THE CONVERSATION: Anger, remorse, conspiracy theories: how sports fans cope when their club does wrong

Manchester City, one of the world’s biggest sporting clubs, has been found guilty by the English Premier League of 114 breaches of its financial rules. The amount in question is close to a staggering £1-billion.

Dyed-in-the-wool fans are acutely sensitive to slights against their teams. So, when caught up in a major sport controversy, their response is often visceral.

Researchers who study sport communication have described a process of “moral uncoupling”, through which those fans who identify most deeply with their team separate themselves from its most troubling transgressions when experiencing “collective shame”.

Although some Manchester City fans have said that they accept there might have been wrongdoing and are “devastated”, “angry” and “sad”, many passionate supporters have found forgiveness easily for their team – but they have not extended this understanding to their competitors.

The Sky Blues are majority-owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group through its City Football Group subsidiary, along with 10 other clubs – one in partnership – around the world. These include Palermo in Italy, Girona in Spain, as well as other clubs in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Much has been written about the financial and legal implications of this long-running scandal. Manchester City’s owners have denied wrongdoing and appealed against the ruling. But what about all the dedicated fans who shell out for stadium tickets, travel, accommodation, television subscriptions and merchandise?

When sports fandom gets intense

There is a large body of research on sport fandom. It reveals many types of fan, including hardcore supporters, those drawn to fashionable sport celebrities and clubs, and others who switch allegiances according to time, place and personal circumstances.

Most people’s sporting preferences do not have a major impact on their lives.

But the smallest and loudest species of sport fan lives and breathes their team. For these “superfans”, obsessive fandom is more than an oxymoron.

They dress themselves and, as in the case of the Newcastle Knights rugby league team, even paint their houses in club colours.

They also travel huge distances as supporters and communicate constantly about favourite players, terrible owners and prospects of victory.

There are various ways of becoming a so-called superfan. In English soccer, it was traditionally based on place, class, gender and generation. Fandom, particularly for working-class men, was a matter of social being rather than choice.

Notoriously, its territoriality sometimes tips over into violent hooliganism.

In all cases, the more intense the sport fan engagement, the greater the mood swings in response to winning and losing.

But in sport as in politics, the maxims “never apologise, never explain” and “my team, right or wrong” apply among the most shameless of fans. This response to scandal resembles how right-wing populist movements like Make America Great Again, or Maga, Reform in the UK and One Nation in Australia deal with issues such as lying, disinformation and financial irregularities.

In such cases, conspiracy theories can ­circulate. In the case of the Manchester City cheating scandal, some supporters have spread ideas about how the club and its players have been targeted by nefarious forces in the game.

City’s own chief executive, Ferran Soriano, fuelled these suspicions by alleging that an unspecified “Premier League conspiracy theory” had led to the guilty verdict. Long before the verdict, City fans complained that Uefa, Europe’s soccer governing body, “have always had it in for us”.

Journalist Nick Harris, who has covered the City ­story for more than a decade, described the “vitriol and hatred from a section of the club’s partisan fanbase, which is in denial that Manchester City have ever done anything wrong”.

His treatment included doxxing (having his personal information posted online without his consent), a brick through the window of his home, and heartless baiting after the death of his wife.

The uglier aspects of digital sports fandom are emphasised in social media spaces designed for consequence-free expressions of opinion by both fans of a club and their hostile opponents.

As with their family members, it is difficult for loyal sport fans who may be internal critics to accept external condemnation of their beloved.

Crime and punishment

When a club like Manchester City is consumed by scandal, their fans must come to terms with potentially severe punishments: huge fines, trophies taken away, points deducted, compensation for other clubs, ­relegation to lower leagues and, in some ­cases, even liquidation.

There is a striking precedent of such drastic punishment. In 2012, Scottish Premier League club Glasgow Rangers experienced administration and then liquidation after failing to discharge bank loans and pay taxes. To the fury of their fans, Rangers were rebirthed and forced to start again from the fourth tier of Scottish soccer, before winning promotion back to the Scottish Premier League in 2016.

Were Manchester City to meet a similar fate, their fans might be forced to exchange plush corporate venues like Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium for the modest hospitality of clubs like League Two’s Accrington Stanley and Port Vale next season.

A fall from grace will dismay City fans and delight their struggling lower league counterparts in equal measure. DM

First published by The Conversation.

David Rowe is an emeritus professor of cultural research at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University in Australia.

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