Football and community empowerment: how FC Sankt Pauli fans organize to influence

Abstract

In an era when many traditional football fans feel increasingly alienated from corporate ownership and commercial imperatives, sites of resistance are emerging whereby football fans seek to empower themselves and increase their influence. Few fans rival those of FC Sankt Pauli for autonomous organization which has empowered them to create an authentic vibrant democratic culture which holds great influence over their club. But this empowerment has also led them to extend their influence beyond their own club and beyond football itself. This article based on years of research with Sankt Pauli fan activists reveals how the fans are cohesively organized, autonomously, bottom-up and non-hierarchically, how that gives rise to prolific community action, and how that in turn empowers the community in a transformational and sustainable way.

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

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2. Department for Communities and Local Government, ‘The Community Development Challenge’, 13.

3. Hylton and Totten, ‘Community Sport Development’.

4. SCCD, Strategic Framework for Community Development.

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31. SCCD, Strategic Framework for Community Development.

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38. Totten, ‘Sport Activism and Political Praxis within the FC Sankt Pauli Fan Subculture’.

39. Department for Communities and Local Government, ‘The Community Development Challenge’, 13.

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55. SCCD, Strategic Framework for Community Development, 4.

56. SCCD, Strategic Framework for Community Development.

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58. Taylor, ‘Top Down Meets Bottom Up; Neighbourhood Management’, 48.