Football Hooliganism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The first chapter of the book is an manifesto analysis of the great changes football suffered in the last twenty years. It is, if you will, an academic "translation" of the cause of ultras around the world: ”No al calcio moderno”. The chapter is indispensable to understand the broader context of football commodification and the role of the fanatic supporter in this scenery. I have reproduced the "radar" of Giulianotti (2002), identifying four defining types of football fans: ultras, with the most intense affiliation, building subcultural communities around the club, the stand supporter, which will attend home matches, suffering passionately depending on the score, the fan, which will usually be watching TV many kilometers away from the favorites, and the flaneur, a product of postmodernism, which will support simultaneously rival teams and will be less a football spectator by excellence and rather a "consumer" of show and entertainment.

Following the brief analysis of the evolution of football from modernity to postmodernity, from localism to globalism, where this sport gets to turn out from a feast of the working class to a hyper industry show, I left the field diary speak for the ultras, moreover the reference group. Chapter II includes a number of ethnographic situations that sketch a picture of routines and practices of the ultras for "outsiders". What I suppose surprises after reading this part is a very different picture on this group than the one presented by mainstream media and institutions. At the same time, it captures many ethnographic situations which have no direct link with football, the ultras having an unseen existence, far from camera lenses at the derbys or from spectators' eyes at weekend matches in Ștefan cel Mare. Ultras will be a collective character to commemorate a hero, at a wedding of a colleague, at a party, just as they thoroughly do at every game. Although I had no strategy of dismantling myths about them, certain parts of the ethnographic scheme do that. One is their homophobia, moderated by "give a voice to the defendants". Ultras culture is constantly changing and adapting to the global phenomenon they are part of.

The third chapter demonstrates that the ultras share a "culture of participation", their carnivalesque over the weekend is much more than a spectacle of lights and color, being always connected to what's socially important. A high-level corruption case, joining a political protest or the passing of a comrade from another terrace, may be more important events than the football game itself. I used the term "cultural performances" to frame these practices. They are specific to the entire area of the ultras, from Lisbon to the Caucasus. I stopped for a few paragraphs at the analysis of the so-called hate speech, as NGO "experts" like to appoint insults on stadiums. What we have shown is that the ultras use widely considered insulting linguistic tricks to humiliate opponents. Basically, we are talking about a game simulating "the armies" with flags, anthems, and "ultras soldiers" who defend the honor of the team or of the terrace. Insults manichean aims the helplessness or promiscuous identity of the others, that are not as good "soldiers" as those who chant.
Also, the Romanian ultras hate speech is a symbolic one, coming from the need for "turning to ridiculous" / symbolic humiliation of the opponents, a specific element of this culture. Verbal violence is rooted in "homology" / collective participation involving common identity, belonging, sharing a "hard" type masculinity (Goffman, 1959). Ultras play a default role (strong male) who have to be automatically interiorized when in the gallery. In terms of recommendations, I see as indispensable: I. to facilitate communication between state institutions and organized supporters at football matches and II. Closer monitoring by the CNA and specialized NGOs both of the veracity and objectivity of press information about organized groups of fans, as well as messages that galleries are displaying. From my findings, when we look at the concept of violence in general, I see as essential to look upon the idea of "honor" in the Mediterranean and, respectively, Balkans, so you can understand it. For the ultras, violence is a performative act and is connected to the ideas of honor and masculinity to which they must performatively respond. That's why, perhaps, it is so important to define the circumstances and the endless retelling of violent incidents in the history of the terrace.

It is worth mentioning that Romanian ultras movement has transformed as did the Romanian society in the same period. Thus, in the early '90s we had brigades, formed as neighborhood clans, following the mid-2000s they became more heterogeneous. If at the beginning the phenomenon of imitation was after the Italian model, through media, in ten years, self-colonization led to a rather specific English "casuals" current that values consumption and hedonism. A specific element of the ultras in Romania to those in a large part of Western Europe is they are based on network affiliation, clan, which the brigade is built upon, instead of the communitarian type.
For a few pages we discussed Romanian ultras group compared to the "lads" of the famous "Learning to Labour" by Paul Willis. The stake was twofold. Once because Willis's ethnography is probably the most influential theoretical approach to youth cultures: CCCS, and then because it was important testing the hypothesis of ultras' class belonging to explain their behavior and practices. Thus, although the two groups know enough important similarities: sharing a tough guy manhood, subversive attitude and resistance to authority, etc., the ultras are not a subculture "à la carte" as teenagers in Hammertown, the first knowing strong postmodern elements, but also to participating in political change, such as the numerous social causes they supported or public protests attended.
Chapter IV examines one ordinary match day, in terms of understanding the stadium space as a social space, but also as one to exercise power. Thus, we can say that in the unconscious of those who build and perpetuate the dominant culture, there is a dichotomy related to the liminal space of terrace and stadium related to "nature" in opposition to the city and its normativity associated with "culture" . As Gary Armstrong (1998) states, the "hooligan problem is not largely a problem of physical violence, but of aggressive male performance in a controlled environment of strong emotions and expressions" (as a football stadium ).
Terrace life however is not limited to "Saturnalia" just inside the gallery and football matches, but, as we showed in the last chapter, it is a hierarchical upheaval, or a refusal of hierarchical obedience to the authority of the dominant culture, to some state institutions, which are challenged, or to the leadership holding both financial resources as well as those of power in the rest of the time. Ultras' strength comes from their ritualistic position in "liminality". They are the "despised minority" which will sing abruptly about unspoken taboo realities, thus representing a kind of moral arbiter of "the city".

From the perspective of economic relations between the ultras and the terrace and the outside, I conclude that they rather adopt the peasant economic system model, communitarian and survival-oriented than one based on capitalist accumulation and profit. And in terms of Mauss, ultras are, par excellence, some "homo donors" deeply into exchange and reciprocal relations among themselves and with rival galleries. Ultras' choreographies from derbys are a sort of "potlachs", the prestige, strength and unity of the group have to be demonstrated to the major rivals, like a postmodern Kula Ring.
An important subchapter is devoted to the "ultras networks", my assumption being that they are exchange and survival networks (Nazpary: 2002) of the transition, amid a deep social atomization after '89, distrust in state institutions and the disappearance of the welfare state . In other words, in the chaos of the '90s the neighborhood ultras brigade was nothing but a survival strategy for its members, who arrived finally to also tie family relationships, thus strengthening the network.
Chapter VI traces the evolution of the "casuals" style, translated by ultras' fetishization of a specific dress code, arrived in the mid-2000s on the channel of the media and British hooligan style imitation. What is surprising is that in Romania the ultras have not taken style per se, but deeply adapted it. Curiously, casuals style became popular and served as a landmark only for the younger generation of the ultras, that values hyper consumption more than the first boys' brigade for which the district and the group did matter.
The last chapter looks from a goffmanian perspective ultras' relationship with the police. Between the two camps goes a sort of conflict for the "front stage" of the stadium, referees being television and audiences in the stands. However, this part of the paper is sounding the alarm both over the censorship supporters are often subjected, as well as the increasingly strong expansion of "armies" of private stewards that manage the incidents at matches.