Sport in Society

Old wine in the new skin? Modern hooliganism and competitive violence in football

Football hooliganism, namely intergroup, competitive violence of at least two groups of football fans (Spaaij 2006), has been one of the most studied issues in the sport sociology. However, with some exceptions (eg. Grodecki and Rookwood 2025; Kossakowski 2020; van Ham et al. 2022) some time has passed since most of the major theoretical and empirical developments in the field have been made (Taylor 1971; Marsh et al. 1978, Dunning et al. 1988; King 1995; Armstrong 1998; Stott and Reicher 1998; Giulianotti 1999; Spaaij 2006; 2024; Poulton 2012; Pearson 2012). In the meantime, the football hooliganism has evolved. Moral panics around stadium disorders have contributed to the stigmatization of small minority of football hooligans. Along with tragic stadiums disasters in the 1980s they resulted in emergence of wide range of rough policies aiming to target football-related violence, which consequently led to pervasive securitization of football stadiums (Tsoukala 2009; Lee Ludvigsen 2025). Additionally, the commodification of football contributed to replacement of the traditional socio-demographic profile of football audiences in some of the countries, pricing out traditional viewership, including large number of hooligans out of the stadiums (Giulianotti 2011). 

But all these changes did not eliminate fan violence in football. In their consequence, football hooliganism has been largely dislocated from stadiums (Dunning et al. 1988) and game days overall (Spaaij 2007; Antonowicz and Grodecki 2018) changing its character in the process. The traditional model of competitive violence, characterized by hit and run turf wars of hooligan firms, aimed at more symbolic (ritualistic) domination (Marsh et al. 1978), is being replaced by modern hooliganism. The latter is featured by pre-arranged (Spaaij 2007) or setup fights (Antonowicz and Grodecki 2025) of well-organized and professionally trained gangs explicitly aimed at physical domination of opponents. In contrary to traditional form of football hooliganism, which by some scholars is considered as overly researched (Moorhouse 2000), its modern forms remain largely understudied and underdeveloped conceptually (Lee Ludvigsen and Tsoukala 2024). Thus, the new research agenda is required to understand the modern football hooliganism.

This is the main objective of the Old wine in the skin? Modern hooliganism and competitive violence in football special issue in Sport in Society which intends to fill this gap by providing platform for bridging research from around the globe and advance debate on the contemporary forms of fans’ competitive violence in football. Specifically, the proposed special issue aims to characterize the modern forms of football hooliganism, by discussing the influence of wide range of social processes including the role of counter-hooliganism policies, legislative changes, securitization of the football stadiums, commodification or intergenerational changes. Additionally, it will focus on mechanisms of diffusion and adaptation of global (sub)cultural patterns beyond Europe. Finally, special issue will explore also arising problem of criminal activities of hooligan groups, who start to use their organizational skills, closed structures and social capital - develop to avoid legal consequences of their intergroup competitive violence - for organized crime, creating international crime networks specializing in robberies, drug and people trafficking, arms slave etc.

Bearing in mind dimensions sketched above, we would like to welcome proposals of papers focused on, but not necessarily limited to, such areas of the modern football hooliganism as:

• conceptualizations of new forms of competitive violence of football hooligans/ultras;
• ethnographic/anthropological studies of modern hooligan groups;
• analyses of changes in competitive violence in football and hooligan cultures;
• the new rationale of football violence in broader political context of broken (i.e. polarized) societies;
• evaluation of counter-hooliganism policing strategies and its consequences for modern forms of football hooliganism;
• evaluation of legislative changes and its consequences for modern forms of football hooliganism;
• evaluation of securitization of football stadiums and its consequences for modern forms of football hooliganism;
• studies exploring criminal activities of football hooligan/ultras gangs;
• studies analysing processes of transmission and adaptation of global (sub)cultural patterns of hooliganism by local fan cultures;
• analysis of intergenerational changes in hooligan groups;
• influence of COVID-19 on the changes in competitive violence of football hooligans;
• immigrants and football hooliganism;
• international networks of ‘friendships’ or partnerships between hooligans groups in Europe.

We would like to welcome contribution from wide area of social sciences, including sociology, ethnography, anthropology, psychology, criminology, law, social geography, management studies, cultural studies, communication studies and others.

References:

Antonowicz D., Grodecki M. (2018). Missing the goal: Policy evolution towards football-related violence in Poland (1989–2012). International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 53(4), 490–511.

Antonowicz D., Grodecki M. (2025). From English to Polish Disease. Hooligans’ setup fights and their diffusion across Europe. Sport in Society, 1-16. Doi: 10.1080/17430437.2025.2478030

Armstrong, G. (1998). Football Hooligans: Knowing the Score. Oxford: Berg.

Dunning E., Murphy P. J., Williams J. (1988). The roots of football hooliganism: An historical and sociological study. Routledge.

Giulianotti R. (1999). Football. A Sociology of Global Game. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Giulianotti R. (2011) Sport mega events, urban football carnivals and securitised commodification: The case of the English Premier League. Urban Studies, 48(15), 3293-3310.

Grodecki M., Rookwood J. (2025). Why Does Fan Violence Persist in Football? Football Rivalries Ideology, the Reproduction of Football-Related Violence and its Everyday Dimensions. Deviant Behavior, 1-16.

King, A. (1995). Outline of a practical theory of football violence. Sociology, 29(4), 635-651.

Kossakowski, R. (2020). Hooligans, ultras, activists: Polish football fandom in sociological perspective. Springer Nature

Lee Ludvigsen, J. A., Tsoukala, A. (2024). Defining and controlling violent fandom in Europe: more than meets the eye. Soccer & Society, 1-14.

Lee Ludvigsen, J. A. (2025). Insecurities in European Football and Supporter Cultures. Taylor & Francis.

Marsh P., Rosser E., Harré R. (1978). The rules of disorder. Routledge.

Moorhouse, HF. (2000) ‘Book review of “Football hooligans: Knowing the score”’, Urban Studies,  37(8), 1463-1464.

Pearson G. (2012). An Ethnography of English Football Fans: Cans, Cops and Carnivals. Manchester University Press.

Poulton E. (2012). If you had balls, you’d be one of us!’ Doing gendered research: Methodological reflections on being a female academic researcher in the hyper-masculine subculture of ‘football hooliganism. Sociological research online, 17(4): 67-79.

Spaaij R. (2006). Understanding football hooliganism: A comparison of six Western European football clubs. Amsterdam University Press.

Spaaij, R. (2007). Football hooliganism in the Netherlands: Patterns of continuity and change. Soccer & society, 8(2-3), 316-334.

Spaaij R. (2014). Sports crowd violence: An interdisciplinary synthesis. Aggression and violent behavior, 19(2), 146-155.

Stott C., Reicher S. (1998). How conflict escalates: The inter-group dynamics of collective football crowdViolence. Sociology, 32(2), 353-377.

Taylor I. (1971). Football mad: A speculative sociology of football hooliganism. In Dunning E. (Ed.) The Sociology of Sport: A Selection of Reading (pp. 352-377). London: Frank Cass.

Tsoukala A. (2009). Football hooliganism in Europe: Security and civil liberties in the balance. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

van Ham T., Adang O.M., Ferwerda H.B., Doreleijers T.A., Blokland A.A. (2022). Planned Hooligan Fights: Contributing Factors and Significance for Individuals Who Take Part. European Journal of Criminology 19 (5), 954-973.