Singing the football club – A study regarding the contents of chants in Dutch professional football and their effect on the creation and contestation of community
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2025-06-25
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en
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This thesis investigates the dual character of chants in Dutch professional football, focussing on the clubs Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord. Chants are central to the stadium experience, reinforcing communities and identities of supporters, while simultaneously reinforcing exclusion, rivalry and aggression. Through a qualitative multi-method approach, including thematic analysis, close readings and semi-structural interviews with supporters (liaisons), this study explores the duality of chants, drawing on theoretical concepts as performativity (Butler 1988), Imagined communities (Anderson 1983), bordering (van Houtum 2010), ordering (van Houtum & van Naerssen 2002; van Houtum 2021) and othering (Staszak 2020). Findings show that chants depict the “self” through bordering, ordering and othering practices as loyal, victorious, strongly associated with the location of origin, red and white coloured and active. However, the “other” is often depicted as the opposite: less worthy of sportive success, deserving of being scolded, sometimes through antisemitism or homophobia. Despite hurtful depictions, some supporters perceive hateful expressions as detached from their own personal belief systems, highlighting a discrepancy between on- and off- sports attitudes. This thesis argues for a more nuanced understanding of chant culture for individual agency, contextual meaning and the duality of chants as an inherently inclusive and exclusive practice.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen