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The FREE project and the feminization
of football: the role of women in the
European fan community
Svenja-Maria Mintert
a
& Gertrud Pfister
a
a
Faculty of Science, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and
Sports, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Published online: 23 Sep 2014.
To cite this article: Svenja-Maria Mintert & Gertrud Pfister (2015) The FREE project and the
feminization of football: the role of women in the European fan community, Soccer & Society,
16:2-3, 405-421, DOI: 10.1080/14660970.2014.961383
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2014.961383
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The FREE project and the feminization of football: the role of
women in the European fan community
Svenja-Maria Mintert* and Gertrud Pfister
Faculty of Science, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen,
Copenhagen, Denmark
This article presents questions, methods, theories and early results of a study
which is part of the conglomerate Football Research in an Enlarged Europe
(FREE). A sub-project of FREE deals with the ‘feminisation of football’, by
exploring the role of women as football players and fans in a European context.
To answer whether, and to what extent, women are members of the European
fan community, we interviewed dedicated female fans of Danish men’s football
teams about the ways they support their clubs and their interest in, and identification
with, clubs and teams in other countries. The interviews revealed that
most women were interested in football on a European level and that many even
travelled to football matches abroad where they enjoyed not only the matches,
but also the live atmosphere. The interviewees combined their loyalties to their
clubs with an interest in, and an identification with, foreign teams.
Introduction
This paper presents issues, questions and results of a study which was conducted in
the context of the interdisciplinary collaborative research cluster Football Research
in an Enlarged Europe (FREE).1
The aim of the FREE project is to explore the role
of sport, in particular football, in the creation of Europe as a cultural space and to
find answers to the question of whether football encourages dialogues among Europeans
and, if so, whether these dialogues contribute to a common identity of populations
who have been enemies, or at least competitors and rivals, for centuries. The
scholars participating in FREE assume that football fans, in particular the members
of transnational fan communities, share loyalties to their chosen clubs as well as
experiences, values and identification processes. In this way, they stimulate European-wide
football dialogues and contribute to a construction of ‘Europeanness’
which may extend beyond the game.
These hypotheses are supported by numerous and various developments, for
example, media representations and patterns of consumption. These indicate that
football has become a transnational venture which changed not only the game, but
also the forms of football fandom and identification with stars, teams and clubs.
Scholars, among them Sandvoss, Giulianotti and Robertson, draw our attention to
the ‘transnational character’ of star players and legendary Champions League clubs,
such as Manchester United, FC Barcelona or Bayern Munich, clubs that attract
global communities of supporters and form ‘“self-invented virtual diasporas” as they
*Corresponding author. Email: sm.mintert@nexs.ku.dk
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
Soccer & Society, 2015
Vol. 16, Nos. 2–3, 405–421, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2014.961383
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are forged from the global dispersal of club-focused images and products, and from
the voluntaristic identification of individuals with club-related symbols and prac-
tices’.2
Studies reveal that those clubs are ‘supported’ by large communities of transnational
audiences, who enjoy the excitement of the game, not least through the
opportunity of BIRGing (basking in reflected glory).3
Besides an object of identification,
football has also become a source of self-assurance and a means of selfrepresentation.
For hard-core fans, football is an intrinsic part of their identities as
well as an important issue of communication.4
Fans choose their club(s), not only
because of geographical proximity, but also, often unconsciously, according to the
values and images that the various clubs embody and present.
Based on these insights and hypotheses, the FREE project explores whether,
how and why football can be a source of a single European identity. A special focus
is placed on ‘transnational’ fandom and on the community of national and international
supporters of European clubs, which encourage the exchange of information,
the development of knowledge and the formation of a European identity which is
centred on football, but which may shift to other areas, including culture, politics or
everyday lives. Besides providing an overview of fandom in Europe, each research
group within the FREE project focuses on specific aims, tasks and topics. Currently,
the participants in this project are exploring these hypotheses by means of media
analyses, surveys and interviews in their respective countries.
The research group in Denmark: exploring women’s football and fans
Up to now, football research has been a predominately male domain. Male scholars
conduct research on men’s football and on male fans. However, without a gender
perspective, their discussions and results seem to be universal; referring to ‘mankind’,
which seems to include women, but, in reality, makes them invisible. In consideration
of these deficits of previous football research, the participants of FREE
projects decided that gender should be an issue in all projects and that the group in
Denmark should focus particularly on women’s football and female fans in all the
countries involved. Although this article explores the role of women in the European
fan community, we provide some information about the development and situation
of the game, and its players, as the history and current situation of women’s football
may have an impact on the development of women’s fandom, due to potential connections
between playing and consuming football.5
Football is a game invented by and for men. Until 1970, the national and international
football federations did not support women’s football teams and games. Since
then, the number of female players and tournaments, as well as the skills of the players
and the quality of play, has increased considerably. In recent decades, women’s
football seems to have experienced a breakthrough and, according to information
provided by FIFA, 29 million girls and women play football worldwide, 12% of
youth players are female and the numbers of female footballers continues to
increase.6
In line with the mounting performance levels of female players and teams,
the number of audiences and fans has also increased. An example is the TV coverage
of the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Germany. This programme reached an
in-home television audience of 408 million people, and a total of over 5900 h of
coverage were aired worldwide.7
The numbers of players, and the interest of large
audiences in women’s top matches, provides clear evidence of the global acceptance
of women’s football. However, there are still huge differences between the
406 S.-M. Mintert and G. Pfister
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popularity of men’s and women’s matches, and we do not know much about the
crowds who support women’s teams. Not only the male and female fans of women’s
football, but also female fans in general, form a group which is as yet, insufficiently
researched.
