Football supporterism in Tunisia: facilitating participatory democracy through citizen education

ABSTRACT

After the Arab Spring (early 2010's), the relationship between football supporterism and politics has been the subject of much debate. We attempted to describe, understand, and explain the modes of interaction between supporterism in post-revolution Tunisia, the ultras supporters’ (i) involvement in their club’_ affairs, and (ii) participation in the political life of the country. The case studied is that of ultras supporters of the Tunisian football team ”Club Africain” (CA). We opted for a constructivist-grounded methodology, using semi-structured interviews with 10 CA fans and 10 fans of the rival team from the same city (Tunis), Espérance Sportive de Tunis (EST), who represented the control group. A conceptual diagram was constructed to visualize the relationships between the items collected and the emerging theoretical dimensions. The results indicate an inclusive and autonomous commitment based on universal values. This persuasion experiment revealed a dynamic and creative model that led to positive changes in attitudes within the club and in the country's political life. During the club's crisis, this mobilisation led to the development of solidarity, mutual aid, and meaningful actions. As a result, it encouraged real involvement in the country's political events. The research model constructed visualizes a voluntary and autonomous educational process involving political participation that helps to regulate the country's democratic process. The study proposed pro-social alternatives, highlighting young people's spontaneous learning to participate in a dynamic and reflective political process. The results of the study should be verified with other types of supporters and in other Arab Spring countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Football supporterism
• citizen commitment
• educational process
• behavioural change
• political participation
• participatory democracy

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all of the survey participants, CA and EST supporters, for their time in the interviews. This manuscript could not have been completed without their support and patience.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no financial conflict of interest to declare. Furthermore, we want to mention that:

Author 1 (Ch. Fitouri), is a supporter of the EST team.

Author 2 (F. Mourgan), of Egyptian origin, is not a supporter of any Tunisian team

Author 3 (K. Chamari), is a supporter of the CA team.

The authors would like to emphasise that they did their best to work fairly and truthfully. They believe that the country of origin of the first and last author, did not bring substantial bias to the results of the present study.

Auteurs statement

Chedlia Fitouri: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Interview, verbatim transcription of the interviews’ audio recording, data coding, Modelisation, Manuscript drafting, Visualisation

Fatma Hassan Abdel Basset Mourgan: Data processing, coding, Modelisation, Validation of the results

Karim Chamari: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Supervision

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

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2. Espérance sportive de Tunis (football) – Wikipédia (wikipedia.org), 25 December 2022.

3. Slim Riahi. Slim Riahi – Wikipédia (wikipedia.org), 5 June 2022.

4. Tunisian legislative elections of 2014, Wikipédia Élections législatives tunisiennes de 2014 — Wikipédia (wikipedia.org) 8 avril 2022.

5. Club Africain : The fans launch a new ‘Latkha’-‘Latkha’-Sport by Tunisie Numérique : Club Africain : Les supporters lancent une nouvelle ‘Latkha’ - Sport By Tunisie Numérique (tunisienumerique.com).

6. Ya Hyetna, chanson du Club Africain, [Ya Hyetna] [Vidéo]. Youtube, 20, January. https://youtu.be/sqGOGJ7Ywy8

7. Hamdi Meddeb, Wikipédia, 6 April 2023. Hamdi Meddeb – Wikipédia (wikipedia.org).

8. Taraji Archives-Création de l’Espérance de Tunis. Taraji Archives – Création de l’Espérance Sportive de Tunis.pdf | DocDroid.