asia is limited. Based on qualitative interviews and an online survey with Hong Kong-based fans of European clubs, this study shows that the research participants do not regard themselves as less authentic supporters than local fans. However, a hierarchy of fans exists in their imagination since they regard the perceived loyalty to the club and associated practices of local fans should be emulated. While the Hong Kong-based transnational fans may want to become like the local supporters, being beneficiaries of the globalization of the game and the different immediate social networks they are embedded in help explain why they are less critical of the commercialization of the game than the local supporters and their different understandings or feelings of rivalry. The findings can also contribute to debates concerning cultural globalization.

Combatting sectarianism from the ground up: The Northern Irish Green and White Army and the football carnival

This paper draws upon participant observation data conducted before and after all 10 qualifying matches for the 2016 UEFA European Football Championship to explore the dynamics underpinning the Northern Irish Green and White Army (GAWA) football carnival. Supplemented by interviews with Northern Ireland fans themselves and informed by the dramaturgical perspectives of Erving Goffman, the paper contends that the anti-sectarian ‘norms’ of GAWA football fandom are dominant in public spaces before matches when the GAWA ‘performance team’ are visible to one another and their audience within a geographically circumscribed space. In a post-match evening context however, various ‘cliques’ of supporters enact their own social rules within a ‘back-stage’ environment of more relaxed peer-to-peer surveillance. These at times transgress the established norms of GAWA fan behaviour. The paper acknowledges that inappropriate supporter behaviour, even within small groups, can damage the wider image of football teams and their supporters in ‘impression management’ terms. But rather than imposing top-down ‘solutions’ which are often devised with limited input from supporters, we suggest that football governing bodies, associations and clubs should look to work in partnership with supporters to identify creative ways in which supporters can be resourced to proactively become ‘norm entrepreneurs’ and challenge inappropriate behaviour from within.

Football fans’ contestations over security: between offline and online fan spaces and channels

Much like in a myriad of other domains of the modern society, ‘security’ remains a highly contentious and debated area of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ football fan cultures. Against this starting point, this article critically examines how football fans respond to and contest key developments under the aegis of ‘securitization’ by employing relevant examples from elite English football. By subscribing to the contention that football fandom and its activism may be traced from fanzines to online digital media, this article draws from extant literature, fanzine archival material and digital sources to provide snapshots of two important examples that represent alternative forms of public communication and discourse – namely, (i) fanzines and (ii) digital media. The article’s main arguments are that (1) fans’ contestations of securitization have followed similar pathways as fans’ opposition to other elements of the game; (2) fans’ security contestations demonstrate both elements of continuity and responsiveness to emerging issues, and lastly, (3) English football’s field of security contestations, to be fully captured by scholars, should be approached in relation to both its offline and online manifestations.

‘It’s a magical weed’: an exploration of drug-themed chants in Greek football fandom

This article explores the phenomenon of drug-themed chanting among Greek Ultras. We reviewed 440 chants from 11 Greek football clubs to examine the role of these chants, discussing critically the reasons that led to their genesis and their reproduction. We found multiple references to substances which are used in the lyrics either as analogies, or referring to drug use, or to a ‘state of mind’. The overall low degree of drug normalization in Greece, lead the Ultras to seek spaces and time where they can freely talk about drugs without the fear of social or legal control. In addition, drug-themed chanting is a part of a self-identification process through which Greek Ultras seek recognition by the audience in or outside the stadium. That recognition can be used as a process of distinction and differentiation, and also function as a symbolic opposition ‘against modern football’.