Long Read: Booing, Supporter Identity, and Hypocrisy in Football Fandom
Football has a hypocrisy problem within supporter culture, which is largely fine — but we should perhaps acknowledge it more.
While this article is not about whether you should or should not have been booing Trent Alexander-Arnold on Sunday, I don’t think we can talk about things in more depth until we understand the conversation I really want to have. Here we go...
Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Booing Trent Alexander-Arnold
(Big, big sigh: I’m going to talk about the booing, but this is not intended to litigate the booing. This will spend more time talking about why people might boo at a deeper level, but not because I intend to argue that booing is right — I would not have booed! Rather, I think that the booing can be harder to understand for those against it, whereas the position that “booing one of your players is not something that should be done” is a pretty simple and reasonable position. Regardless, it’s important to at least try to understand the whys within Liverpool supporters groups before moving beyond them.)
On Sunday some of the support in Anfield booed departing local player Trent Alexander-Arnold when he was subbed on the pitch, and relatively nuanced discussions around this have been taking place within supporters groups and other in-group communications since then. While there are varied opinions between “You should never boo a player in a Red shirt” to disbelief that some might not boo, the discussions themselves are largely happening with a modicum of respect for other positions, and an understanding why others may feel differently.
Positions vary in part by geography: the claim that “it feels different if you’re Scouse” is very much a valid one from where I sit, though I know many others who disagree. While we are all of us internationally part of a collective, the songs that are sung about Scousers and poverty, for instance, are very much targeting people within the city. It makes sense to me that a “local lad whose dream has come true” choosing to leave the club not when it’s struggling but when it’s back on its perch hits at a slightly different and more personal meaning to people from Liverpool. Many who understand at a visceral level that people from elsewhere in England would denigrate them based on this shared local identity might find a local lad choosing to leave a successful Liverpool side deeply depressing, angering, frustrating. He is not forced to leave to find success, he would like to find success beyond Liverpool. (If you want to find out more about this, look into the varied view on The Beatles, and especially in reaction to some comments by Ringo Starr.)
Being from Liverpool is being part of a very meaningful local collective, which means this all hits differently. Liverpool is insular; while not everyone believes the “Scouse not English” saying, there’s a reason it’s said. In Liverpool the “us v them” is only partially fashioned from the inside, and continued Hillsborough chanting — as well as the intricacies of identity that shaped how Hillsborough was reported and who was villainized — are one major example that underscores this fact. The tradition of booing the national anthem at sporting events and refusal to understand why people from Liverpool might do this is a related example of this feeling, and is an important element to the discourse. Booing a player is, of course, different, but some of the feeling might stem from a similar place.
While the anger at Alexander-Arnold’s choice does mean taking someone else’s professional and individual choices personally, it makes sense that it stings for many that one “local lad’s dream coming true” has ended far before his career has. In recent years, he spoke of imagining spending his whole career at Liverpool, and on aspirations of being a future club captain. Opinions and dreams change, and it is unfortunate for Alexander-Arnold that so many of his are recorded so diligently; it makes the changing of his opinion hurt more.
This is of course not to say that non-local fans cannot share this sense of betrayal, or even feel more strongly than some locals do — I am not from Liverpool, and in highlighting local identity I mean not to exclude but instead to note that the local identity does matter. A non-local fan has decided to be part of this collective for a variety of reasons, and some of those reasons may be deeply meaningful, and sports fandom can forge very meaningful feelings of belonging that do not always map onto postcodes. That someone from a place we love and identify with might choose to play elsewhere can be hurtful, too; we yearn to be as enmeshed in Liverpool as Alexander-Arnold is, thus him affirmatively choosing to abandon what we envy hurts all the more.
