Football fans and supporters groups in contemporary Latin America: Towards a transnational analysis and a comparison on a continental scale

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes, from a comparative perspective, the practices and representations associated with football fans and supporters’ groups in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico. Based on both synchronic and diachronic examination of the data, the objective is to understand the shared characteristics and the specificities of these groups and their support of club teams during the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st. The argument proposes that in the Latin American cases examined there are more similarities than differences. To demonstrate this argument, three main variables were chosen for comparison: 1. The history of the emergence and formation of these groups in each of the selected countries; 2. The groups’ contemporary workings and organization, including the internal distribution of power, the acquisition of prestige, and the difficulties leaders face maintaining command as the groups have grown in membership and territorial reach in recent decades; 3. The analysis of discourses and quantitative data related to violence among supporters, a controversial issue of public debate in all the countries under consideration, revealing processes of stigmatization or, in some cases, legal forms of criminalization of certain groups. It concludes with emphasis on the need for further comparative analysis, capable of extrapolating, if not questioning, an approach limited to single national cases. Such a limited approach precludes an accurate understanding of transnational aspects of supporters’ styles and practices as they follow professional football, in its current phase of spectatorization and mediatization.