Football has always been a sport that evokes passion and fervour in everybody connected with the game. Over the years, clubs have built up rivalries, which usually consist of supporting a team in the same city or region or even rivalries between the biggest clubs in a country.
However, does tribalism still exist in the modern game?
Football is close to a religion for some
When you think about tribalism, it invokes ideas of players and fans clashing, defending their shirt and club honour. In an age where many people have turned away from organised religion, football clubs have become the only thing fans believe in and show any faith in.
Modern life has worn them down. However, their club football stadium is a place where people can still go, feel like they belong, join in songs, and almost worship. For most hardcore fans, their football club is high on their priority list of things they love.
Their football club can elicit the best and worst emotions in fans. When their team wins, they are elated. When they lose, they are deflated, frustrated, and even angry.
When football is a religion 🇲🇽 pic.twitter.com/rEJ2dDe8Mh
— 433 (@433) June 17, 2018
However, whatever happens, real football fans stick by their club through thick and thin. Most fans of football clubs still attend matches knowing that they have little chance of success, as only a small band of clubs hoover up the trophies each season.
Real supporters still turn up to their club’s stadium, hoping and dreaming, looking for that chance to experience positive emotion. Even if their team loses, most match-going supporters moan, brush themselves off and will be back for the next game, wind, rain or shine, because their football stadium is their place of worship.
What football fans disagree
In the 1970s and 1980s, English football was plagued by hooliganism. It marred the beautiful game, at times producing ugly images of the world’s most popular sport.
For many of the fans involved in football hooliganism, it was another way to escape their daily troubles.
There may not be many clashes between opposition fans in the modern game. However, the invention of social media has seen a rise in a new sort of blight on the beautiful game: the keyboard warrior.
The rise of social media means that anybody in the world can say virtually anything to anybody else in the world. Like anything in life, social media can be fantastic if used in a positive manner.
Unfortunately, many people in the world abuse social media and use it to promote their agendas, which are not always positive. Due to the fact that social media sites have very little vetting processes, there are often trolls who decide they want to promote hate between fans of certain clubs.
This is one of the negative aspects of social media and the world we live in. Anonymous accounts on social media are often left to run riot, with very little punishment other than a short ban. They then start a new account under a different name.
The problem many people have is that they believe that social media represents what people feel in real life. However, social media is often a mirror chamber, so some people often only see what they want to see.
Often, social media can be a good gauge of opinion. However, many people live their lives without a strong social media presence. That means they are not party to things that happen online, so the trolls do not sway their opinions. The keyboard warriors who are on specific platforms attempting to manipulate certain groups’ thoughts don’t affect their lives.
Blanket coverage has changed the game
One aspect of the game that has changed tribalism in recent decades has been the advent of blanket television coverage. The fact that football is so accessible to so many people all over the world has changed the game.
Football fans don’t have to trek to the ground and pay a small fortune for a ticket to watch their team. Most fans of the higher profile clubs in world football can watch their team with a flick of their remote or voice command on their television.
While hardcore football fans don’t tend to take this option, some more casual supporters may see this as an alternative to going to the stadium. Unfortunately, this option has led to a generation of football fans in the UK who have never seen their team play live.
There is also the option of watching highlights of every game on YouTube, which has led to many younger people, especially, not paying much attention to a full 90-minute match and instead just watching highlights.
This is a sad state of affairs. The blanket TV and media coverage has been one of the most significant factors in tribalism being diluted in the modern game.
Like the world in general, football has changed with society. Thankfully, the days of violence at football have gone (unless you attend Sunday League or Youth games in England, they can be brutal!)
Tribalism is still in the game, but often, it is connected to a team’s success or failure. New rivalries develop and then disappear. There will always be some tribalism in football, but it is certainly not to the same degree as what it used to be in the past, which may be good, but it may also be bad. Only time will tell which it is.
