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Abstract
Despite claims that local and transnational supporters in the English Premier League (EPL) may be closer to each other in terms of commitment and ‘authenticity’, than often imagined, our knowledge about how transnational fans, as one of EPL’s global components, responds to other global developments in the league is limited, given what is known about traditional fans’ meeting with EPL’s ‘global powers’. This research investigates perspectives and attitudes of transnational fans; a set of Norwegian Liverpool supporters, and their experiences of the club’s ‘foreign’ ownership, as articulated on an interactive message board. Crucially, whereas the attitudes towards ownership are mixed, the findings suggest an adoption of ‘traditional’ fan cultures, and reinforce claims that local and transnational fan cultures perhaps are closer, and display more similarities, than imagined. Certain findings also strengthen the argument sustaining that ‘authentic’ fandom should not solely be seen in terms of geographical origins or presence inside stadiums.
Notes
1. See: Millward, The Global Football League.
2. Cleland, ‘The English Premier League in a Global Context’, 70.
3. Millward, The Global Football League, 76–94.
4. Bridgewater, Football Brands, 143.
5. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’, 203, 238.
6. Millward, The Global Football League, Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cultural consumption’ ; Hognestad, ‘Transnational Passions’.
7. For an exception, see Rookwood and Chan, ‘The 39th Game’. Here, the authors compare local (from Liverpool) and global (from Hong Kong) LFC fans’ views on the Game 39 – an initiative for further globalizing the EPL.
8. Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization and Football, 33.
9. Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’.
10. Kerr and Emerey, ‘Beyond Tippekampen’.
11. Liverpool.no, ‘Om oss’.
12. For instance: King, The End of Terraces; Millward, The Global Football League; Millward, ‘Reclaiming the Kop’; Duke, ‘Local Traditions versus Globalization’.
13. Millward, The Global Football League; Rookwood and Millward, ‘We all dream of a team of Carraghers’.
14. Millward, The Global Football League, 44; Coombs and Osborne, ‘A Case Study of Aston Villa Football Club.
15. Giulianotti and Robertson, The Globalization of Football; Millward, The Global Football League, King, The End of the Terraces.
16. Giulianotti and Robertson, The Globalization of Football.
17. Millward, The Global Football League, 93.
18. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’.
19. Gibbons and Dixon, ‘ ‘Surf’s up!’’.
20. Hamel et al., Globalization and Social Movements.
21. Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences.
22. Castells, The Power of Identity, 72.
23. Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization and Football, 2.
24. See: Millward, The Global Football League.
25. Cleland, ‘The English Premier League in a Global Context’, 70.
26. Elliot, ‘Introduction’, 5.
27. Cleland, ‘The English Premier League in a Global Context’, 70; Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
28. Millward, The Global Football League.
29. Hayton et al., ‘Chasing a Tiger’.
30. See: King, ‘The Lads’; King, End of the Terraces; King; ‘New Directors, Customers and Fans’; Millward, ‘New Football Directors in the Twenty-First Century’.
31. Millward, ‘New Football Directors’.
32. Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’; Millward, The Global Football League; Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’.
33. Millward, The Global Football League, 57.
34. Millward, The Global Football League; Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’.
35. Ginesta, ‘What is the next step’, 69.
36. Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization and Football, 89; Millward, The Global Football League.
37. Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’; Millward, The Global Football League; Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’; Nauright and Ramfjord, ‘Who Owns England’s Game’.
38. Millward, The Global Football League; Chadwick and Hamil, Managing Football.
39. Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’.
40. Ibid.
41. See: Hayton et al., ‘Chasing a Tiger’; Millward, ‘New Football Directors in the Twenty-First Century’.
42. Rookwood and Chan, ‘The 39th Game’, 898; Chadwick and Hamil, Managing Football, 260.
43. Rookwood and Chan . ‘The 39th Game’, 899; Hayton et al., ‘Chasing a Tiger in a Network Society’.
44. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters’.
45. King, The End of the Terraces.
46. Petersen-Wagner, ‘The Football Supporter in a Cosmopolitan Epoch’, 138.
47. King, ‘The Lads’; Taylor, ‘Soccer Consciousness and Soccer Hooliganism’.
48. Bridgewater, Football Brands.
49. King, ‘New Directors, Customers and Fans’.
50. Turner, ‘Modern English Football Fandom’, 122.
51. King, The End of the Terraces.
52. Millward, The Global Football League, 75.
53. Rookwood and Chan, ‘The 39th Game’, 908.
54. Millward, The Global Football League.
55. Ibid., 184.
56. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters’.
