What Soccer’s Street Art Means

A Slovenian culture professor and author studied the graffiti and iconography of Eastern European ultras. We talked about his findings.

Aug 17, 2021

The beautiful game has a dark side. Its tribalism is celebrated as folklore, but it can easily turn toxic and often does. Yet paradoxically, that unhealthy fixation on one’s team, which all too often comes out as abuse and violence, also yields some of sport’s most spectacular sights. It’s the hardcore fans who invariably set a stadium splendidly alight with their flares, raise their intricate banners or chant enthrallingly. The dark side is, in a physical sense, also where the sport’s surrounding culture is at its most beautiful.

That’s why an email I got a little while ago caught my interest. I get a lot of PR pitches, but this one stood out. It was about a new book by a Slovenian professor called Dr. Mitja Velikonja, who ordinarily studies the culture and street art of the Balkans but who has now turned his focus to soccer graffiti and other imagery created by hardcore soccer fans, or ultras. His book, The Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology in Football Fan Graffiti and Street Art, will be published by DoppelHouse Press on September 28.

(All of the pictures in this newsletter are from that book.)

I’m not in the habit of publishing Q&As. The thing is that Mitja’s answers to the questions I sent him about what he had learned from his project were so compelling that I didn’t want to shortchange my readers by leaving most of them out of the story—as you must when you write a conventional article.

So here, then, with a light edit for length and clarity, are his findings on soccer’s street art.

Soccer Stories: How did you come to study the subject of street art in soccer?

Mitja Velikonja: I've been researching and writing comparative studies of political graffiti and different types of street art (stickers, stencils, murals, paste-ups, latrinalia) for more than 20 years: altogether I have taken about 25,000 photos covering most parts of the world. My book on this topic was published last year at Routledge. One of the most ideologically interesting and picturesque parts of this global, illegal street creativity are those related to soccer. Soccer-fan graffiti are omni-present in the graffiti urbanscape of Europe. They are literally everywhere: they welcome you, in a nice or in a hostile way, on all the main roads leading to city centers, and you are immediately—and dramatically—aware of who's the boss around here, that our soccer club is the best and that our soccer fan group rules the city. You practically cannot avoid them, even if you are graffiti-blind person.

Did your study of it reveal anything particular about soccer's tribalism?

Although I have some experiences in researching subcultures and subpolitical movements in Central Europe and the Balkans, I had never closely examined soccer fans until recently. As such, my knowledge was one sided, mediated and superficial. But diving deeper and deeper into their graffiti, stickers, murals, etc., I discovered the plurality of not only visual dimensions of this creativity, but also of the multitude of their ideological backgrounds. They speak literally about everything, not only about soccer: about their social and ethnic identities, about political preferences, masculinity, ways of life, about local history, etc. All this is shown also on the walls of European cities, towns, even villages: everything is out there, in sight of everyone. We just have to learn to read and understand these signs.

What is it about soccer, do you think, that inspires an artistic streak in its hardcore fans?

With graffiti, stickers and other means of street art (and with many other creative ways like chants, choreographies, dress-codes, etc.) fans create, express and share their feelings and social belonging. Artefacts made by themselves are much more worthy than those ready-made that can be bought in soccer-club shops or online. Fans' graffiti and street art differ a lot in terms of techniques and quality. Some of them are made by professionals: many murals, graffiti and stickers are commissioned and are aesthetically and technically perfect, they are real masterpieces of this craft. Others are made by kids, especially those in the beginning of their ultras careers: bombing a street (covering it with graffiti) is often considered a rite of passage, an initiation for newcomers to fan groups.

What role does iconography and art play in the experience of hardcore fans?

These graffiti and stickers are visualizations or materializations of their “untouchable” values, history, goals, ambitions, of their city, soccer club or fan group identity. If we read these signifiers carefully, we can decipher their whole ideological imaginarium and understand their social existence and dynamics. My book is full of such examples, often contradictory: soccer fans create images of themselves as outlaws, misfits, cast-outs, their messages include phrases like “Alone against everyone!” “Us against the world,” “Despised by everyone, controlled by none.” But together with those, we find images and messages of being protectors of their city, of being defenders of “true values,” of being (local) patriots, etc. Contradictions don't exclude each other, but exist and work together. These graffiti show that fans can be both at the same time: “against” and “for” the same thing.

Do you see a difference in the experience of the sport through these visual messages from one region to another? Or is this a kind of universal language of soccer?

The basic structure everywhere is very similar: plural in its essence, centered around active loyalty to their city, soccer club and fan group. Praising violence and tough masculinity beyond any limits, including images and calls for hurting and killing opposing fans, sending them to gas chambers. Use of distinctive fonts of letters—fasciofont and Gothic script—is also cross-cultural, from the British Isles to Russia, as are references to extreme right-wing ideas, symbols and codes. I also found—everywhere on European football-fans’ graffiti map—homages to deceased comrades and calls for support for their imprisoned ones. But there are also many important differences. For example, in the Balkans, with fresh memories about the wars in the 1990s (and renewed memories about World War II), many fans’ graffiti and street art refer to those times, events, controversial military leaders, “heroes” and units. The contents of graffiti from the Western part of Europe seem a bit lighter, funnier: there are more images from popular culture and cartoons.

What do you make of the art that celebrates extreme violence, and demands "justice" for men who have done intolerable things—like Uroš, a Red Star Belgrade ultra who severely injured a police officer by trying to shove a burning torch into his mouth?

Indisputable violence in soccer fans' graffiti and street art—and in general, in this subculture—must make us question the violent essence of our culture, of how much obvious, “normalized,” unquestioned racism, sexism, homophobia, chauvinism, xenophobia and other social injustices we find elsewhere. By broadening the critical perspective to the whole society, the hate speech sprayed on the walls by fans (and violent actions in soccer stadiums) becomes more understandable—and both equally intolerable and worthy of condemnation.

Does it feel, in any way, like the art exists to legitimize violence and even crime by cloaking it in a kind of bohemian chic?

Of course: as with any other social activity, aesthetic creativity is not ideologically innocent, it always brings different connotations and has political consequences. Ultimately, violence is preceded by several previous steps of using words of hatred and exclusion. We find in this same subculture also many words, images and final acts of social solidarity, anti-fascism, of resisting racism, homophobia and other structural evils of the contemporary world—I also found many graffiti and street-art pieces advocating all these values. The case from July in England, after three Black players missed their penalties in the European Championship against Italy, is very meaningful: abusive, mostly racist graffiti against them were immediately confronted with notes, stickers and all kinds of signs in the players’ favor, comforting and supporting them and expressing full respect for them. This solidarity is not an isolated case: I noticed similar ones, addressing also other injustices, sprayed or pasted on the walls in different European cities. With more to come, I hope.