'Keeping the Peace': Social Identity, Procedural Justice and the Policing of Football Crowds

TLDR

The study examines how the Elaborated Social Identity Model and Procedural Justice Theory explain the presence or absence of collective conflict in football crowds. The authors analyze longitudinal ethnographic data from Cardiff City supporters, a group known for hooliganism, to investigate crowd dynamics. The findings indicate that perceived legitimacy of policing shapes fans’ internal dynamics, collective action, and compliance, mediating both a long‑term decline and sporadic re‑emergence of conflict, and suggest that policing with consent can reduce conflict.

Abstract

This paper explores the relevance of the Elaborated Social Identity Model of Crowd Behaviour and Procedural Justice Theory to an understanding of both the presence and absence of collective conflict during football (soccer) crowd events. It provides an analysis of data gathered during longitudinal ethnographic study of fans of Cardiff City Football Club—a group of supporters with a notorious history of involvement in ‘hooliganism’ within the English domestic Football Leagues. The analysis suggests that the perceived legitimacy among fans of the way they were policed affected the internal dynamics, patterns of collective action and overall levels of ‘compliance’ among the fan group. On this basis, we contend that these processes mediated both a long-term decline but also the sporadic re-emergence of collective conflict during crowd events involving the fans. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of our analysis for informing policy, practice and theory, particularly with respect to the importance of policing with consent as a route to conflict reduction in domestic football.