A European mind? Europeanisation of football fan discussions in online message boards

Abstract

Abstract Across Europe, national professional football leagues have seen increasing numbers of players from other EU states, while the Champions League and the Europa League have become a focal point for many teams. This article seeks to investigate how far this Europeanisation on the organisational level of football is reflected in identities and discourses of fans. We developed a framework to analyse the Europeanisation of identities among football fans. In the empirical part, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of fan discussions on publicly available message boards among fans of four first league teams in England and Austria. Our empirical findings indicate that fans’ identities are to some extent Europeanised, albeit in very different ways and to varying degrees. The participation in European club competitions and the Europeanisation of player markets seem to shape fan perceptions in that respect.