57. Millward, The Global Football League .
58. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’; ‘Cultural consumption’; ‘The Football Supporter in a Cosmopolitan Epoch’.
59. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’, 203.
60. Petersen-Wagner, Cultural Consumption’, 965.
61. Kerr and Emerey, ‘Foreign fandom and the LFC’.
62. Petersen-Wagner., ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’, 238.
63. Millward, The Global Football League, 93.
64. Goksøyr and Hognestad, ‘No Longer Worlds Apart?’, 206.
65. Kerr and Emerey, ‘Beyond Tippekampen’. The concept of ‘Tippekampen’ is still used nostalgically in Norway and the broadcasters with the current rights to show EPL matches in Norway, TV2, often uses it to advertise for the game which kicks off at 3:00 pm (BST) which will be live-broadcasted. See for instance: https://www.tv2.no/a/8886207/.
66. Hognestad, ‘Transnational Passions’, 447; Goksøyr and Hognestad, ‘No Longer Worlds Apart?’, 199; Hognestad, ‘“Rimi Bowl” and the Quest for Authenticity’, 146.
67. Reimer, ‘For the love of England’, 256.
68. See: Hognestad, ‘Transnational Passions’.
69. Ibid., 440.
70. Kelly, ‘An Oral History of Footballing Communities’, 47.
71. BBC, ‘Overseas football fans visiting Britain now at 800,000’.
72. Reimer, ‘For the love of England’, 271.
73. Kerr and Emerey, ‘Beyond Tippekampen’, 513.
74. Liverpool Official Supporters Club Norway, ‘Om oss’. http://www.liverpool.no/om-oss/
75. Millward, The Global Football League, 77; Kerr and Emerey, ‘Foreign fandom and the Liverpool FC’, 881; Rookwood and Millward, ‘We all Dream of a Team of Carraghers’, 42.
76. See: Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’; Hognestad, ‘Transnational Fandom’; Millward, The Global Football League; Reimer, ‘For the Love of England’.
77. Kerr and Emerey, ‘Beyond Tippekampen’.
78. Ibid., 518; Hognestad, ‘Transglobal Scandinavia’, 368.
79. Among the more merited Scandinavian Liverpool players are, for instance, Jan Mølby (Denmark), Daniel Agger (Denmark), John Arne Riise (Norway), Stig-Inge Bjørnebye (Norway), Øyvind Leonhardsen (Norway) and Glenn Hysén (Sweden).
80. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid., 12.
Naturally, there are certain rules with regards to ‘homegrown players’ in the EPL clubs’ squads, hence the idea of having local players in the team is not merely an idealistic scenario.
83. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’, 200.
84. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’, 15.
85. Hognestad, ‘Transnational Passions’, 456.
86. Ibid.
87. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’. 16.
88. Petersen Wagner , ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’.
89. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’, 9.
90. Ibid. 8.
91. Hognestad, ‘Rimi Bowl’, 147.
92. Goksøyr and Hognestad, ‘No Longer Worlds Apart?’, 207.
93. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’, 17.
94. Ibid.
95. Bridgewater, Football Brands, 143.
96. Millward, The Global Football League, 85.
97. A reference to the famous sign hanging in the players’ tunnel inside LFC’s home-ground Anfield, saying ‘This is Anfield’. See The Guardian, ‘Norwegian Liverpool Fans who named Daughter YNWA Prepare for Anfield Visit’.
98. Millward, The Global Football League.
99. See: Millward, The Global Football League, 77; Kerr and Emerey, ‘Foreign Fandom’, 881.
100. Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’; Millward, The Global Football League; Elliot, ‘Introduction’.
101. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’; ‘The Football Supporter in a Cosmopolitan’.
102. Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’, 19.
103. Millward, The Global Football League, 44; Coombs and Osborne, ‘A Case Study of Aston Villa Football Club’; Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’, 19.
104. Millward, Getting into Europe, 79.
105. Millward, ‘We’ve all got the Bug for Euro-Aways’, 337.
106. Millward, ‘The Rebirth of Football Fanzine’, 308.
107. Ibid.
108. Gibbons and Dixon, ‘Surfs up!’.
109. Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’; Millward, The Global Football League.