Despite an increasing interest in women and football, the numbers, motivations
and forms of consumption of female football fans remain underresearched. Scholars
conducted interviews with female supporters revealing a high degree of discrimination
in the fan stands, but also showing that women found ways and means to deal
with resistance and enjoy fandom. The available studies focus on the situations of
female football supporters in few countries, for example, in Germany, UK, Italy and
Spain, although a European perspective on women’s football and fandom is
lacking.8
The FREE project aims at closing this research gap, thus making female
football consumers and supporters more visible.
Aims and questions of the Danish researchers
The task of the Danish scholars of the FREE project is to investigate the ‘feminisation
of football’, with a focus on female members of the national and European football
and fan communities. Main research questions are whether and, if so, how
women participate in the diverse European football cultures as managers, coaches,
players and, in particular, fans. This includes the development and situation of
women’s football in various European countries, the conditions and migration of
female players, and the media coverage of women’s football events. A specific focus
is placed on female football fans and how they conform to, or resist, fan cultures
dominated by men, how they use fandom for their own gendered projects, and
whether they position themselves in the discursive field of European football.
Surveys and interviews conducted not only in Denmark, but also in the other
participating countries, provide answers to these questions.
The aim of this article is to explore and understand women’s transnational football
experiences and dialogues, as well as their role in the European supporter scene.
The main questions are whether and to what extent women are integrated in the
European fan community, and what their backgrounds, motives, interests,
expectations and practices are. This paper focuses on female fans in Denmark, and
aims to improve our current knowledge and understanding of their participation in
football consumption, in general, and in European football events and dialogues, in
particular.
Women and fandom – background information
The answer to the question of whether or how women participate in European football
depends primarily on the number of female fans and the involvement of women
generally in communities of football supporters. In an article entitled ‘Female fans
of men’s football – a case study in Denmark’, the authors provide information on
gender ratios in various fan communities, for example, among media users and
spectators at stadiums.9
Available Danish studies yielded similar results to research in other countries.
Damsgaard et al. revealed that 15% of the members of official fan clubs in the
Danish top football league (Superligaen) were female.10
In an internet-based survey
of Danish fans, Havelund et al. discovered that, of the 1775 respondents, only 9%
Soccer & Society 407
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were women.11
The extensive exploration of available information conducted by
Pfister, Lenneis and Mintert has revealed to a similar result: around 10% of dedicated
Danish fans are women. The authors also emphasize that ‘football plays a different
role in men’s and women’s socialisation as well as in their lives’ and that it
provides different ‘uses and gratifications’ for the two genders. ‘Football consumption
– live or via the mass media – is an arena for doing gender, in particular for
acting out hegemonic masculinity in the community of mostly male fans’.12
Surveys in various European countries, such as Germany and the UK, confirm
the marginalization of women among fans, in general, and in football stadiums, in
particular. Pope states that ‘female fans are estimated to make up around fifteen to
nineteen percent of all Premier League fans and around one-quarter of fans at some
clubs’.13
Depending on the type of involvement and the context, the percentage of
female football supporters in Denmark ranges from 10 to 30%. Whereas quite a
large percentage of women watch football on TV, the number of female fans in the
stadium is only around 10%. In the fan stands, women form an even smaller
minority. Women’s interest in the game also varies depending on their nationality. In
Germany, women seem to be more interested in attending football matches than in
other countries. At some Bundesliga matches, the percentage of women among the
crowds is around 20–30%.14
However, attending a game does not necessarily reveal
the degree of fan involvement; some women in the stadium may be dedicated fans
while others may just accompany their partners or friends. For many people, both
men and women, the game is a form of entertainment which offers opportunities for
various ways of ‘doing gender’.
The aforementioned numbers reveal that a large percentage of women do not,
and cannot, participate in European football dialogues because they simply do not
follow football, either at a national or European level. However, it is still debatable
whether the small group of active female fans is interested in, or even identifies
with, teams of other countries.
Theories and methods
The questions raised and the hypotheses put forward in this article derive from various
theoretical concepts which provide insights into, and an understanding of, the
gender differences among fans, as well as on fandom, in general, and its meaning
for groups and individuals in a mediatized and globalized world.15
We claim that
interest in football is acquired through socialization processes, embodied and embedded
in self-constructions and identities, and performed in real or virtual interactions
on and off the football ground. Fandom is constructed, gendered and adopted in
cultures and societies as well as in individual lives.16
Based on the information and theoretical approaches presented above, we constructed
questions, developed guidelines and conducted an interview study with 12
Danish female football fans. The interviews, carried out between March and August
2013, provided space for individual narratives of specific football-related issues. The
interviewees were approached during football matches and through snowball sampling,
with initial respondents providing names and contact details of other members
of our target group.17
Information about their private lives, education and professions
is provided in Table 1, which is based on a short questionnaire filled in by all
subjects. All interviewed women whose ages ranged from 26 to 59 years were
recorded as being dedicated fans of a men’s football team since childhood.
