ABSTRACT
Over the past decades, an organized soccer supporters’ subculture has emerged in the US that resembles European and South American styles of fandom. However, in their politics and activism, these fan groups appear as an exception – both compared with fans of other sports in the US and compared with soccer supporters in Europe. While political slogans are virtually non-existent in the stands of the dominant US spectator sports, organized fans of soccer regularly display political symbols, flags, and banners in the stadium. And while in Europe, public and academic concerns over politics among soccer supporters have primarily been with racism, antisemitism, sexism, and homophobia, political statements by soccer fans in the US are almost exclusively objections to hate and exclusion: Organized fans have displayed LGBT Pride Flags, banners against racism, and statements expressing solidarity with undocumented immigrants. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with soccer supporters’ groups in the US, this chapter argues that a number of factors explain why these politics have emerged among organized fans of soccer, including the demographics of fan groups, the status of soccer as a marginal spectator sport, and the selective appropriation of subcultural codes, styles, and conceptions of soccer fandom found elsewhere in the world.
