Football-Related Violence, Hegemonic Masculinity, and the Politics of Exclusion: Fandom and Football in Post-Transition Eastern and Central Europe

The main goal of this article is to examine football fan culture in post-transition Eastern and Central Europe. While the region includes countries with varied histories, ethnicities, and religious influences, a shared communist past has shaped their social trajectories. The article argues that contemporary fan culture—marked by symbolic and physical violence, rigid gender norms emphasizing traditional masculinity, and right-wing exclusionary ideologies—has roots in this postcommunist legacy. As such, any sociological analysis of the football fan environment must be grounded in the region's contemporary history, without which the story of fans and football would remain incomplete.