VICE, 2021
For decades, football and the far right have interacted with each other in various ways across the globe. This interaction often involves a small subset of fans – ‘ultras’, ‘casuals’, ‘hooligans’, the definitions change depending on where you are in the world – who are seen as the most devoted, fanatical followers of their football clubs, often engaging in extreme violence with each other.
But what is it about hooligans that makes them a target of far-right recruitment?
This is how, from London to Belgrade to Jerusalem, right-wing movements and political parties have attempted to co-opt the testosterone-charged energy of the football terraces, and turn it into a ready-made weapon to silence opponents. But also how rival hooligan firms can put aside their differences, just as they do for international games, and form their own far-right movements.
