Fanaticism in football: A sociological research on football supporters (Elazığ sample)

Thesis Fanaticism in Football : A Sociological Research on Football Supporters (Elazığ Sample) Mehmet ÖCALAN Fırat University Institute of Social Sciences Sociology Department Today the academic researches on violence in sport is really limited although the violent events in all fields of sport is getting more widespread. Especially the holiganism and violence in football have reached an uncontrollable stage. There have been many researches on football and violence in European countries, particularly in England, since 1960s and some solutions are proposed as a result of these researches. In these researches, both the people who have violence tendencies and the causes for such violent behaivours have been pointed out. Today our country is opposing a reality of violence in football. Almost in every match those who commit violent cases come forward and cause violence before, during or after the matches. The security forces have to take wide precautions in order to protect the teams and their supporters, who play away, from the violent attacks. Although the security forces accompany to visiting team and its supporters until they leave the city, in which the match played, they can not control the violence activities and such activities increase gradually. This research is carried out by applying a survey to 700 football supporters in Elazığ. In this survey the demographic characteristics of these supporters, their behaviours both in and out the field, their thoughts about the supporters of the opposite team and fanaticism are tried to be clarified. As a result of the survey, the interviews and the observations: 1- The avarage of ages, personal characteristics, educational backgrounds, careers, economic conditions and recreational activities and habits of the supporters of Elazığspor is tried to be pointed out.VI 2- In the research it is fixed that verbal assaults are the most common type of violence events. Verbal assaults and swearwords are directed to referees, footballers and supporters of the visiting team, and footballers of their own team. The dose of violence and rate of swearwords are intentionally increased in matches which are played against Diyarbakirspor and Malatyaspor. 3- The behaviours of supporters are compared according to variables such as educational background, age, economic condition and career. It is observed that violent behaviours are more common through the youngs who have lower income, students and secondary school graduates. Besides in this research it is pointed out that 50% of supporters do not use swearwords in any cases. 4- In this research the viewpoints of supporters on football referees, footballers and supporters of opposite teams and security forces are also studied.