How to explainyou the wave of defiance of supporters against their leadership that has been sweeping over Ligue 1 for several months now ?
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NH: There are two movements which combine and feed each other. On the one hand, we have the economic transformation of football since the 90s with the Bosman ruling, the Champions League and pay TV. These upheavals have consequences for club management. Shareholders who are not local arrive at the head of the clubs and there is a high turnover among the leaders. A distance is established between leaders and supporters. In a pendulum swing, supporters are organizing more and more to make themselves heard. They seek to reclaim the club through two niches: they position themselves as the soul of the club by claiming their local anchoring, and they try to show popular vigilance on the functioning of the club to avoid it being put badly by visiting leaders.
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Nantes supporters during a demonstration against Waldemar Kita in December
Credit: Getty Images
Why has everything exploded in recent months?
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NH: We are in a period where football is questioning itself. The health crisis highlights the importance of the public and requires reflection on both the economy of football and the role of supporters. The big question is: who owns football? To the leaders who put the money or to the amateurs, the supporters?
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Is it inevitable? Can these two movements coexist together?
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NH: PSG is an interesting case. When Paris chose to bring the ultras back to the stands, the club tried to reflect on their role and to contract it out. In Lyon too, there are regular discussions. Jean-Michel Aulas theorized in the 2000s the role of the ultras by setting them up as a kind of union which gives the pulse of the forums. Everywhere, the question of the place and role of supporters arises. Sometimes it works well. In Strasbourg, the reconstruction went hand in hand between the supporters and the leaders. In Lens, relations are now constructive. Etc.
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Logo of Racing Club de Strasbourg.
Credit: Getty Images
The results seem to be a variable of dissatisfaction all the same. The worse things go, the more we hear the supporters. And when all is well …
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NH: I would rather say that the bad results give a sounding board to the actions of the supporters. They widen the ranks of the discontented. We see him in Marseille at the moment.
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The ultra movement represents only a part of the supporters of a club. Do they have sufficient legitimacy to influence its decisions?
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NH: Each criticizes the other for not being legitimate: the leaders say that the ultras do not represent all the supporters, while the supporters criticize the leaders for not having sufficient local roots and attachment to the club. In some cases, the ultras are a fringe on the fringes of the public. In others, they are largely supported by the supporters, of which they are the vanguard. In Nantes, Kita’s criticism goes beyond the Loire Brigade.
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Can the current situation make it possible to redefine the role of the supporter in order to ease tensions?
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NH: The health crisis should force us to rethink football and the way clubs operate. In Bordeaux, no one knows the managers of the investment fund that owns the club. Even the future mayor opposed the president of the Girondins. We can hope that there will be a review of the economic functioning of football and the governance of clubs. The idea is to clearly define the role of supporters, their rights and duties, in order to overcome the balance of power. Because imagine the volcanic situations that some clubs are likely to face when the supporters return to the stadiums …
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