Class wars among devoted football supporters. Hooligan bourgeoisie and non-hooligan proletariat

The paper explores a phenomenon of growing divisions within the Polish football supporters, namely between the hooligans and the rest of devoted supporters. There are three primary aims of the paper: 1) to explain the origin of the more apparent division in the devoted supporters’ community; 2) to characterize the division, and thus – 3) to analyse its potential consequences. The paper draws on 96 interviews with football supporters and a desk research conducted within two different research projects. The analysis shows that divisions occurred as a result of the exploitation of supporters’ cultural, symbolic and economic resources by hooligan groups. What developed as a consequence was a sense of distinct interests between hooligans and the rest of devoted supporters. We interpret this arising awareness using Marx’s categories describing transformation from ‘class in itself’” to “class for itself”.