Of course, there are practical reasons as well: many feel betrayed about Real Madrid, specifically, as they have beaten Liverpool in two finals in the past decade and knocked the Reds out of Europe on many occasions, especially recently. If Liverpool have a rival in Europe — something the media feels incapable of acknowledging given its insular English approach — Real Madrid are the one. They’re the big baddies. They’re Mohamed Salah in tears because a challenge has just taken him out of a final and from AFCON. This is something people who do not follow Liverpool feel incapable of understanding. Adam Rae Voge of cannonstats, for example, insists on referring to these Champions League finals and knockouts as “a couple of CL clashes over five years,” an act of rhetorical minimization you may assume is connected to his club’s own disconnect to the competition, both in silverware and in club identity. Liverpool have six European Cups, and Real Madrid are the reason that number did not tick over to eight under Jürgen Klopp, a manager many feel deserved more silverware for his efforts — and this, of course, is leaving aside knock-outs and previous meetings.
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Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images
Many have issues with how Alexander-Arnold chose to leave, refusing contracts to facilitate a move on a free. While this does mean Real Madrid were a target destination longer than the player would freely admit, it is worth noting here that a free transfer is not useless to Liverpool. Alexander-Arnold brought in more value by winning trophies — not the least this league we’re supposedly celebrating right now — than any transfer fee would have done. It’s also not our money. This is the least convincing node of reasoning to me personally, though it’s worth remembering that he did celebrate a goal by mocking Liverpool fans about his potential move. While the contract saga to me is the weakest reasoning, one might argue that once you celebrate against your own fans you cannot argue when they lash out back.
All in all, there are many reasons to boo a player leaving, and that many more than the boo-ers themselves believe he should be booed if he plays against Liverpool in the future suggest these reasons do land — the quibble is on the appropriateness of booing a current player. I don’t want to change anyone’s opinion on the booing, but I do think taking time to think about why such a reaction is taking place is worth our time.
As I said, I would not have booed. I don’t like doing things in the ground that create negative discourse (because negative discourse around Liverpool is always gleefully taken up) and I don’t like to do things that harm the team unless they’re in direct protest of the club. (I would note that Alexander-Arnold is technically a Liverpool player, but since the league has been won and Real Madrid want to get him early anyway he’s actually in a weird liminal space. Schrödinger’s Liverpool player, so to speak.)
But we’re not the only ones talking about the booing, are we?
Rivals Love Pearl-Clutching — But are Hypocrites
While being inundated by Boo Discourse has been exhausting — largely because I don’t think it’s helpful to tell other people what they can and cannot do versus chatting about the whys — the internal boo discourse has not truly riled me up. Liverpool fans disagree, but largely do so respectfully (or in good faith). We’re also all very much allowed our varying opinions.
What I do struggle with is the external pearl-clutching that is taking place in such a poor-faith vacuum that I find it hard to countenance.
I will not have Liverpool support on the whole called “classless” by even purportedly respectful Arsenal fans for booing a player who is leaving his club. We must recall that Arsenal fans were booing Granit Xhaka — their club captain — when he was subbed off due simply to performing poorly over a period of time. This booing came after a sustained period of social media abuse, merging the worst of online culture with those who pay to watch their team live. I am old enough to remember 2019, if perhaps some Arsenal fans have forgotten.
I am sure some remember, and perhaps when discussing how disgusting and disrespectful Liverpool are for booing Alexander-Arnold they do so while wishing to distance themselves from this earlier event. Perhaps they did not boo Xhaka, and never would have done. Perhaps they are even embarrassed for their club having done so. The problem is, when you call all Liverpool fans classless for booing their departing player, you both fail to acknowledge nuances within Liverpool support and seek to define a rival by a behavior you would not define your own fanbase by. The opinion on the booing is not the problem, but the hypocrisy is around how you might label other clubs.
Of course, Arsenal fans’ hypocrisy also extends to banter: I have myself witnessed Arsenal fans singing about poverty in Liverpool while playing at Anfield, I have heard Mikel Arteta this week claim that his club is better than Liverpool domestically and in Europe, and have seen Arsenal fans celebrate their club playing “HUMBLE” in the Emirates after beating Manchester City (in reference to Erling Håland’s infamous, “Stay humble” quip). I have googled the lyrics to Arsenal’s version of “Allez Allez Allez,” a song about European glory that they, lacking in any European glory, have altered to refer to past league wins (their most recent being over 20 years ago). If you’re wondering, “Anfield” is in the opening line.
