Insecurities in European Football and Supporter Cultures

Against the backdrop of the recent and renewed political and policy interest in the safety and security in European football contexts, this book examines the ways in which the regulation of insecurities in European football has been advanced by European institutions and organizations, and contested by football supporters, from the 1980s to the present day. This book therefore produces an updated empirical but theoretically informed account of how insecurities in football have been responded to and countered on a European level through expressions of power and counter-power.

By drawing on material from interviews, and analyses of international legal texts, policy documents and historical football fanzines, Insecurities in European Football and Supporter Cultures uses European football as a window to understand wider processes of (in)security and the regulation of cultures, social groups and contested spaces. Utilizing perspectives from contemporary sociology and critical security studies, this book produces the argument that, as institutions? risk-focused logics and precautionary principles have been embedded in the attempts to secure European football, it is simultaneously possible to observe a reflexive culture of contestation that has matured across four decades in European football.

Insecurities in European Football and Supporter Cultures is an important, fascinating and timely reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of sport, football, security studies, surveillance, social theory and sport studies.

?Give them bread and circuses, and they will never revolt,? as Juvenal once claimed. Jan Ludvigsen?s pivotal book delves into the late modern world of European football security and securitization, understood through the eyes of football supporters themselves. Thoroughly analyzed, while theoretically solidly grounded, he has delivered a critical must-read of what it means to be subjected to and revolt against the football security circus as means of oppression by the powerful."

Yarin Eski, Associate Professor in Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

"This book offers a groundbreaking and highly relevant examination of how safety and security concerns are addressed in European football. By exploring the tensions between regulations imposed by European institutions and the counter-currents from football supporters, Jan Ludvigsen provides a nuanced and insightful analysis. Placing the analysis in a historical perspective allows readers to trace the changes (often towards more restrictive regulations) that have taken place in the context of securing football matches. This is a great asset of this book which is essential reading for anyone interested in the social, political, and security dimensions of contemporary European football."

Radosław Kossakowski, Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Gdańsk.

"This book critically interrogates the various European institutions and organizations responsible for the ongoing regulation, securitization, and militarization of European football events and venues. It details how new surveillance techniques and social control mechanisms aimed at improving fan safety and security are instruments of power and counterpower toward controlling football fandom and supporter cultures. In so doing, this book offers important insights into strategies and responses by football supporters to negotiate, contest, and resist these advances through acts of protest and activism. Moreover, it offers possibilities for improving fan safety and security while simultaneously safeguarding the rich tradition of supporter cultures, identities, and customs."

Adam Beissel, Associate Professor in Sport Leadership & Management, Miami University.

"European football is a political thicket, dizzying in its prickly complexity. Enter Insecurities in European Football and Supporter Cultures, an important and timely book that expertly disentangles the intricacies and convolutions of the beautiful game in the modern era. In a theoretically and historically grounded manner, Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen analyzes football to better understand the dialectic of resistance and restriction, toggling deftly between bigger-picture forces of securitization and cultural regulation and the efforts of advocates from supporter cultures who use the sport as a space of creative contestation. The result is a work of serious scholarship that not only speaks to academics, but also to the thinking football fan who loves the game and wants it to deliver fairness and safety alongside scintillating goals and assists."

Jules Boykoff, Professor of Political Science, Pacific University, USA