The value of Supporter Liaison Officers (SLOs) in fan dialogue, conflict, governance and football crowd management in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Evidence of the value of increased supporter involvement in football governance is limited and existing work focuses primarily on the boardroom, rather than on managing problems associated with fan behaviour. This paper addresses these limitations by documenting and analysing the role of the Supporter Liaison Officers (SLOs) in Sweden, a country that has salient concerns and difficulties associated with football fan behaviour and policing. We argue that the SLO role in Sweden serves as a model for empowering supporter engagement because the SLOs maintain a position as prototypical members of the active fans’ in-group. This in turn increases their ability to reduce conflict by navigating the complex objective tensions and dimensions of intergroup power and legitimacy that exist between the different stakeholders. The paper explores the implications of our analysis for understandings of the value of fan involvement in governance, dialogue and crowd management strategies more generally.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Conn, The football; Giulianotti, ‘Sports spectators’; Hamil, ‘A whole.’

2. Garcia and Welford, ‘Supporters and.’

3. Kennedy and Kennedy, ‘Supporter trusts’; Martin, ‘Football community.’

4. Radmann, Huliganlandskapet.

5. E.g. Kossakowski, ‘Where are’; Schaap et al., ‘Combating hooliganism’; Spaaij, Understanding Football.

6. Radmann, Vad är huliganism.

7. Stott et al., ‘Policing Football.’

8. SOU, Mindre våld; Radmann, ‘Idrottsvåldets karaktär.’

9. See note 7 above.

10. UEFA, UEFA Club.

11. Cleland et al., Collective Action; Garcia and Welford, ‘Supporters and.’

12. DFL, Fanarbeit 2010.

13. Numerato, ‘Behind the.’

14. EU Council, 'Council Resolution' of 3rd June 2010 concerning an updated handbook with recommendations for international police cooperation and measures to prevent and control violence and disturbances in connection with football matches with an international dimension, in which at least one Member State is involved (‘EU Football Handbook’).

15. E.g. Stott et al., ‘Variability in’; Stott, Hutchison and Drury, ‘Hooligans abroad?’

16. Stott and Reicher, ‘How conflict.’

17. Reicher et al., ‘Knowledge-Based’; Stott and Pearson, Football Hooliganism.

18. Gorringe, Stott and Rosie, ‘Dialogue police’; Reicher et. al., ‘An integrated’; Reicher, ‘From Crisis’; Stott, Livingstone and Hoggett, ‘Policing football’; Stott, West and Radburn, ‘Policing football.’

19. Bazeley and Jackson, Qualitative Data.

20. Braun and Clarke, ‘Using thematic.’

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Gålöstiftelsen, Sweden [Grant for the ENABLE project].