FIFA is Nothing Without Fans!

 Due to the massive audience of FIFA which has a massive diversity of behavior among the audience, identifying the general behavior of the FIFA audience is a difficult task. However, there are some behavioral traits and characteristics among the audience of FIFA which have significant impact to FIFA. They are as follows.

Football Hooliganism

·          Football Hooliganism is a behavioral disorder which results in destructive behavior among diehard fans of football including FIFA fans. The Heysel Stadium disaster is one of the most devastating incidents caused by football Hooliganism which resulted in 39 deaths and 600 non-fatal injuries. This is a prime example for the destructive behavior and the cult following of FIFA audiences.

(GQ Magazine, 2015)

FIFA Culture

    During the FIFA World Cup is a month-long football festival where fans from different countries come together and commit their time and money for their entertainment. So, it is clear that the FIFA audience will behave in a manner to watch FIFA matches live regardless of their commitments and engagements. The below image shows thousand gathering at Seoul Plaza during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Reaction to Advertisements

The FIFA Audience react to sponsored advertising in FIFA events buy purchasing those brands for example, many fans buy national team and club jerseys they like. The below photo shows a Japanese fan wearing an Adidas product while being emotional after Japan lost against Belgium by one goal in 2018 FIFA World Cup.

 

 

 

Interactive live audience

Sometimes merely roaring for their respective team on is not enough for the diehard fans of football. They really have to show the players that they are behind them. Fans turn up the volume and sing songs to cheer up their players as well as they create artistic displays in the stadium. There are some examples as follows.

Tifo

Tifo is the word used to describe those artistic displays which describe a colorful, vibrant and usually choreographed visual display by football supporters.  These visual displays are carefully planned and often each individual in the audience forms part of a mosaic by wearing or holding a particular color. Below image is a tifo raised by Portugal supporters before the FIFA World Cup 2014 play-off football match between Portugal and Sweden.

 Mexican Wave

This stadium phenomenon is a metachronal rhythm achieved in a crowded stadium when successive groups of spectators briefly stand up, yell, and raise their arms. this behavior is often called “the Mexican wave” because most of the world had their first exposure to this wild display of team pride at the 1986 FIFA World Cup televised in Mexico. The love for the wave has never died, and you can still be a part of it at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, the eighth largest soccer stadium in the world with seats for more than 87,000 spectators. While Mexico would love to claim the creation of this impossible-to-resist crowd-pleaser, the debate over its invention has revealed some evidence of earlier waves that have faded away.