Whether they helped bring down Jose Mourinho, marched against their club owner or pushed back against plans to commercialize the game, fans have a long history of using their passion for football as a tool to fight for change. Their protest stories remind us that fan activism is far from a fad, and that it remains a force to be reckoned with in the fight for football’s future.
Christian Brandt, Maryna Krugliak and Robert Warnecke combine comparative analysis with ethnography to understand the motives and dynamics of fan protests in two specific national settings over eight years (2014-2021). The study focuses on German and Ukraine activist supporter communities, exploring how these are framed by political events and the contexts of their organization.
We find that supporters’ protests often revolve around struggles related to their club’s governance and power imbalances. But they also address wider issues of governance and representation, such as the role of non-profit organizations or the extent to which supporters’ participation in a club is encouraged by management. In addition, we examine how the way a protest story is told can affect its credibility. We find that people viewed a story that was told in a humanizing way as more credible than one that was not, but that these effects differed by political beliefs.
Gloria Jimenez, co-founder of Angel City Brigade, the Los Angeles Galaxy’s official fan group, remained silent for a full game’s worth of the team’s most recent home game in an act of solidarity with Southern California Latino communities impacted by immigration raids conducted by ICE. She says there isn’t a day that goes by when she doesn’t think of those who were swept up in the raids and the importance of standing up for their rights.