110. Millward, ‘True Cosmopolitanism or Notional Acceptance of Non-National Players in English Football’, 606.
111. Millward, Getting into Europe.
112. Hine, Virtual Ethnography, 118.
113. Goffman, Frame Analysis, 21.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid., 21.
116. For other studies deploying this technique one may consult: Millward, ‘Love United Hate Glazer’, chapter in the Global Football League; Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’ in the Premier League’ ; Trenz,. ‘Media Coverage on European Governance’.
117. Millward, Getting ‘into’ Europe, 93.
118. See http://kopforum.liverpool.no/ .
119. Naturally, the discussions here took place in Norwegian. The excerpts and quotes in this article, however, are manually translated into English by the author. Typesetting and terms are when possible directly copied and translated. Any potential mistranslations is however solely those of the author. Every attempt was made to avoid this.
120. Not to be confused with number forum members, likely to be significantly lower.
121. Data collection took place between August and October 2017. The second thread was still active at this point. The other thread was found on KopForum’s old platform (http://old-forum.liverpool.no/), still open for public view, but not for users to post in.
122. Number of sampled posts is 717. However, when proceeding in the analysis, posts deemed ‘off-topic’ (not contributing or addressing the topic) was disregarded. This can be justified as a large number of forum posts will not address the thread’s overarching topic, and discussions may at times ‘derail’. The number of analyzed posts is therefore 171. The frames taken further to be discussed are therefore based on the 171 analyzed posts. One may argue that this number is low, but essentially, as argued in the methods subsection, we are mainly concerned with the qualitative evidence here.
123. Williams, ‘Walking together the Liverpool way’, 437. FSG was previously known as New England Sports Ventures.
124. Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’, 1.
125. See: Millward, ‘Reclaiming the Kop’.
126. Ibid.
127. Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’.
128. Ibid.
129. Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’.
130. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’.
131. Millward, The Global Football League, 87.
132. Ibid., 57; Millward, ‘New Football Directors in the Twenty-first Century’.
133. Nauright and Ramfjord, ‘Who Owns England’s Game’.
134. Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’.
135. Ibid.
136. Daily Mirror, ‘Revealed: How much Liverpool’s FSG Owners have actually Spent’.
137. BBC, ‘Liverpool Sign Andy Carroll’.
138. Liverpool finished 8th in the EPL in the season before these comments, and lost League Cup and Europa League finals.
139. BBC, ‘Naby Keita’. Signed in August 2017, Keita will not join LFC until July 2018.
140. Telegraph, ‘Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group to fund new £50 m training facility’; Kirkby is located around 10 km north-east of Liverpool.
141. Ludvigsen, ‘Foreign Ownerships’, 13.
142. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’, 17.
143. Bi, ‘Integration or Resistance’.
144. Ibid.
145. Millward, The Global Football League.
146. Nauright and Ramfjord, ‘Who owns the English game’, 439.
147. Portelli, ‘The Rich and the Poor’.
148. Ibid., 79–83.
149. Nauright and Ramfjord, ‘Who owns the English game’.
150. Ibid.; Chadwick and Hamil, Managing football.
151. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’, 12.
152. Hognestad, ‘Transnational Passions’, 456.
153. Ibid; Hognestad,’ Transglobal Scandinavian?’.
154. Reimer, ‘For the Love of England’, 271.
155. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’, 16.
156. Millward, The Global Football League, 93.
157. Ibid., 40.
158. Millward, The Global Football League; Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’; ‘Cultural Consumption’.
159. King, ‘The Lads’.
160. Millward, The Global Football League.
161. Nash, ‘Globalised Football Fandom’, 17.
162. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cultural Consumption’, 958.
163. Millward, The Global Football League.
164. King, ‘The Lads’; Taylor, ‘Soccer Consciousness and Soccer Hooliganism’.
165. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’, 203;.
166. Millward, The Global Football League, 93.
167. Hognestad, ‘Transnational Passion’.
168. Rookwood and Millward, ‘We all Dream of a Team of Carraghers’; Millward, The Global Football League.
169. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cultural Consumption’; ‘Cosmopolitan Fandom’.
170. Ibid., 184.
171. Petersen-Wagner, ‘Cultural Consumption’.
172. Millward, The Global Football League; Rookwood and Millward, ‘We all Dream of a Team of Carraghers’.
173. Telegraph, ‘Carabao Cup third round draw to take place in China at 4:15 am UK time’.
174. Daily Mirror, ‘The Laughable reason Brighton vs. Everton is being Played on a Sunday’.