408 S.-M. Mintert and G. Pfister
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Table 1. Socio-demographical data of the interviewed women.
Interviewee Age
Fan of
Danish team
Fan of
European team
Fan
club
member Occupation
Civil
status
Amalie 52 Lyngby BK Roma (Italy) Former Nursery nurse Married, 2
children
Bente 37 Lyngby BK Platanias FC,
Crete (Greece)
Yes Paramedic Married
Caroline 30 Lyngby BK Liverpool FC
(England) FC
Bayern
Munich
(Germany)
Yes Office assistant Single
Ditte 31 Lyngby BK Fútbol Club
Barcelona
(Spain)
Borussia
Mönchen-
gladbach
(Germany)
Swansea City
Association FC
(Wales, but
playing in
English
league)
Yes Administrator
(Lyngby BK)
Engaged
Emilie 34 Lyngby BK Yes Pharmacist Married, 2
children
Frederike 37 Lyngby BK Borussia
Dortmund
(Germany)
Former Head of
Communications
Married, 2
children
Grethe 26 Brøndby IF Liverpool FC
(England)
Yes Office assistant Cohabiting,
1
child
Hanne 29 FC
København
Liverpool FC
(England)
Yes Media boss Single
Ida 59 Boldklubben
1893
FC Bayern
Munich
Borussia
Dortmund
(both
Germany)
No Teacher Widowed,
2 children
Johanna 39 Danish
national team
No Teacher Single
Luna 32 FC
København,
FC
Nordsjælland
Fútbol Club
Barcelona
(Spain)
Arsenal
(England)
Yes Marketing
manager
Co-
habiting
Nanna 37 Danish
national team
Manchester
United
(England) FC
St. Pauli
(Germany)
No Media secretary Married, 2
children
Soccer & Society 409
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Among the interviewees was one fan of the Superligaen team Brøndby IF, one
fan of FC Nordsjælland, two fans of FC Copenhagen and six fans of the 1st
Division club Lyngby Boldklub. One woman supports the lower division team
Boldklubben af 1893 and two fans support only the Danish national team. Seven of
the 12 interviews took place in the fans’ homes, four at the university’s sports
department and one at the Lyngby BK clubhouse. They lasted between 42 and
69 min and were conducted in either Danish or English, according to the participants’
preference. The texts were digitally recorded and transcribed in the language
of the interview, with pseudonyms used to safeguard the interviewees’ anonymity.
The interview transcripts were coded and analysed in the qualitative data analysis
software Atlas.ti.
Results
According to Giulianotti’s ‘taxonomy of spectator identities in football’, all 12 interviewees
were ‘hot’ fans, meaning that they were loyal supporters of a football club
and, in the case of our interviewees, since childhood.18
Although all informants
were dedicated fans with a high degree of attachment to their clubs, their experience
of football, as well as their fan biographies and ways of expressing or living out
their loyalty, were different. The interviews contained various narratives on becoming
and being a female football fan in Denmark. They also revealed that being a
dedicated fan of a Danish club was compatible with an interest in, or identification
with, clubs of other European countries. Ten of the 12 interviewees supported a
foreign club, most of them clubs in the Premier League (England), Bundesliga
(Germany) or Primera División (Spain). One Lyngby fan also followed Platanias
FC of Crete, playing in the Greek Super League.
These double or even multiple loyalties raise the question of how fans balance
their interest in, and support of, different clubs and how they combine their Danish
fan identities with an identification with a club of another country. Does the support
of their club at home differ from their membership of a European fan community?
Four of the 12 interviewees have played football in clubs, and others had gained
experiences with the game in unorganized settings. All of them had a clear focus on
men’s football, despite the proliferation of women’s football in the country and their
own previous involvement in the game, none of the interviewees followed a
women’s team.
Female fans in Denmark – narratives
Being a female fan in Denmark
Six of the 12 interviewees were supporters of Lyngby BK and all, according to their
narratives, were dedicated and authentic fans, deeply involved with their club, teams
and players. Four were current, and two previous, members of the official fan club
the Blue Vikings; two were also members of the Female Vikings, a women-only fan
club founded by hard-core female fans with the aim of creating a space, in which
women can be fans and follow their own agenda.
The assumption that women with an interest in, and experiences of, football
follow not only men’s, but also women’s, football is not supported by our findings.
A typical example of the opinions of the interviewees is the statement of Caroline
who played football for 15 years. She said: ‘I do not watch women’s football, I think
410 S.-M. Mintert and G. Pfister
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it’s boring’. Other women agree with Caroline, describing men’s football as ‘exciting’
and women’s football as a ‘different game’. Ida, who started to play as a child,
followed the matches of the women’s European Championship in Sweden in 2013
on TV and stated that ‘I must say that I actually look at it as another game. When
men play football, it is one game, and when women play, then it’s a different game’.