I was shocked, in this context, to find many Arsenal fans incensed and appalled that Anfield would deign to mock them for not winning the league. How dare we, they seemed to ask, be so classless that we would mention them instead of celebrating our own team. Of course, Liverpool support has been partying about our own team for weeks on end, and have enough songs about our own team — Arsenal know this, since they keep stealing them and adding their own players’ names in instead of making songs the old fashioned way (by yourselves).
A kid brought a print-out of the Martin Ødegaard meme to the Kop; I refuse to believe anyone is well and truly offended by this. Losing stings, and it certainly is difficult to countencance with grace — I have plenty of moments I’m not proud of. I hope this is how Arsenal fans now feel about their reported outrage at Anfield mocking them for their manager’s claim that they’re the best in Europe. They’re not really incensed and offended that banter exists, are they? If they are, I reckon the league needs to clamp down on anyone who sings about Steven Gerrard slipping. [The cringey Mikel Arteta banner is certainly a point on Arsenal supports’ side (an AI image of a manager in a dress as if he was out on a bachelor party recreated in hurried hand-painting feels very 2001, and more than any other crime is simply not very funny. ick.)]
Football banter is a thing that has and will always happen, and is occasionally very funny. As a hater myself, I love a good bit of banter. (Celebrating league and European Cup wins is probably my purest good time, but I think my other recent highest moment is 7-0 v Manchester United. I enjoyed that more than some domestic silverware, though it’s close.) Banter is great, because we love to laugh. What Southampton did on their social media in response to Ruban Dias’s critiques of their playing style is the funniest thing I have seen in some time. There’s a reason sarcastic videos (“You’re nothing special, we lose every week!”) go viral even outside the football context.
Of course, tragedy chanting, racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, xenophobia…all that isn’t banter and I don’t include it in the above. Bigotry by definition cannot be cleverness, and poking fun at someone for being who they are rather than for supporting who they do isn’t the point. But football has long held space for banter, as it should.
Perhaps we all think about our rivals too much now, and could do with engaging with them less — but that doesn’t make Liverpool supporters letting off blue flares in title celebrations because their Evertonian neighbors have painstakingly mis-labeled and re-sold flares as red ones any less funny. Well-played: you have to laugh.
Moving Beyond the Stands on Sunday: Wider Media
The media does love to talk about contentious topics, and Liverpool does tend to generate discourse and thus clicks (which adds engagement value). That being said, more media headlines have come from this incident around Trent Alexander-Arnold than even I would have expected, and certainly more than came from the last time an active Liverpool player was booed by his support — though perhaps that’s because the support in question were England fans, not those in Anfield.
When Joe Gomez was booed by English fans following an altercation England teammate and former Liverpool player Raheem Sterling instigated, it was clear to most of us that the reaction was tied to associations with Liverpool: Sterling left infamously and was thus disliked by the Red side of Merseyside, whereas Gomez played for us. The two men found crowd allegiances were shaped by a register of disgust towards Liverpool more than anything else; I find it hard to parse logic any other way, and this understanding was also common at the time. The incident was briefly discussed and dismissed, and though everyone agreed that the boos were inexplicable and generally bad, the England support more broadly did not find their character under attack in the media — nor was this general event discussed in tones of disbelief, despite the fact that no one really seemed to understand (or care) why it happened. Meanwhile, Alexander-Arnold’s booing is getting discussed at length through this strangely anthropological lens: who are these people? And why are they like that? (No effort is generally produced to platform anyone willing to explain.)
In fact, it’s hard to find any level of media discourse around booing one’s own squad or manager or players that rises to the level of the current discourse. In general, that Evertonians will boo Everton is simply understood; when fans booed Xhaka all the reports included phrasing that admonished the players’ reactions to fans’ hostility as reasoning, with no real space for questioning how booing a club captain might help or hurt the team (incidentally, the game ended in a 2-2 draw, and match reports referred to the team’s broader form rather than any atmosphere contributing to such a result).
