“Here’s Hoping We Get Pummeled”: Anti-Nationalist Trends Among Israeli Sports Fans

This study discusses changes in football fans’ perception of nationalism in recent years. A growing number of athletes, fans, and sports teams have been explicitly prioritizing their own particular individual interests over national ones. National football teams nowadays enjoy far less support from their fans, whose allegiances are often multiple and who, at times, even reject their own national team. Globalization and the rise of social networks, along with economic and individual agendas, have all been chipping away at national sports teams’ popularity. Using content analyses of online forums and Israeli football fans’ Facebook groups during times the national team was playing, this study aims to reveal a variety of vested interests on multiple levels, which serve to undermine national sports hegemony.