The interviewees described and expressed their loyalty to their club and its men’s
top team in various ways. Caroline, a Female Viking, confessed that as a Lyngby
BK fan, she had ‘trouble supporting the Danish national team’, not least because she
did not like many of the national team players. She could not remember the last time
she supported the Danish team. Emilie, president of the Blue Vikings, shared Caroline’s
opinion. She, too, was not very interested in the national team because she
could not identify with the players: ‘For me, football is a lot of emotion, and the
national team is just a collection of random players’. She revealed to watch games
of the Danish national team when she ‘[didn’t] have anything else to do’, but she
did not consider those games as ‘something she bother[ed] about’. Some interviewees
remembered that they loved to watch the national team as children, not least
because the football was so much better than the football played by the teams of
their clubs. Ditte, currently employed by Lyngby BK, confessed that she had ‘loved
watching matches of the national team’, but as she increasingly identified with
Lyngby BK, she lost interest in football at national and international levels.
Interest in football and attachment to a club can be regarded as the result of
socialization processes. All informants stated that their enthusiasm for football had
started in childhood when they attended football games with their parents, siblings
or other relatives. Frederike was particularly lucky because she could often accompany
her father, a TV reporter, to the stadium. Later, she played football for Lyngby
BK, became a coach of a girls’ team and a member of the Blue Vikings.
During their teenage years, most of the interviewees went to away matches by
bus. Today, six of the women interviewed regularly attended their club’s matches, at
least when the team played at home in Lyngby. However, when they had the time,
they also travelled to away games. Ditte, a paramedic, reported that she worked
shifts and if she did not have a television nearby, she listened to the radio broadcast
because she did ‘not want to miss anything’. The women interviewed could not
imagine missing a single match. Ditte explained her attachment to the team as
follows: ‘I can’t be more interested. On Sundays we [Lyngby fans] start at one pm
and end at nine o’clock here in our house, so I do not think I can become more
interested in football and more committed’.
All fans of Lyngby BK interviewed were deeply attached to, and identified with,
their club. Being a fan of Lyngby BK was part of their self-concepts and identities,
as well as an important aspect of their daily routines; for many of them, the club is
an intrinsic part of their lives. Bente even got married at Lyngby stadium wearing
the club’s football jersey, thus football plays an important role in, and for, the social
relations of football followers and supporters. Fan groups are cliques of people with
the same addiction, communities of practice which focus on the support of a team.
By joining the Blue Vikings and founding the Female Vikings, some of the interviewees
even institutionalized their bonds with the club.
For many women, attending football matches with husbands, relatives or friends
was a way of spending time and sharing a common interest with people they were
attached to. Amalie, who lived close to the Lyngby BK stadium, usually attended
every home game in the company of her husband or her parents. All members of
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her family were lifelong supporters of the club. Both her 25- and 28-year-old sons
were active members of the Blue Vikings and involved in different fan activities (i.e.
creating banners, writing newsletters, composing songs).
Whereas some Lyngby BK fans – especially members of the Blue and the
Female Vikings – were only interested in the games of their team, other interviewees
also supported the Danish national team. Johanna, for example, was six years old
when she began to support the national team. She soon knew the names of all the
players by heart and the results of the games. For her, football was more interesting
at the national level because of the better quality of the matches.
All 12 interviewees agreed that football played an important role in their everyday
lives. For 54 years, 59-year-old Ida has supported the local team Boldklubben
af 1893, which currently plays in the Second Division. Around 20 years ago, the
mother of two sons (now 28 and 27 years old) watched her children playing football,
and emphasized in the interview that for her it was ‘the excitement of the live
game and the experience of being there and cheering’. Although she reported that
she enjoyed supporting her local football club, she stated that she would also like to
watch other games, but did not like to go to a football match on her own. The last
time she went to Parken and watched an FC Copenhagen match together with her
eldest son, she was very enthusiastic about it and enjoyed being among thousands
of spectators.
For the last 19 and 16 years, respectively, Luna has cheered for the Superligaen
clubs, FC Copenhagen and FC Nordsjælland. Luna is a dedicated fan of both clubs
and talked at length about football. Her ‘split loyalty’ does not seem to affect her
enthusiasm for both teams. She told us that when she was not watching football, she
discussed it with her father, sister and male colleagues. In addition, she posted
updates and comments about match reports and results on Facebook. She subscribed
to FC Copenhagen’s fan club magazine, Brølet, and read all kinds of football
publications.
Another dedicated fan was Grethe, a member of Brøndby Support Club. Since
the age of 16, she has been involved in various fan activities from preparing tifos
(pre-game celebrations) and sewing flags to collect money for the fan club.
Currently, she was taking a ‘baby break’, but could not wait to take her small child
to the stadium.
Despite the differences between the interviewees, with regard to age, social background
or personal circumstances, they shared a common interest: their love of football
and long-term loyalty to a football club. This dedication to football
distinguishes the interviewees from the majority of the female population and makes
them part of the community of predominantly male fans. This raises the question of
whether or how the fans interviewed extend their fandom beyond borders, i.e.
whether or how they support clubs and teams in other countries.
Danish fans and their interest in football abroad
Female fans of foreign teams
Ten of our interviewees reported that they supported football clubs in other countries.
Among the most popular clubs named were Borussia Dortmund, Bayern
Munich (both Germany), Liverpool FC (England) and FC Barcelona (Spain). All of
them followed their teams on television. Ida, for example, supported two clubs:
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Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. She followed important games, such as the
semi-finals and finals of the Champions League, on television and enjoyed seeing
‘her clubs’ win, for example, in 2013, when they defeated the two Spanish clubs FC
Barcelona and Real Madrid, respectively. Two months after the German Champions
League final, she followed the last round of the 2013 UEFA Super Cup final and
stated that ‘it was great for Dortmund to win against Bayern Munich’.
