Mark Doidge

‘The birthplace of Italian communism’: political identity and action amongst Livorno fans

Italian football has been heavily politicized since its arrival on the peninsular and the fans reflect this. Since the 1980s, there has been a shift to the right on the curve of Italian stadiums. Livorno stands apart as one of the few Italian clubs to maintain a resolute Communist identity. As a consequence of globalization, local identity has been reinforced and Livorno fans draw on a unique history to reinforce their identity. In a variety of different ways Livorno fans perform this identity and this frames their interactions with others. In so doing, they draw on a variety of Communist images and this helps define their actions. Through political protest, charity and matchday choreographies, Livorno fans reflect and resist specific aspects of football in a globalized world.

If you jump up and down, Balotelli dies: racism and player abuse in Italian football

Italian football has been in crisis for a number of years as global transformations and internal politics have manifested themselves in corruption, fan violence and financial insecurity. In addition to these, there has also been an increase in racism on the terraces as increased global migration has altered the demographics of cities across the peninsular. Although racism is widespread across many ethnic groups, African footballers in particular have become the symbolic objects of abuse from rival supporters. One footballer in particular has been constructed as an important symbol of this increased global migration: Mario Balotelli. As the son of Ghanaian immigrants, but raised as an Italian by adoptive parents, Balotelli symbolises the transformations within Italy as it comes to terms with its contemporary multi-culturalism. Through analysis of the comments posted on internet forums by fans, this article demonstrates the how inter-club rivalry is fuelling player abuse and racism.

The importance of research on the ultras: introduction

Abstract The ultras have become the most spectacular form of football fandom in the early twenty-first century. Thanks to global media, social media and increased travel, fans view, engage and interact with a range of fans from across the globe and bring various local dimensions to their fandom. This volume brings together a range of articles into the ultras style of football fandom. Whilst the ultras phenomenon began in Italy, then spread across Southern Europe into Northern Europe, it has now become truly global. This volume is designed to be an introduction; a first account of ultras for the uninitiated. What follows are analyses and accounts of ultras in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Turkey, Israel, North America, Australia, Indonesia and Croatia. Not only does this demonstrate the prevalence of the ultras style of fandom across the globe, it shows how football becomes an important cultural arena to see the intersections of globalisation and localism.

The Italian ultras: from local divisions to national co-operation

In the twenty-first century, ultras have shown more co-operation. Since the 1960s, football fandom in Italy was focused on the local support of the local team. Ultras fandom was reinforced in the emotion of the stadium with powerful choreographies. Although ultras groups have fragmented since the 1980s, this has not meant more individualism. As Maffesoli argues, new social groups form out of this fragmentation. What has resulted is a Mentalita Ultras; a unifying mentality that unites ultras from different groups and teams. Growing repression from the police, government and football federation has helped create this situation and further alienating fans from the authorities. Other forms of fandom are trying to engage in a dialogue through supporters’ trusts, yet these are in their early stages. Unless the authorities engage in dialogue with fans then the structural problems in Italian football will remain.

Ticket Prices Campaigns, Urban Space, and Twitter: Social Networks and Storied Connections

This chapter shows how football supporters are embedded in social networks and how these networks are mobilized for a protest movement against economic elements of football. The chapter starts by highlighting that the neo-classical economic assumptions of rationality and perfect competition are problematic in the football marketplace, especially as the chapter goes on to show how supporters are socially embedded in social networks. From there, Twitter networks of two prominent fan movements against economic factors in football were analysed. The results show that these online network structures created by supporters were structured through weak ties and short information paths, which were central network mechanisms to facilitate efficient communication and resistance.

The Touchstones for Understanding Football Fans’ Collective Actions: A Primer in Cultural Relational Sociology

This chapter lays down seven analytical touchstones to understand the collective actions of football fans that can be gathered from the published literature in both the sociology of social movements and the sociology of sport. These analytical touchstones are (i) the structures of and roles in collective action; (ii) affect, emotion, and collective effervescence; (iii) communication, cooperation, and conventions; (iv) mobilizing resources; (v) tactics; (vi) recruitment to collective action and ‘outcomes’ of mobilization; and (vii) the spaces and places of organization and action. Each is relationally defined and discussed.

Supporters’ Trusts as Collective Action: Swansea City in Focus

This chapter illustrates the emotions, tactics, and successful collective mobilization of Swansea City supporters in late 2001 and early 2002 that led to the formation of a Supporters’ Trust. In particular, it focuses on the relationships between people in online and offline space and how these modes of interaction come together when the club’s future was threatened. It then considers some of the challenges now facing the ownership model of the Supporters’ Trust at the club as a result of the takeover of a majority of the shares by an American consortium in 2016.

‘Bringing City Home’: Coventry City, Sisu Capital, and the Ricoh Arena

This chapter focuses on the decision by the club’s owners, Sisu, to take the club out of Coventry for the 2013/14 season to play home matches 35 miles away at Northampton Town. It addresses the social relations between fans, the media, and the club, particularly around collective mobilization, interaction, tactics, networks, and protest and how these emerge through disharmony and a lack of trust between the key stakeholders. It also analyses the power in these relationships and the extent to which ‘success’ has been achieved through collective mobilization when the club returned back to the city to play its home matches in September 2014.

Relational Sociology, Collective Action, and Football Fandom

This chapter centrally unpicks the uses and descriptions of ‘relational sociology’, ‘collective action’, and ‘football fandom’ in the social scientific literature. In doing so, it lays down the foundations for the concepts and dynamics (these are (i) relations/relationships, (ii) interaction, (iii) networks, (iv) social actors, and (v) power/counter-power) that are core to cultural relational sociology and discusses them up in a way that can be applied to issues emerging in the study of both collective action and football fandom.

Conclusion: Connections More Than Matter!—Relational Understandings of Football Fans’ Collective Actions

This chapter brings together the themes of the book to summarize both the findings and a cultural relational sociological approach. In concluding the book, the chapter discusses the concept of a football ‘club’ as a project with inherently relational and collective properties and the UK parliamentary debates around the ‘regulation’ of the sport as adding new actors to the relationships involved in the production and consumption of football.