The magic of soccer: Transforming animosity into love (An empirical study of Arab fans and major European soccer leagues)

Abstract

Sports are a vital tool that could be used to promote better global awareness and to support better cross-cultural understanding. The literature of sports psychology provides a rich body of work that studied fans’ behaviour towards in-group teams and home team identification. Nonetheless, out-group sports favouritism receives little attention in the literature. Our study explores whether Arabs’ fanship of European soccer clubs influences their feelings of animosity towards those countries. We collected data from 154 Arab Jordanians who live in two major cities in the central and northern parts of Jordan and analysed data using descriptive statistics and linear regression. The results revealed that Jordanians who admire soccer clubs from England, Italy, and Spain have lower feelings of animosity towards these countries. Also, such feelings may potentially translate into Jordanians’ desire to purchase products from these countries. The research highlights the importance of European soccer as a tool to disseminate and promote peace and to curb hostility. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of findings and recommendations for future research.

Keywords:

• soccer
• sports fanship
• fan behaviour
• animosity
• Arab fans
• European soccer leagues

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to acknowledge Prof. Patricia Huddleston from Department of Advertising and Public Relations at Michigan State University for comments on earlier drafts, and her enthusiasm about the objectives of this article and fruitful discussions about the scope of the research.