Football Fandom Research Articles

Globalized, yet local: football fandom in Qatar

ABSTRACT Scholars have examined the political role of football for Qatari authorities, but what football means to citizens remains unexplored. This paper seeks to answer the question ‘what is Qatari football?’, through four parts: firstly, the introductory part identifies the gap in the literature and situates the paper in relevant academic discussions (in particular related to the concepts of glocal and modern traditionalism). The second part provides the historical and social context, while the fourth, empirical part reviews the history and development in football in Qatar and discusses and how traditional social markers and tribal identities is reflected in football in Qatar through interviews with young players and supporters. This part also highlights an ambivalence towards commercialization and politicization of Qatari football among supporters. Finally, the paper concludes that Qatari football is very much like the country itself; neither modern nor traditional, affected by both globalization, politics and distinct local features.

Chinese football fandom and civic identities: a study of the fans of Shanghai Shenhua and Beijing Guoan

This article aims to understand how the relationship between Chinese football fans and their clubs has contributed to the local symbolic status of clubs. More specifically, the article focuses on the cases of the Greenland Shenhua Football Club (Shanghai) and the Sinobo Guoan Football Club (Beijing). By using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, the article reveals that a club’s ability to be successful, the length of interaction between fans and clubs, and fans’ own civic identities are key factors for the development of fan loyalty. Moreover, fans’ influence on clubs’ operations and their behaviour at matches, even of a more extreme type, have contributed to the clubs becoming symbols of their respective cities. This article demonstrates a mode of football fandom development which has not been influenced to the same extent as in Europe and South America by family inheritance.

‘Tribalism’, identity fusion and football fandom in Australia: the case of Western Sydney

ABSTRACT Processes of group formation and social identity are key to understanding human behaviour in social domains. In football, ‘ultras’ groups are currently considered the most visible style of fandom across the football world. By binding individuals together, these groups create new social identities that make them an ideal context for understanding how people behave within group contexts. This paper employs identity fusion theory to analyse a one-year study of the Red and Black Bloc (RBB), an ultras formation in Western Sydney, Australia. With data collected using active interviews, online surveys, participant observation in football stadiums and fans’ online forums, the paper discusses the set of circumstances that bought the RBB together as a cohesive unit. It concludes with a set of recommendations to Australian football administrators and beyond, offering a comprehensive view of fans’ tribal behaviour and how to make the most of these findings for the betterment of their emergent leagues.

Politics and football fandom in post- ‘indyref’ Scotland: nationalism, unionism and stereotypes of the ‘Old Firm’

Electoral politics is strongly influenced by unfolding events, some of them leading to major shifts in alignment. There has been renewed interest in the ‘floating voter’ in contemporary Europe, not least because of increased electoral support for right-wing political parties. In Scotland, however, the clearest example of realignment is to be found not so much in support for specific political parties, although that should not be ignored, but rather in a shift of sections of the population from UK unionism towards support for Scottish independence, despite the result of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. We explore past contentions from certain authors that the ethno-religious, socio-economic and political stratification of supporters of the two largest football clubs in Scotland, Celtic and Rangers, may be linked to their personal voting dispositions with regards to the issue of Scottish independence. These past findings are discussed in light of our interviews with fans of Scottish football teams which explore their perceptions of the interconnection between football club support, nationalism, unionism, and political voting in contemporary Scotland. Our interviewees suggest that the shifting dynamics of contemporary Scottish politics in an era of constitutional evolution has been reflected in shifting political and social affiliations of Scottish football clubs: although the traditional political allegiances of Celtic and Rangers were argued to persist to a degree, consensus emerged that these traditional allegiances have been destabilised by broader political, socio-economic and ideological developments.

Sadism as a Key Dark Trait in the Link Between Football Fandom and Criminal Attitudes

Abstract. Football (soccer) fans, particularly those with active involvement in supporting clubs, are especially prone to violence and criminal behavior. However, there is a gap in literature regarding individual characteristics which lead to criminal behavior in this group. In the present research, we examined the Dark Tetrad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism) and criminal attitudes (Violence, Entitlement, Antisocial intent, and Associates) in a group of active football fans ( N = 128) and a control group ( N = 118). We were led by a hypothesis that psychopathy and sadism as the dark traits with highest associations with violence are more pronounced in football supporters and key traits to predict criminal attitudes. The results showed that football fans had higher scores in all criminal attitude scales as well as in trait sadism. Furthermore, membership in a football supporters’ group was the most important predictor of all four measures of criminal attitudes. However, Dark Tetrad traits contributed to the prediction as well: sadism was the most important predictor of criminal attitudes, followed by psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, while narcissism had the fewest associations with the criteria measures. Finally, sadism was the only dark trait which significantly mediated the link between club supporting and criminal attitudes. Study findings help in understanding personality profiles of football supporters and provide new knowledge of the role that the Dark Tetrad traits (especially sadism) play in violence and criminal involvement in general.