Eight of our interviewees shared their interest in football with their partners,
which meant that they could spend ‘quality time’ together attending football matches
at the stadium and watching football on TV. Some fans were able to combine their
private life, commitments as a fan and work. For example, Ditte, employed as an
administrator at Lyngby BK and engaged to one of her colleagues cheered for
Lyngby BK, but at the same time supported FC Barcelona (Spain), Borussia
Mönchengladbach (Germany) and Swansea City Association Football Club (Wales,
but playing in the English Premier League) – at the time of interview, managed by
the former Danish footballer Michael Laudrup. Ditte explained that her boyfriend
was a long-time ardent fan of Borussia Mönchengladbach, ‘Barça’ and Swansea,
therefore, she considered it natural to watch the games with him. However, she stated
that she ‘does not suffer with them as much as with Lyngby, and never will do’.
Five of the interviewees reported that they regularly followed news about players
and transfers of teams outside Denmark in online and print media and two of the
women interviewed (Bente and Hanne) engaged with their fandom in such a way
that their lives focused on following and supporting football clubs in Denmark and
abroad. In particular, Hanne, 29 years of age and single, was totally absorbed by
football, in particular the English Premier League. She had been a supporter of Liverpool
FC (UK) from the age of 15 and member of their fan club since the age of
19. On television, Hanne primarily watched the English Premier League and all
matches televized on the channels she could receive. Additionally, she used various
Premier League, Liverpool FC, sport live score and TV2 sport applications on her
mobile phone in order to receive news about the football league in England. Luna
was involved in football to a similar degree to Hanne. She supported four different
football clubs (FC Copenhagen and FC Nordsjælland in Denmark, FC Barcelona in
Spain and Arsenal in England) and, therefore, followed the Danish, Spanish,
English, Champions and European leagues, as well as the Danish national team and
the European and World Championships. According to her, she watched football on
TV more or less daily, ‘when possible almost every match’, which meant that her
TV football consumption might add up to four matches per day. She said that
‘football in general is very important’ in her everyday life. Although Luna had no
children, she might be tied up with work, and in this case, she recorded the matches
and football highlights of her teams.
Danish ‘travelling fans’
Seven interviewees travelled to various European football matches on a more or less
regular basis. Nanna, for example, supported Manchester United (England) and FC
St. Pauli 1910 (Germany). She admitted: ‘I used to travel a lot to watch football’,
mainly with her husband who supports the same teams.
Many of the interviewees were involved in more than one footballing community,
and there were various ways of practising ‘international fandom’, such as by
following teams in the media or by attending matches abroad. Lyngby fans Amalie,
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Bente, Caroline and Frederike used the opportunity to explore football in Europe
during their travels. Besides being members of a Danish club, they watched football
matches abroad and met supporters, some of whom had become friends. Bente was
a fan of Platanias FC, a football club based in Platanias, Chania (Crete) and playing
in the Greek Super League. The wedding of Bente and her husband took place at
the Lyngby stadium, where the couple celebrated their marriage with their football
friends. A second celebration took place in Crete at the Platanias FC stadium. Bente
explained in the interview how she combined tourism and fandom:
I follow the club because we like to travel to Crete, in particular to the cities of Chania
and Platanias. There, we became fans of the local football club which has been
successful in the top league in Greece. That’s where my friends are.
During her travels to Greece, Bente met numerous football supporters, establishing a
social network supporting Platanias FC. The joy of a match day in Platanias is
linked to socializing with, and talking to, more fans, as well as meeting locals
outside the fan community.
Other interviewees also travelled to matches abroad and even integrated their
passion for football into their holiday activities. Amalie, for example, attended a
national game between Norway and Denmark in Oslo two years ago with her husband.
She revealed that they also regularly visited Rome, where they attended football
matches and ‘[tried] to experience a different atmosphere’. The couple went to
Rome for the first time on their honeymoon five years ago, and were planning future
trips to Italy which included the opportunity of attending football matches.
Luna emphasized the importance of large football audiences and the feeling of
being part of the crowd. In 2012, she attended an FC Barcelona match at Camp
Nou, the club’s home ground, and was overwhelmed by the atmosphere during this
game. Luna was sure that she would continue supporting her foreign team in future.
She was confident that her attachment to this club was something that would never
change and she hoped to watch more games in Barcelona ‘just because it is a greater
experience to sit at Camp Nou with 100,000 supporters than at FC Nordsjælland’s
stadium with 5,000 supporters’.
Most women talked in their interviews about experiencing a sense of togetherness
when being at the stadium. Hanne is a fan of Liverpool FC. She even managed to
travel to England to watch a game of her club in 2012. She mentioned in the interview
that she ‘would go to Liverpool matches more often’ if she lived in England.
She also described how she had established bonds with other Liverpool fan club
members in Denmark. During her journey to England she bumped into a group of
Liverpool supporters from Odense, Denmark, whom she did not know well, ‘but
now’, she said in the interview, ‘we regard them as friends’. For her, having a group
of Liverpool fans as friends was a means of showing solidarity with her club.
