In Turkish society today, women have become more and more invisible under the rule of President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, illustrated by the absence of female supporters in Turkish football stadiums. This has not always been the case, however, as a recent article in the Soccer and Society journal highlighted. Sezen Kayhan’s study focuses on a group of female supporters, the Purple Violets, who follow Orduspor, a team based in the city of Ordu on the Black Sea.

In the 1970s, the Purple Violets grew in numbers to such an extent that the club decided to reserve a special place in the stadium just for them, known as the ‘women’s bleacher’. Sezen notes that football was not only very popular but was the ‘pioneer social activity’ for women in the city of Ordu in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, however, the group has lost its enthusiasm and stopped going to games, due chiefly to the commercialization of football, the impact of political polarisation in Turkey on football fandom, and government policies strongly discouraging women’s presence in public spaces; the latter has manifested itself in sexist chants and attacks on female supporters. Furthermore, the existence of Orduspor is itself under threat, after the local pro-government municipality formed a new team and forced Orduspor out of its stadium, which has now been demolished.

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After the backlash in response to plans for a European Super League, and numerous protests targeting the wealthy owners of clubs such as Everton recently, it seems that big business and football fandom are increasingly at odds with one another. However, a recent study has revealed that some football clubs are hiring branding experts, in order to straddle this divide and appease supporters who might otherwise react negatively to rebranding exercises.

Dr Alison Barnes studied the ways in which several European clubs have attempted to redesign what she calls their ‘visual identity system’. In an article published in Soccer & Society last year, Alison notes that these attempts have had varying success. Fans of Everton, for example, objected strongly to a new crest design and forced the club to engage in a collaborative design process that involved the fans. On the other hand, Juventus have gone through with a dramatic change to their crest, one initiative among many including the creation of a special ‘J-Hotel’ designed to propel the club to the international stage and attract supporters from all over the globe, including people who have never engaged with football before.

Whilst clubs like Juventus are moving beyond the traditional fanbase and adopting a model more typical of multinational companies like Nike and Adidas, the relationship between club crests and football fans is more complicated than the typical relationship between brand and consumer.

Today we explore:

…all this and more in our latest episode.

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Matchday atmospheres are often the subject of taunts from rival fans, as supporters of Manchester City and Arsenal will know; a lack of chanting and other expressions of support is associated with a lack of passion and enthusiasm for the game, at odds with English football’s world-renowned reputation for vibrant atmospheres. 

A recent study examined a perceived deficit in vocal support among supporters of the Chilean national team, an issue that has drawn criticism from players and fans alike. 

Luis Achondo, in an article published in Soccer and Society, looked at the controversy surrounding recent fixtures including Chile’s games at the 2015 Copa America, which Chile hosted. Fans were criticised by players for the lack of vocal support, with Alexis Sánchez complaining: ‘it seems that we’re not playing in Chile’. Luis highlights how hinchas - a term denoting the fanatical supporters who ‘foster community bonds, denounce their deprived social conditions, and accrue honour and prestige’ through ‘drumming, whistling, launching pyrotechnics, and vocalizing chants’ - are few in attendance at national team matches.

 These supporters, he argues, have been priced and bullied out of the game deliberately by the authorities and police, who view the hinchas as unwelcome deviants bringing the game into disrepute. This represents ‘the silencing and exclusion of those who are incompatible with the silent modes of citizenship and consumption favoured by the Chilean neoliberal model’, since the ‘ideal liberal democratic subject has been understood as a citizen who not only engages in quiet modes of democratic citizenship but also in silent modes of consumption’.

Today we explore:

...all this and more in our latest episode

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In this episode, we’re looking at the growth of ‘football tourism’ in the English Premier League.

Between 2008 and 2017, companies in the tourism sector became the number one investors in sponsorship spending in the English, Italian, Spanish, and German top divisions. This rising interest among such companies, and the consequences for the matchday experience in the English Premier League, was the primary focus of an article exploring the rise of so-called ‘football tourism’ in the UK.

While many studies have focussed on the growing financial investment in football over the past three decades, few have looked at the growth of football tourism and the increasing interest from the tourism sector in providing holiday packages centred around a football experience. In an article published in the Soccer and Society journal earlier this year, Felipe Tobar and Gregory Ramshaw found that football tourism is a key part of attracting overseas markets and thereby contributing to the UK economy. The agency VisitBritain, for example, now has a dedicated EPL section on its website, where visitors from 58 countries can buy tickets for matches and stadium tours. However, the article also highlights allegations of gentrification within football stadiums, with some local supporters claiming they are less valued by their clubs than visitors coming from overseas to sample the matchday experience. The authors argue that the burgeoning phenomenon of football tourism merits greater attention, in particular the threats it may pose to the cultural preservation of clubs’ local character.

Today we explore:

...all this and more in our latest episode

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This week, we’re looking at the political and economic issues concerning a controversial chant used by Mexican football fans. 

During the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the Mexican Soccer Federation was fined $10,000 after fans of the national team used the term ‘¡puto!’ to address opposition players in their opening game. The term is widely considered to have homophobic connotations, but a recent study by today's guests - Marie Sarita Gaytán and Matthew Basso - argues that ‘puto’ has layered meanings, which are evident in its employment by Mexican football fans.

Sarita and Matthew argue that a more nuanced analysis is required when discussing this controversial chant. While they recognise that ‘The macho remains a recognizable trope of Mexican manhood’, representing virility and domination over women and homosexuals, the ‘hegemonic image and stereotypical associations… do not necessarily align with men’s sense of identity’, especially Mexican working-class men who are negotiating ‘their sense of masculinity via a range of life experiences’.