The changing face of fandom: the case of Israeli football supporters

ABSTRACT The article seeks to document the changing patterns in football fandom over the past three decades, since the advent of the so-called era of globalisation, using the case study of Israel. It shows how, in line with global trends, Israeli fans moved from passive following of sport clubs identified with political parties to becoming active supporters with growing involvement in the clubs’ management. The article also traces the shift from party politics to patterns of nationalism and ethnocentrism amongst sport fans. Finally, it shows how Israelis moved from fandom of local clubs to that of foreign clubs, mirroring a similar trend in other countries.

The Covid-19 Pandemic and the social life of English Premier League Football Fandom in Eldoret, Kenya

ABSTRACT English Premier League Football Fandom (hereafter referred to EPLFF) has infiltrated the everyday life of the ordinary people in Eldoret, working its way into the communal and commercial aspects of life here. Studies have shown that this trend is popular in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa as well. In this study we argue that this essentially global cultural form has been affected by the Covid-19 Virus Pandemic in ways that resonate with its social function and that this varies from one locality to another. Using data from a long-term ethnographic study of EPLFF and sociological introspection on lived experience here in Eldoret, the authors revisit the normally active sites of EPLFF-dominant social sites to capture and reflect on the social function of this popular cultural practice that is now changed because of the social impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

“This channel has more subs from rival fans than Arsenal fans”: Arsenal Fan TV, football fandom and banter in the new media era

ABSTRACTFootball fan participation within the context of the English Premier League (EPL) has diversified through the rise of fan channels hosted on YouTube. As a pioneer within this participatory new media landscape, AFTV (formerly Arsenal Fan TV) is the most prominent example within the genre having amassed over one million YouTube subscribers. Drawing data from the comments posted under 36 post-match reaction fan interviews, this article analyzes the uses and functions of banter or mock impoliteness. Within the UK cultural context banter is understood as language used primarily in male-to-male bonding interactions where ego maintenance is a high interactional priority. We subsequently propose four thematic classifications of banter discourse; personal banter, legacy banter, impersonal banter and banter violation. We ask whether football fan channels such as AFTV should be seen as a source of financial income for the operators, entertainment for rival supporters or as of genuine interest and value to Arsenal fans.

A Squad with No Left Wingers: The Roots and Structure of Right-Wing and Nationalist Attitudes among Polish Football Fans

ABSTRACT This article examines the lack of political pluralism and the resurgence of nationalism among football fans in Poland. As confirmed by quantitative surveys, Polish fans align with right- or ultra-right wing parties. Left-wing ideology is virtually non-existent at football terraces. The aims of the paper are: to provide a thorough description of Polish fans’ political engagement and attitudes; to discuss interrelations between the wider socio-political context and specificity of football fandom and to explain the issue of growing politicization of fandom in the last decade. Finally, several non-mutually exclusive sociological interpretations of the state of affairs are offered.

Fans for diversity? A Critical Race Theory analysis of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) supporters’ experiences of football fandom

ABSTRACTOver the last 20 years or so there has been a proliferation of anti-racist organisations, campaigns and interventions across football at all levels, allied to broader social, cultural and political shifts in late modern digital societies. Indeed, relying on certain statistical data, which reports a decline in racist incidents in stadia, might lead many anti-racist policymakers to champion liberal doctrines and to proclaim football fan cultures as quantitatively ‘less racist’. However, in this article, using Critical Race Theory as a guiding theoretical framework, throughout, we foreground the qualitative experiences and stories of BAME football fans to understand why football fandom and spectatorship remain predominantly ‘White’ activities. Using semi-structured interviews and observational techniques, we explore critically the continued significance of ‘race’ as a mediating factor in football fandom, how BAME football fans negotiate-resist belonging in football fandom cultures and the implications of BAME fans’ testimonies for policymakers. We conclude by arguing for an increase in intersectional research across football/football fan studies, to understand better the racialised aspects of football fandom, and we also urge scholars and policymakers, alike, to place greater emphasis on ‘trust building’ innovations, as opposed to ‘diversity’, given the latter has taken on a commercial value of late.