Frederike, too, shared with us stories and experiences as a ‘travelling fan’. During
the 1992 UEFA European Football Championship, Denmark played against the
Netherlands. Frederike attended this game and was impressed by being among
37,450 spectators in the stadium in Gothenburg: ‘I went there; it was so crazy that I
got tickets for it; even for the final’. In the extra time of the semi-final, Denmark
defeated the Netherlands, and Frederike remembered: ‘This was such a long match,
and we were not many Danish roligans [peaceful fans of the Danish national team],
only a few. My favourite player at that time was Flemming Poulsen, and when he
scored, I think that was like “wow”. I was so happy!’
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As a teenager, Frederike wrote to the German football magazine Kicker, presenting
herself as ‘Danish football girl looking for pen friends in Germany’. She got
numerous answers, travelled to North Rhine-Westphalia to visit one of the ‘candidates’
and to watch a Borussia Dortmund match. From then on, she was a loyal
Borussia fan and even cheered for the German team, when they played against
Brøndby IF at the Brøndby stadium. She remembered that the security guards tried
to deny her access to the Borussia fan stands because she was a Danish girl and,
therefore, supposed to cheer for the Danish team, but she argued with them: ‘I am a
fan of Borussia, I am wearing my Borussia shirt, why can’t I support my team?’
Once they had entered the stadium, some Borussia fans took her by the hand,
elbowed their way through the crowd and finally got her to the Borussia fan stands.
Around 20 years ago, with other Danish football friends, Frederike attended a
legendary match between the two famous Old Firm clubs in Glasgow, Rangers and
Celtic, in the Scottish Premier League. However, one of her best experiences as a
football fan was a match at Anfield between Liverpool FC and Manchester United.
All Liverpool FC fans were standing and singing the club song, You’ll Never Walk
Alone, which she only knew from television. She remembered that she ‘got up
cheering together with the other fans and felt great to be part of this event’. However,
Frederike was also reminded of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, when she
observed an overcrowded stadium. Although this experience had been a bit ‘scary’,
Frederike was sure that she would be a Liverpool fan forever.
The narratives of the travelling fans revealed that they had experienced unforgettable
moments attending matches of their dream teams and that they had developed
a high measure of loyalty to their clubs abroad, although they could only sustain
long-distance relationships. In addition, being a fan of a prestigious club provided
attention and reputation at home. As Frederike mentioned in the interview, being a
Liverpool FC fan was ‘some form of image-making’.
Women following Danish star players working abroad
Interest in, and identification with, foreign teams can be triggered by fans identifying
with players. One way of developing an attachment to a club abroad may be to follow
and support a Danish player in one of the European teams, and to transfer this
interest to the club for which he is playing.
Three of our interviewees followed – more or less intensively – footballers who
played in another country, with two of them (Frederike and Grethe) cheering for the
Danish player Daniel Agger (Danish talent of the year 2005), who played for
Brøndby IF from 2004 until 2006, before joining the Premier League team Liverpool
FC. Grethe stated that she ‘liked the fact that he was modest, down to earth,
quiet and calm’. She did not think that he was ‘snobbish’ and believed that ‘he still
cares for what is happening in Hvidovre’, Agger’s home city. She described his
attitude as having ‘his feet on the ground’. This example shows that a successful
Danish player can divert the interest of Danish fans and create an enthusiasm for
foreign clubs, in this case Liverpool FC.
Hanne’s favourite player is Liverpool FC’s Steven Gerrard. The versatile
midfielder is loved by fans of the club; he is captain of Liverpool FC as well as
frequent captain of the English national team. Gerrard is portrayed in the media as
‘a true leader and a tireless runner with outstanding vision’.19
Hanne said that she
liked him in particular because:
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he grew up, learned to play and has always played in the same club; no matter how
many offers he has received from big clubs, he has always stayed in the same club. He
really is where his heart lies, loyal and a great ambassador for all the fans and kids
who are fans, the city’s children. He has integrity and I think that’s incredibly refreshing
in a world where they [footballers] are traded for a lot of money and often lured
with big games and trophies.
A further example of a transfer of interest in a player to the support of a team is
provided by Lyngby BK fan Caroline. She regularly watches games of the Champions
and English Premier leagues, especially Liverpool FC and Bayern Munich
(Germany). A few years ago she got attached to Bayern Munich because she discovered
the French football player Franck Ribéry. Last year, Caroline bought an expensive
ticket through a semi-legal agency and travelled to Munich to watch a
Bundesliga match in the Allianz Arena. For Caroline, it was a great experience:
instead of going to a Lyngby BK match in the Superligaen with 1300 spectators, she
watched a match between Bundesliga teams along with 69,000 spectators. She said
that she knew that ‘Germany [was] well known for the atmosphere in their league
matches’ and her experience lived up to her expectations. She did not care that the
ticket was overpriced: ‘I think that’s totally fine; it was worth every penny. I was a
hundred percent in the stadium’.
The majority of the interviewees were interested mostly in the cult teams of the
European football scene. They named various reasons for supporting one of these
teams, for example, a player who attracted their attention because he previously
played football in Denmark or because he was a star with positive attitudes and,
therefore, a subject for identification. There are many ways of following and supporting
footballers from a distance; some women combined their fandom with their
passion for travel, while others watched live games on television in bars together
with friends and other football fans.
