El Rob’s First Law of Football Fandom

Written in 2011 around the John Terry racism fiasco, still holds up today.

Football fans will support any action taken by their club and their club’s players, even at the cost of their moral integrity.

Fan authenticity is increasing in blind loyalty. The more morally egregious a football fan’s support of his* club — whether through defending the indefensible, abusing rival fans and players, or violent action on behalf of the club — the more “die-hard” or “authentic” he will be perceived to be by his fellow fans.

*I say ‘his’ because die-hard football fans of the pathologically abhorrent variety are, in my experience, almost exclusively male. Among most, if not all passionate female football fans, there is a level of ethical squalor that they are intuitively unwilling to plumb.

Originally published at crimesagainsthumility.tumblr.com.