The issue of football (soccer)-related fan violence encompasses a broad spectrum of aggressive behaviors associated with football games and the wider football culture. Although this problem has been studied for many decades, it has primarily been explored as a match-day-related issue. In reality, however, fan violence is not confined to the context of matches; it also permeates everyday life. Yet, the problem of everyday fan violence has remained largely untouched by academic research. This article aims to address this gap by (a) empirically identifying and conceptualizing everyday manifestations of football-related fan violence; (b) analyzing how these acts are justified by football fans, thereby explaining how fan violence is transferred, legitimized, and reproduced in everyday settings; and finally, (c) examining how this relates to existing theories on fan violence in football. To this end, this study utilizes data from 41 semi-structured individual interviews with ultras (22) and ordinary football fans (19) supporting Polish football clubs in derby cities/regions. Through abductive thematic analysis of their experiences, we identify nine forms of everyday fan violence, which we categorize into two broader themes relating to their main causes: turf wars and rivalry-driven spontaneous violence . We also identify the primary legitimization strategies employed by Polish football fans to justifying football-related fan violence in everyday settings, categorizing these into two themes: cultural violence and the quest for excitement . Finally, we apply theoretical triangulation by bridging existing theories on fan violence to explain why and how football-related violence is transferred and reproduced in everyday life.
Grodecki et al. (Mon,) studied this question.