Dynamic and Implications of Football Fans’ Club and Fans’ Fanaticism for School Violence Among Tertiary Students in Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract

The study found out the dynamics of becoming football fans and supporting the chosen football teams by tertiary students in Lagos. Basically, the study discovered the readiness of tertiary students to involve in negative behaviour should their team lose major football match. Using purposive sampling technique, 320 respondents who verbally declared as ardent fans of football teams were drawn from the population of students across tertiary institutions in Lagos State. Data were collected using a 3-section instrument titled: Football Fans’ Club Membership Questionnaire (FFCMQ). Collected data were analyzed using percentages and t-test statistics. Findings revealed that a significant percentage of tertiary students in Lagos were ardent fans of foreign football teams (96.5%) rather than fans of local team (3.4%). Also, 62.55% of the samples never switch support for their chosen teams. In addition, 93.4% became football fans because of the performance of the entire team rather than performance of a particular player on the team. On the issue of football fanaticism, only 2.5% of the sample said they would violently protest if their team losses a match- this is against 92.5% that said they will not get involved in such. In fact, 62.8% would rather walk out of the scene of the game- though with non-offensive annoyance. Only 0.6% as against 97.8% would be willing to destroy facilities at the venue of watching the game. These levels of involvement in football fanaticism were however found to vary among the respondents on the basis of gender. Thus it was concluded that football fanaticism among tertiary students in Lagos State would hardly lead to violence in school environment or disruption of the peace of the society. It was however recommended that adequate measure should be taken to improve Nigeria football teams so as to make the team popular among the Nigerian youths.