Discussion and concluding remarks
The point of departure of the interviews presented in this article was the outcome of
an investigation into female football fans in Denmark.20
This inquiry, along with the
results of existing fan research in a Danish, as well as European, context, revealed a
considerable underrepresentation of women among football supporters. The number
of female fans, moreover, decreases with the intensity of fan commitment. Among
the hard-core fans who dominate the fan stands and dictate behaviour, women form
a tiny minority.21
The small number of female fans and the hierarchical gender order
among football supporters gave reason to assume that women were not interested in
European football and were not members of a European football community.
However, the results of this study show that those women who develop an interest
in football can be as dedicated and loyal as their male fellows. They share with
male fans their football-related emotions, habits and practices, such as the consumption
of football through the mass media, their attachment to their club(s), their attendance
at matches and their forms of support – by cheering, singing fan songs and
participating in choreographies in the stadium. Several interviews reveal that women
invest a high amount of passion and commitment in football consumption. The
results also demonstrate the interviewees’ loyalty by consuming and putting on
display various club-related paraphernalia and clothing, such as scarves or jerseys,
as an expression of their identities and a demonstration of their fan loyalties.22
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The specific attire, mostly in the colours of the club, reinforces a feeling of identity
and belonging, which is an intrinsic feature of fandom.
The women in our study integrated fandom into their everyday lives and supported
their teams, enjoying ‘the feeling that they are important and “belong”’.23
Fandom offers them the opportunity to experience a sense of cohesion and community.
Several interviewees talked about this attachment and their deep conviction that
football was a part of their lives, that the other fans were something like a family,
and that their club was their second home.
Like male fans, our interviewees, too, spent a considerable amount of time and
money on football consumption, both at home and abroad.24
All women interviewed
attended the games of their team as often as possible, and most of them were willing
to use their leisure time to work for their club, for example, in preparing choreographies
and tifos, including stomping, jumping, shouting, singing, drumming, waving
banners or lighting fireworks. Many statements in the interviews highlighted the
degree of passion and commitment that could be put into football consumption.
Some of the fans interviewed not only supported their Danish club, but also travelled
abroad and were willing to pay for ‘overpriced’ tickets just to be able to see
their ‘dream team’ play. In the narratives about their ‘foreign clubs’, the fans showed
a genuine emotional attachment, emphasizing the exceptional circumstances of their
first encounters with these clubs and the special relationship that arose with their
‘cult team’, leading to a deep bond with it. However, the forms of their attachment
and the strengths of their ties, as well as the ways of acting out their fandom, differed
considerably. One of the fans celebrated her wedding at the Lyngby BK stadium
and a second time with her football friends in Crete; other interviewees used
their holidays to experience unforgettable football matches in the awe-inspiring environments
of packed mega stadia. For these fans, the competition between the teams
and the outcome of the match were still important, but they also enjoyed the event
itself, the entertainment surrounding the match and the atmosphere in the fan stands.
The fans interviewed experienced football consumption as a collective event.
Most of them shared their interest with their partner, many also with other family
members and/or friends. Some interviewees described how ‘significant others’,
mostly fathers or brothers, ‘introduced’ them to football in their childhood. These
findings are supported by other studies which emphasize that fandom is adopted
through various processes of socialization.25
Theoretical concepts of socialization
provide an insight into the mechanism of acquiring habits and tastes, for instance,
an interest in football. Sandvoss emphasizes that football in general, but a specific
club in particular, is integrated into the fans’ identities and used as a means of selfassurance
and communication.26
Being a fan of a specific team is an important and
significant message to other fans, as well as to their social environment in general.
However, our interviewees are not just football supporters; they are women and,
thus, also confronted with the prevailing norms and ideals of femininity in society.
Lorber emphasizes the importance of gender categories in societies and understands
gender as a ‘binary system of social organisation’, which is embedded in subjectivities,
presented in social encounters and ‘embodied’.27
Gender researchers agree that
gender is not something we are or we have, but, according to Rakow, ‘something
we do and something we think with, both a set of social practices and a system of
cultural meaning’.28
Sport in general, and football in particular, is a concept and a
practice which systematically identifies and ‘naturalises’ differences, including
diversities between women and men. There is men’s football, the passion of our
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interviewees and women’s football, which they do not acknowledge. In the
interviews, the participants downplayed femininity and emphasized that true fandom
was gender neutral. However, their narratives revealed that there were gendered
expectations which female fans had to meet, such as being football ugly by wearing
jeans, t-shirts and flat shoes, showing their dedication through working for the club
or demonstrating their football expertise. Many interviewees shared their fandom
with their partners, which may also contribute to their acceptance within the fan
community.
The football-related aims, activities and practices of our interviewees, along with
their commitment, correspond with the ideologies and behaviour patterns of female
fans in other countries. Our results are consistent with the findings of English and
German studies, such as those by Pope and Sülzle, which focus on female fans of
men’s teams in their respective countries.29
Studies in Norway have revealed that
‘contemporary football provides a space in which the meanings of partisan fanhood
are more focused on local than on national conditions and realities, whether ‘the
local’ means the physically immediate surroundings or the location of a club located
elsewhere or in a different country’.30
Our interviewees combined loyalty to their
Danish clubs with an interest in, and support for, various clubs in Europe, in
particular the large cult clubs such as Manchester United or Bayern Munich, and
also small clubs like Platanias FC.
