‘Surf’s up!’: A call to take English soccer fan interactions on the Internet more seriously

Abstract

Soccer fandom practices in England have been significantly impacted by globalization. The creation of the Premier League in 1992, and the way in which satellite television company BSkyB dominated coverage of this, together with other developments, have led to changes in how fans consume top‐level English soccer. Whilst such global transformations are well documented in the sociology of soccer literature, the implications of the rise of the most advanced global form of communication – the Internet – on the practices of fans of English soccer clubs, have not been fully taken into account by academics. As such, the significance of the Internet as a site for fans to interact remains under‐investigated. This article argues that online interactions between fans of English clubs need to be taken more seriously by academics if they are to more fully understand how soccer contributes to the maintenance of social identities in contemporary England.

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