Social sciences mostly characterise the relationship between football fans by hostility and rivalry. In recent years, an increasing number of cases of so-called antagonistic cooperation among football fans emerged, where fans unite to achieve a common goal. This study compares the emerge of organisational patterns during cooperation on an international scale, based on a quantitative survey including responses of 73 experts from 50 countries around the world. The study explores general characteristics of the fans, reasons for cooperation, belonging, groups size, tactics and degree of organisation during the cooperation. The results indicate that cooperation like rivalry is an expression of traditional fandom. They emphasise the relationship between belonging and group size, similar as those of tactics and organisational structure.
Brandt et al. (Tue,) studied this question.