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According to Worldatlas, more than 3.5 billion people around the world love football. They gather in stadiums or around televisions to watch the game. UEFA reports that the recently concluded European Championship drew over 5 million fans to the Fan Zones.
More than 5 billion people watched the tournament at home, while 2.6 million spectators filled the stadiums. The 2023 UEFA Champions League Final reached 450 million viewers, more than twice the audience of the Super Bowl. Football has become a global phenomenon that brings millions together both in stadiums and in front of screens. It generates powerful emotions and helps shape both individual and collective identities.
Why do we love football so deeply? How did a sport born in 19th-century Britain during the Industrial Revolution become Europe’s most popular pastime? And how did it spread with equal passion through Latin America and Africa?
In this article, I will explore why billions of people watch and love football. My focus is not historical but rather on the subtle mechanisms that draw people to this global game.
On one hand, football has grown beyond a sport. It has turned into a ritual confrontation between nations. On the other hand, it acts as a social mirror, a space where people synchronize with global society. As Koen Stroeken notes, football works like a magnifying glass that reveals how society functions. Intense matches, passion on the pitch, lucky victories, painful defeats, rewarded efforts, and teamwork all mirror social structures we see every day.
At the same time, some authors argue that football is no different from other entertainment forms. They believe the answer to why we love football is simple: the game helps people escape everyday conflicts. It serves as a smokescreen that hides the mechanisms of mass manipulation. Through it, people create fantasies that compensate for daily frustrations, gaining only an illusory sense of belonging.
However, football fans are far from passive. They engage with society in many ways. Their protests, political messages, and social actions prove their awareness and involvement. Otherwise, how could we explain their presence in demonstrations or the political messages that appear in stadiums? For instance, during the 2012 protests in Bucharest’s University Square, ultras from several local teams joined the demonstrations.
In Egypt, during the 2011 revolution, fans of Zamalek and Al Ahli joined protesters and occupied Tahrir Square, the heart of the uprising. Across Europe, fans often display political banners, many of them against modern football. Through these messages, they challenge commercialization and reject the idea that clubs treat them as mere consumers. They claim football has become a product instead of a shared passion. Football is entertainment, but it is not the “opium of the masses” as long as fans stay socially and politically aware.
The French anthropologist Christian Bromberger argues that every match between rival cities, regions, or countries becomes a ritual war. These confrontations feature songs, banners, flares, smoke bombs, and firecrackers. Supporters divide into brigades or legions and frame the match as “us versus them”. People identify with their teams – local or national – not only for how they play, but for what they represent. Teams embody collective identities and cultural traditions that go beyond the game itself.
Historian Eric Hobsbawm adds that sport allows individuals to identify easily with their nation. Through football, national feelings take shape again and again. Millions project their imagined community onto a team of eleven players. Football links local and universal values, turning a team into a symbolic standard of a population. Bromberger also notes that football expresses deep human emotions and reveals the complex web of identities that shape modern life.
Returning to its ritual side, a football match unfolds within a clear space and time. It follows a known program of ceremonies, gestures, and symbols. This space separates itself from daily life, where social hierarchies and norms fade for a while. During matches, fans create a sense of community that everyday life often lacks. They hug after goals, sing together, and chat with strangers.
Those 90 minutes mark a break from daily routines and a passage into a shared symbolic world. The match resembles a religious ritual – though without a belief system – where people share values, emotions, and symbols. Fans must follow the rules, yet doing so frees them from fear and anxiety. By participating, they join a collective group and, symbolically, a shared future.
As Bromberger rightly points out, football does not promise a glittering future. It offers a mirror of everyday life. It shows us the identities we build and the societies we shape. Each match combines competition, performance, and chance. It reflects both individual ambition and collective effort, just as we see in society.
A football match, then, simulates daily life within a defined space. What draws us to it is its unpredictability. Even though we know the rules and rituals, every match unfolds differently.
A saying reminds us that no two matches are the same. Each game repeats a familiar ritual, yet always with new actors – players, coaches, supporters – who perform it differently. Idols rise and fade, teams appear and disappear, just like in life itself. Football reflects the uncertainty of our world and the fleeting nature of human values.
The match is not an escape from reality but a symbolic arena that lets people feel part of a social group. Within this ritual, they experience unpredictability, observe social dynamics, and challenge systems that conflict with their collective values. Football unfolds in just 90 minutes, but it leaves deep marks in our minds, making us love it forever.
This article is written by Rareș Rădoiu.
