Football Clubs’ Supporters and Human Rights - A Social Identity and Consumer Culture Perspective

Abstract: Following football and attending games is a popular practice in the world and in Sweden. Accordingly, a lot of people establish an identity with their supportership to a club which indicates the importance of football clubs in these people's lives. With football being associated as struggling with Human Rights, this paper identifies how supporter’s identity and consumption with the club is influenced based on the clubs relationship and actions with Human Rights. Consequently, the paper uses a multiple strategy outlook where a combination of social identity theory and consumer culture theory are used. By doing so, we were able to identify the dual importance it entails to construct an identity; both through an inward focus where belonging to a specific group creates a reflection of a sought identity, just as an outwards focus where symbolism through consumption creates a belonging to a particular group which extends the sought identification. The paper further comes up with new insights of how a supporter reaches a sought identification through distance. The paper is based on 11 semi-structured interviews with supporters from different clubs. Focusing on the supporter’s consumption and identities, the analysis resulted in three different phases of identities (connected, reflective and conscious) being presented which show how supporters identify differently with their respective club. In line with this, the paper discusses meaningful events regarding human rights issues and how supporters' identity and consumption of their club are influenced as a result. Finally, the paper identifies important managerial contributions for football clubs regarding their actions with human rights, their relationship with supporters and how they should market themselves as football clubs.