The Footy Girls of Tumblr: How Women Found Their Niche in the Online Football Fandom

This study examines how female football (soccer) fans use the social media platform Tumblr to interact and talk about their fandom, what purposes Tumblr serves for them, and why they prefer it to other social media platforms. As women are often marginalised in offline and online sports discourse, Tumblr’s football fandom was chosen to investigate how women experience their fandom on a platform with a mostly female and young user population. The results of 14 in-depth qualitative interviews with heavily invested female Tumblr users show that the fandom’s communication culture allows fans to interact in a variety of creative ways that involve the use of a specialist vocabulary. This Tumblr fandom is overwhelmingly female, which makes the interviewees feel that they can talk freely about football. Thus, Tumblr has the potential to serve as a safe space for female fans. Yet, its highly opinionated discussions and rivalries mirror those in the traditional football fandom. This study contributes to the literature that explores how women express their sports fandom online and demonstrates how they have found a niche in which to discuss their favourite sport on their own terms.

Bigger than Football: Fan Anxiety and Memory in the Racial Present

ABSTRACT Understanding many white football fans' responses to football players' protests against police brutality requires recognizing the historical and contemporary role of football fandom in managing racial and gendered anxieties. In this article, I analyze three distinct uses of memory by white football fans as they work through the anxiety that results when the sport fails to work in the way they expect. My analysis draws on the opposing views of football taken by the American philosophers Josiah Royce and George Santayana and on contemporary social science research on the behavior of sports fans. I show that contemporary fan hostility to protesting players is consistent with the social ills that have surrounded football since the era of Royce's critique.

‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’ English non-league football fans in the Premier League era

There has been plenty of recent academic work on sports fandom, especially football fandom, but very little empirical work on the experiences and motivations of supporters of non-league, non-professional clubs. This article addresses that omission in an interview-based study of a sample of male supporters drawn from the English club, Bradford Park Avenue. It asks how and why, in the late-modern era of spectacularized and globalized sport, such minor football clubs continue to exercise such a hold over the imagination and loyalty of local male fans. We analyze the distinctive attractions for fans of traditionality, sociality and belonging, horizontal relationships with club players and officials, the relative lack of regulation at non-league level of the fan experience, and the economic incoherence of elite football. The paper ends by considering the dilemma faced by many non-league fans: chasing the possibility of promotion and success, or settling for a satisfying and familiar existence in the lower reaches of the sport.

Long-distance football fandom: emotional mobilities and fluid geographies of home

ABSTRACT Sport and home are intimately connected. This connection has, however, remained little explored by geographers. Drawing on the stories of 32 football fans who live in New Zealand but support a team based in another country, football fandom is unpacked as key to constructing geographies of home and belonging across distance. Applying recent work in ‘emotional mobilities’ and drawing on the notion of ‘affective economics’, I argue the movement between these fan homes and the journeying to a significant sporting home highlights the transference of emotion across space. In particular three themes emerge, through collecting fans’ stories using mixed and emerging methods such as ‘go-alongs’, photography and interviews. For fans, homes associated with football teams such as stadia can be seen as spiritual, with a pilgrimage undertaken to ‘return’ to this significant space. Alternative homes, however, can also be sought and begin to stretch fan homes away from physical locations. Finally, examining fans’ relationships to ‘imaginary’ homes, anchored through the use of media and television, exposes the construction of ‘virtual homes’. Thus, sport allows geographies of home to be performed and ‘felt’ in a variety of dispersed and ‘stretched’ space.

Nowi aktywiści. Polski ruch „socios” jako nowa forma relacji kibiców z klubem

Artykuł skupia się na problematyce kibicowskiego ruchu „socios” w Polsce. Jego celem jest 1) opisanie socjogenezy tego ruchu w Polsce, 2) charakterystyka relacji pomiędzy kibicami w ramach poszczególnych stowarzyszeń „socios” oraz 3) relacji tych organizacji ze swoimi klubami. Taki porządek umożliwi następnie analizę potencjału ruchu „socios” do zwiększenia inkluzywności w relacjach klubów z kibicami i dzięki temu do tworzenia się „łączącego” kapitału społecznego zarówno pomiędzy kibicami danego klubu, jak i kibicami i klubami. Podstawą empiryczną przedstawianego artykułu jest studium przypadku dwóch stowarzyszeń typu „socios” w Polsce: Stowarzyszenia „Socios Górnik” – działającego przy klubie Górnik Zabrze oraz Stowarzyszenia „Socios Stomil” – wspierającego klub Stomil Olsztyn. Wyniki badania wskazują na responsywny charakter ruchu spowodowany zagrożeniem poczucia „własności kulturowej” klubu. Co więcej, jest on w dużej mierze inspirowany przez fanów niezwiązanych do tej pory ze zorganizowanym środowiskiem kibiców piłkarskich obu klubów – nazwanych w pracy „nowymi aktywistami”. Relacje w ramach organizacji regulowane są prawnie, jednak w ramach wspólnych działań wytwarzają się również mniej formalne relacje, a w konsekwencji zaufanie między liderami stowarzyszeń. Analizowane przypadki różnią się również efektywnością działań na rzecz zwiększenia inkluzywności klubu w relacjach z kibicami. Badanie wskazuje, że głównymi przyczynami tych różnic są: odmiennie definiowana przez obie organizacje inkluzywność, upolitycznienie konfliktu z klubem oraz zależność finansowa od właściciela – miasta.