We are obsessed with this topic, and I am of course contributing to the discourse. In a very real sense, though, the only impact it’s had is slightly pausing the party atmosphere — though even that is largely from the outside; the concourse was not affected.
I think it is worth understanding opposing viewpoints on collective choices, though it’s possible such events themselves won’t really matter in the long run. Liverpool has won the league, and Trent Alexander-Arnold is leaving for Real Madrid. We might as well expend most of our energy on the former rather than dwelling on the latter, and perhaps could all spend a bit less time pretending to be incensed by reactions that differ from what we expect.
But I don’t want to end without calling Liverpool support in on the point of hypocrisy, because there’s some booing that very much did not get discussed.
Booing the opposition
The majority of the booing that took place on Sunday was not acknowledged by commentators or the media after the fact. The Anfield crowd choose to consistently boo an Arsenal player popularly believed to be on bail for serious assault charges. Legally, he cannot be named in the press, though his identity has functioned as something of an open secret both within Arsenal fan groups and in the wider footballing world. Such booing did not only take place at Anfield this season, and is crucially supported by large sections of Arsenal fans, who would rather such a player not be associated with their club.
Arguably, such booing is good. It shows solidarity with the victims of those accused, and generally suggests a politically solid position on the part of support making their disgust known. The problem, though, lies in the hypocrisy.
Though no current Liverpool player finds himself in such a circumstance, Jon Flanagan was out and in bars ahead of the game on Sunday, not just having a friendly pint with the crowds but finding himself asked to be in plenty photos. In 2018 he was sentenced to a 12-month community order for common assault in an attack on his then-partner, Rachel Wall. While on trial, footage, ”taken from outside the Il Forno restaurant [showing] the ‘prolonged attack’” was shown despite Wall’s request that such footage not be shown in open court. Flanagan pled guilty of this attack, which included grabbing Wall by the throat, throwing her against a wall, and kicking her while on the floor. Flanagan took responsibility for his actions, and in iterating them now I do not quite mean to suggest he as a man is defined by them and solely by them.
I believe there is a wide distance between barring him from society and celebrating his connection to your club, however — a belief shared by Liverpool Football Club. After sentencing, a club spokesman said the following:
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the player’s actions during the events that took place resulting in this criminal conviction.
It leaves his own reputation damaged and, through association, he has severely let down the club he had previously represented with distinction. We have expressed to him our disappointment and anger that he has failed to live up to the values of Liverpool Football Club, in this specific instance.
The club has allowed the legal formalities to reach a conclusion before deciding on or implementing any internal disciplinary action. That internal process will now begin.
Following this process, he was not offered a new contract despite a promising start with the Reds, and he left the club in the summer of 2018.
All of this sticks in the craw, and I’ll do my best to explain why. John Flanagan is not defined by his choices in 2018, which he likely deeply regrets. That said, such choices shape our relationship with him. When you celebrate someone who has abused women simply because he played for the football club you love it feels to many that you may overlook the former due to the latter.
It makes you wonder why the unnamed Arsenal player was getting booed. Was it because those booing care deeply about the rights of those who have experienced assault, rape, and intimate partner violence and think it’s ludicrous that such a man should get the glory of being associated with a Premier League club? Or was it more that such accusations can be used as banter, as easy insults to be flung tribally across club lines (and which double to make yourself feel morally superior)?
Boo abusers with all your might; it’s a shame they’re able to play. But when you do so, remember to ask yourself the difficult questions about your motivations.
Football supporters are all hypocrites. We all think our side deserves more fouls than we’re given, while our opponents get given everything. We all think ourselves unlucky. We all think we’re in the best group of support in the world.
If you sing joking songs, best not clutch pearls when some are sung to you, but there’s absolutely no way we can all be perfect. I will always think the penalties Liverpool are not given are more egregious than the ones not given to your side, no matter how much I pretend to be fair. For the bigger things, though, it’s worth querying our hypocrisy. If you’re upset about something mostly because you get enjoyment from a certain group of rival fans looking lesser than, you’re not just engaging in the sport, really. And if you care more about the badge than the allegations, best leave off the booing — it’s not solidarity.
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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