Female Spectatorship and Unsportsmanlike Conduct at Football Stadiums: Case Study from the Czech Republic

Abstract

Football is the most popular team sport in the world. It is entertainment, primarily for men, but nowadays, it can be said that the number of women at football stadiums is steadily increasing. Given the long history of spectator sports events consumption, it is not a surprising fact that there have also been serious manifestations of spectator aggression. The paper aims to analyze the relationship between women visitors’ verbal and other expression and their violent behavior on an example of SK Slavia Prague football club. Primary data were collected by a questionnaire survey mainly at the Eden stadium and other selected Czech football stadiums in 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons. A total of 120 respondents (aged 25.01 ± 10.20 years old) participated in this research, and all of the respondents were attending the matches in a stand of home team supporters. We state that there are correlations between women visitors’ verbal and other expression and their violent behavior; e.g., the surveyed respondents had no experience with demolishing stadiums and other riots. The respondents also consider it to be the most serious activity at 82.58%. The racism display noted similar results. We state that the results are adequate for women visitors.