...all this and more in our latest episode

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Accounts of violence in Argentinian football run all the way back to the late 19th century, and violence still plagues domestic football today. In a study exploring the predominance of such violent behaviour, William Huddleston writes that ‘Violence has always gone hand in hand with football in Argentina’.

Today William joins us to discuss his study exploring chants sung by fans of River Plate, one of the most storied clubs in South America. 

Whilst violence in football is not unique to Argentina, the scale of the problem there is quite astounding: between 5 and 10 people have died from football-related violence every year for the last 25 years, with an average of 9 deaths a year over the past decade. Despite this, there is little understanding of the phenomenon in popular discourse. William’s research drew on over 250 River Plate chants and identified some recurring themes and concepts, with a particular focus on violence, honour, and masculinity. He writes that ‘supporters’ chants reflect and confect a hegemonic form of masculinity which encourages and rewards violence, the acceptance of pain and the forceful emasculation of other men’.

...all this and more in our latest episode

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Since the creation of the Premier League in 1992, collective identities developed in resistance to the commercialisation and commodification within football. These in turn have developed into more distinct ‘project identities’ that seek bring about more profound social change through football.

In this episode, we explore the role of fan activism in the debate on patterns of civic and political (dis)engagement in the age of so-called anti-politics. Our guests are Daniel Fitzpatrick of Aston University and Paddy Hoey of Liverpool John Moores University. We discuss:

All this and more in the latest episode of the Football and Society podcast!

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Follow Paddy on Twitter @PaddyHoey

Follow Danny on Twitter @dfitz_politics

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In this episode, we’re looking at unpaid work in football scouting in men’s professional football in England, joined by Jacob Griffiths of the University of Chester. 

While football in England has long been professionalised, with all but two of the English football league’s 86 members registered as private companies, the work of scouts seeking out new talent is often voluntary. A recent study interviewed scouts in unpaid roles to find out more about their motivations and experiences. Jacob Griffiths and Daniel Bloyce interviewed 12 football scouts; these included scouts who had previously worked or were currently working in an unpaid role, along with individuals working in senior roles who had experience employing unpaid scouts. 

For several participants, unpaid work as a scout was an extension of their passion for football as a spectator, though there was also an underlying hope for many of them that with enough experience they could land a professional, paid role. This was despite the lack of evidence indicating that working unpaid will guarantee full-time, paid scouting work. The authors of the study saw this as an example of the romanticisation of football, whereby individuals are led to build fantastical hopes on the prospect of ‘making it’ in the game; indeed, several participants perceived their unpaid scouting work as an escape from the mundane routines of ‘normal’ life. As the article notes, however, scouting remains on the periphery of football clubs: the scout operates at an outsider level because they are not traditionally part of the ‘inner sanctum of the backroom staff’.

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Football and Society, a podcast exploring societal issues through the lens of the beautiful game. In this series, we’ll be covering topics such as the Safe Standing campaign and football fan activism in the age of anti-politics

If you like the podcast, please leave us a review so that more people can find it.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known as the FARC) were formed in 1964, and for over half a century they were locked in a gruelling, bloody struggle with Colombia’s government. During this time, the Colombian authorities attempted to use the national football team as a means of unifying its citizens against the perceived threat of the FARC.

In this episode, Peter Watson joins us to discuss how successive Colombian presidents presented the FARC as the significant Other threatening a sense of national unity - symbolising what he calls ‘Narco-lombia’: the darker, notorious world of drug trafficking, violence, and criminality. 

For decades, the FARC was also associated with Communism; early on in the national football team’s history, a draw with the Soviet Union in the 1962 World Cup was heralded as a triumph over Colombia’s Communist foes, with one magazine describing the draw as ‘the most glorious page of Colombian sport in history’. 

In later years, Colombia’s political and criminal feuds had a direct and sinister impact on events on the football pitch; Andrés Escobar, who scored an own goal during Colombia's World Cup campaign in 1994, was murdered by men with cartel links on his return to Colombia, a tragedy that rocked the footballing world. 20 years later, as a new national narrative was emerging during peace negotiations between the FARC and the government, President Juan Manuel Santos was using football as a bridge and means of conciliation to incorporate the FARC back into the idea of a national ‘us’.

...all this and more in the 36th episode of the Football and Society podcast.

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Each week, Ash, Chris and Norman explore societal issues through the lens of the beautiful game. From the ethics of gambling sponsorship to what a stadium move means for fans, we’ll be covering it all each week with expert guests from the worlds of sports journalism and sociology.

In 2018, statistics showed that nearly 400,000 girls in the US played high-school soccer, making it the fourth most-played sport among girls. However, those playing the sport skew towards those who live in areas that are whiter, less black or Latino, more suburban, and less socioeconomically disadvantaged than the national average.

In this episode, Dr Rachel Allison joins us to discuss this disparity and the extent to which soccer is 'a rich white kid sport', as former National Team player Hope Solo claimed in 2018. In the US, a key factor is the ‘pay-to-play pipeline’ where access to the youth club soccer system - a vital stepping stone - is a pathway most available to white and middle-class women from wealthier families. Even those players receiving subsidies in the form of grants and scholarships tended to come from white, affluent places with higher per capita and median household incomes.

…all this and more in the 35th episode of the Football and Society podcast.

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Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/footballsocpod

Follow Rachel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rallis2

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Each week, Ash, Chris and Norman explore societal issues through the lens of the beautiful game. From the ethics of gambling sponsorship to what a stadium move means for fans, we’ll be covering it all each week with expert guests from the worlds of sports journalism and sociology.