Stadium games fulfilled a political purpose. Nowadays the same applies to professional sports, especially football. In the throngs of spectators, the most passionate are the fans. Their sheer number, their chanting, their extreme behavior, and sometimes their violence are all expressions of a genuine societal phenomenon explained in this book.
Ludovic Lestrelin is a lecturer in STAPS at the Université de Caen Normandie and a researcher at the Espaces et Sociétés laboratory (ESO, CNRS). His research and teaching focus on sport and particularly how it has been turned into a show. He published L’autre public des matchs de football. Sociologie des “supporters à distance” de l’Olympique de Marseille (éd. EHESS, 2010). He is also deputy editor-in-chief of the journal Sciences sociales et sport and a member of the Instance nationale du supportérisme (Ministry of Sports).