Why Does Fan Violence Persist in Football? Football Rivalries Ideology, the Reproduction of Football-Related Violence and its Everyday Dimensions

This paper introduces the football rivalries ideology as a theoretical framework for studying football-related violence. The central issues of this framework are the continued prevalence and legitimization of violence within football fandom cultures which is theorized to be provided by football rivalries ideology. The legitimization of violence is understood as a fundamental mechanism behind the reproduction of violence as a practice, and thus the failure of counter-hooliganism practices. The process through which the football rivalries ideology legitimizes various forms of football-related violence is conceptualized as comprising three core mechanisms: (1) the creation or reinforcement of social divisions using the social constructs of football rivalries, (2) the “banalization” of football rivalries in sporting discourses, and (3) the “banalization” of violence as a practice connected to football, specifically to football rivalries. The primary contribution of this article is its focus on the reproduction of football-related violence as a social practice – a problem largely overlooked – and the emphasis on the football rivalries ideology as a theoretical framework to study this process. Additionally, by conceptualizing violence as a product of ideology, the football rivalries ideology theoretical framework can enhance understandings of another understudied aspect, namely the presence of football-related violence in everyday life.