Marginalised, patronised and instrumentalised: Polish female fans in the ultras’ narratives

Since the 1990s there has been a growing number of female supporters following football clubs and there is little doubt that they have recently become an important part of the audience for both football authorities and clubs. The process of football’s feminisation is neither simple nor is it taking place in a social vacuum, and female fans are encountering well-institutionalised football fandom culture, which is deeply entrenched in stadium rituals. This paper offers an empirical study of roles assigned to women in football fandom culture and the way in which this has been done in order reproduce a “traditional” social order on the Polish football stands. In doing so, it examines the grass-roots ultras’ magazine To My Kibice (We are the fans) that belongs to an increasingly popular type of fan magazine, which was developed from popular homemade football fanzines in the 1980s. The analyses provide evidence that female supporters are either marginalised (not being counted as regular fans), patronised or instrumentalised by their male peers. These strategies are visible both in language and in the social contexts in which women on the stands are described.

Футбольный фанатизм как объект изучения социальных наук

Футбольный фанатизм как объект изучения социальных наук

Making a locality: the politics of land and football in North Kerala

ABSTRACT This paper explores how a marginalized community in North Kerala uses football and football fandom in order to create a vibrant space for active citizenry. We examine how the categories of football fan and citizen foster each other and provide alternatives to the imagination of a nation that in its discursive homogeneity fosters divisiveness. At the same time, this paper is also interested in the constitution of the football fan community as resolutely local and in dynamic, and negotiated relationship with state machinery. While literature on sports in India has been overwhelmingly centered on the themes of nation and nationalism, this ethnographic study attempts to critically look at the making of a regional identity, from the margins of a nation, through the region’s popular sport, football. In this paper, we explore the ways in which Nainamvalappu football fans Association, an organization based in the coastal region of Nainamvalappu in Kozhikode, converted an open place into a football ground overnight to resist the setting up of a slaughterhouse in the same place by the city corporation, as a form of active resistance but also place making. We argue that this football fans’ association allows for new understandings of popular sovereignty and democracy through a revitalization of sporting spaces.

Passing and moving: negotiating fieldwork roles in football fandom research

PurposeGaining access to the research field has received much academic attention; however, the literature focusing on the changing and/or multiple roles that researchers adopt during fieldwork has at times been oversimplified. The purpose of this paper is to outline the multiple stages of the fieldwork journey, a more reflexive approach to fieldwork and the research process can be attained.Design/methodology/approachData were generated from a four-year ethnographic study of the match-day experiences of the fans of Everton Football Club. In total, over 100 hours were spent doing fieldwork observations with an additional 25 semi-structured interviews forming the data set.FindingsThis paper argues that researchers should be more critical of their position in the field of their research, and should seek to identify this more clearly in their scholarship. This in turn would enable for more discussions of how each stage of the fieldwork journey affected the scope and overall findings of the research.Originality/valueThis paper provides an alternative framework for ethnographic researchers to better recognise and acknowledge reflexivity throughout the research process. This is done by outlining the various stages of fieldwork engagement more clearly to better understand how researchers change and adapt to the research environment.

Football, Conservative Values, and a Feeling of Oneness with the Group: A Study of Polish Football Fandom

The main aim of this article is to show some characteristics of the identity of Polish football supporters. The results of a study conducted among 309 fans actively engaged in formal (supporters’ associations) and informal groups (e.g., hooligans or ultras), as well as data from qualitative research, reveal their strong identification with Poland as a country, with their family, club, and group of supporters. At the same time, Polish fans do not identify with “Europe” as a category. The fandom culture in Poland is characterized by such attitudes as honour, steadfastness, the “might is right” principle, and moral and economic conservatism. Supporters tend to sympathize with political parties embracing right-wing values. The article points out important elements of Polish history that could have affected the ideological construction of the supporters’ vision. In the absence of historical civic and left-wing tradition, Polish supporters emerged during the period of the country’s struggle for freedom as a community structured by militant, conservative, punitive, and masculine frames of reference. Since the values of a particular group cannot be analysed without an assessment of its broader cultural and social context, the article also presents the different dimensions of Polish history and society in order to provide a contextual background influencing fandom.