It is important to emphasize, however, that all the fans interviewed, particularly
the Lyngby BK supporters, can be regarded as loyal and true or in Giulianotti’s term
‘hot’, fans of their clubs who would never follow a rival club in Denmark.31
This
attachment does not rule out an interest in a club of another European country, and
in this way, most of our interviewees are members of a European football scene.
However, it must be added that some interviewees regarded attending a football
match abroad as a highlight of their holidays, the atmosphere in the stadium apparently
playing a more important role than the game itself. Few interviewees seemed
to be addicted, in the same way as many men, to a permanent flow and exchange of
information about their teams.
This study offers insights into the experiences and practices of female fans in
Denmark and reveals that dedicated female fans may participate in a European supporter
scene. However, the ways in which they act out this fandom may differ from
the habits and practices of male fans. In addition to this research, the surveys conducted
by the members of the FREE project will provide quantitative data and
extensive information about male and female football fans in different European
countries and the results will allow more extensive insights into European football
fan cultures, including gender differences among the fans of the various countries.
Notes
1. For more information, visit http://www.free-project.eu/Pages/Welcome.aspx.
2. Giulianotti and Robertson, ‘Introduction: Reclaiming the Game – An Introduction to the
Anthropology of Football’, 551; Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves: Football, Television
and Globalization, 2003.
3. Compare Cialdini et al., ‘Basking in Reflected Glory: Three (Football) Field Studies’,
1976.
4. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves: Football, Television and Globalization, 2003.
5. Mintert and Pfister. ‘The Female Vikings, a Women’s Fan Group in Denmark:
Formation and Development in the Context of Football and Fan Histories’, 2014.
418 S.-M. Mintert and G. Pfister
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6. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/women/01/99/95/93/03wfdevel
opment.pdf.
7. FIFA Women’s World Cup Germany 2011 Television Audience Report, 2011, 18.
8. Cere, ‘Witches of Our Age: Women Ultras, Italian Football and the Media’, 2003;
Crawford, Consuming Sport: Fans, Sport and Culture, 2004; Crolley, ‘Lads will be
Lads’, 1999; Coddington, One of the Lads: Women Who Follow Football, 1999; Gosling,
‘Girls allowed? The Marginalization of Female Sports Fans’, 2007; Pope, ‘“Like
Pulling down Durham Cathedral and Building a Brothel”: Women as “new Consumer”
Fans?’, 2011; Sülzle, Football, Women, Masculinities: An Ethnographic Study in the
Fan Stands, 2011; Llopis Goig, ‘Female Football Supporters’ Communities in Spain: A
Focus on Women’s Peñas’, 2007; see also the contributions in Toffoletti and Mewett,
Sport and its Female Fans, 2012.
9. Pfister et al., ‘Female Fans of Men’s Football – A Case Study in Denmark’, 2013.
10. Damsgaard, It’s Not About Winning. Book about the Danish Football Supporters, 1997.
11. Havelund et al., A Study about the Danish Supporter Culture – Main Results, 2006.
12. Pfister et al., ‘Female Fans of Men’s Football – A Case Study in Denmark’, 2013, 15.
13. Premier League website 2010; Williams 2001; cited in Pope, ‘“Like Pulling down
Durham Cathedral and Building a Brothel”: Women as “new Consumer” Fans?’, 2011,
473.
14. Fürtjes, ‘The Femininization of the Stadium Audience in Football’, 2012.
15. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves: Football, Television and Globalization, 2003.
16. Connell, Gender: In World Perspective, 2009; Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender, 1994.
17. Goetz and Lecompte, Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research,
1984; Bryman, Social Research Methods, 2012.
18. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans, and Flaneurs’, 2002, 34.
19. http://pavineetang.hubpages.com/hub/10-most-loyal-football-players.
20. Pfister et al., ‘Female Fans of Men’s Football – A Case Study in Denmark’, 2013.
21. E.g. Pfister et al., ‘Female Fans of Men’s Football – A Case Study in Denmark’, 2013;
Pfister and Lenneis, ‘Gender constructions and negotiations of female football fans. A
case study in Denmark’, 2014 (forthcoming).
22. Derbaix and Decrop, ‘Colours and Scarves: An Ethnographic Account of Football Fans
and their Paraphernalia’, 2011.
23. Giulianotti and Armstrong, ‘Introduction: Reclaiming the Game – An Introduction to
the Anthropology of Football’, 1997, 6.
24. Roose et al., Fans: Sociological Perspectives, 2010, 183.
25. E.g. Skrobanek and Jobst, Fans and Sozialisation, 2010; Dixon, Consuming Football in
Late Modern Life, 2013; Pfister et al., ‘Female Fans of Men’s Football – A Case Study
in Denmark’, 2013.
26. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves: Football, Television and Globalization, 2003.
27. Lorber, Breaking The Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change, 2005, 6.
28. Rakow, ‘Rethinking Gender Research in Communication’, 1986, 19.
29. Pope, ‘“Like Pulling down Durham Cathedral and Building a Brothel”: Women as
“new Consumer” Fans?’, 2011; Sülzle, Football, Women, Masculinities: An
Ethnographic Study in the Fan Stands, 2011.
30. Hognestad, ‘Long-Distance Football Support and Liminal Identities among Norwegian
Fans’, 2003, 100.
31. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans, and Flaneurs’, 2002, 33.
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