Football has a long history of violence and the problem of how to deal with it has sparked public and political debate since at least the 1960s. Football teams compete on the pitch, but fans also see themselves as engaged in that competition vicariously: stadia and surrounding areas become fans’ own territories; football rivalries with other clubs last for generations; and club success or defeat can be transformative at a personal level.
New research from the University of Greenwich led by Associate Professor of Psychology, Dr Martha Newson and has looked at if those strong feelings are similar across the globe and the impact those strong group loyalties, or ‘identity fusion’, can have.
Within every football team’s fanbase is a sub-group that considers themselves the most fanatic. For instance, traditionally, there have been football hooligans who form firms in the UK, torcidas oragnizadas in Brazil, barras bravas in Argentina and the rest of Latin America, and ultras in Italy and Southern Europe. The ultras movement is now one of the largest fan movements globally, with groups present in countries as different as Indonesia and Australia, two nations not often studied when it comes to football.
While the ultras movement may be transnational, fan groups vary substantially; each exhibiting unique characteristics relating to their socio-political composition, historic background, or contemporary appearance.
To try and capture something of the breadth of ultras culture, this study worked with Indonesian and Australian football fans.
Indonesia, as the largest Muslim democracy in the world, has cultural resonance with parts of South-East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, where Islam-centred masculinities dominate parts of the football world that are under-researched. In contrast, Australia encapsulates many of the cultural norms associated with football masculinities in traditionally Christian-centric European cultures, largely comprising fans with recent North Western, Eastern, or Southern European descent.
Using these two regions allowed the research to have representative answers from two of the most dominant global meaning systems, embedded within which are cultural understandings of masculinity and group cohesion.
The study recruited 86 Indonesian football fans to complete a pen and paper survey about their fan identities. All participants supported a popular Indonesian team, Persib Bandung – with half of them being members of an extreme ultras group. A further 202 Australian football fans were recruited; fans of two major Australian teams, Western Sydney Wanderers and Sydney FC – half of whom self-identified as ultras, such as the Red and Black Bloc.
In these two distinct cultural contexts, most football fans surveyed reported histories unmarred by anti-social behaviour. Ultras, however, were typically more violent than general fans in both Indonesia and Australia making this identity the biggest predictor of anti-social behaviour.
Ultras in both contexts were more likely to indicate willingness to fight for their group in the future (in Indonesia), and to report past anti-social behaviour (In Australia). In both contexts, identity fusion (extreme bonding with the group) and fan type (being an ultra) predicted aggressive behaviours. However, there were differences in the interactive effects of these two variables.
Research on football fans can help shed light on the causes of societally negative behaviours associated with both subgroup membership, and extreme social identities associated with the violence found among a much wider range of gangs, politically ideological groups, and religious or ethnic conflicts.
Paper available to read here
