Abstract
Objective: Football, which is the most popular sport in all parts of the globe, has in recent years become a hotbed of people who have created racist environments and chanted ethnic slogans, causing divisions among spectators, a phenomenon that can also be seen in Iranian football in the form of Ethnocentrism. Therefore, this study aimed to explore ethnocentrism among Iranian football fans.
Methodology: The research method is qualitative with a phenomenological approach. To conduct this research, Iranian football fans from Turkish, Persian, and Arab ethnicities were interviewed. The sampling method was the criterion and continued until the theoretical saturation was reached.
Results: According to the findings of the study, the phenomenon of ethnocentrism among Iranian football fans is a combination of the two main themes of reactive and inadvertent ethnicity and action and intentional ethnicity.
Conclusion: The theme of reactive and inadvertent ethnicity represents reactive behaviors; In other words, people react to the events in the society and show their dissatisfaction in sports fields with ethnic slogans, but in the context of action and intentional ethnicity, it indicates the use of stadiums by people to propagate their political ideas. According to the obtained results, it is suggested to face the negative and positive aspects of this phenomenon in football stadiums so as not to cause destructive anomalies in society and destroy the image of Iranian football.
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