Using Social Network Analysis to Study Hate Speech in English Football During the White Lives Matter Banner Controversy

In June 2020, a group of football supporters from Burnley FC arranged for a ‘White Lives Matter’ banner to be flown over Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium in protest against the English Premier League’s (EPL) decision to support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Utilizing a mixed-methods social network analysis (SNA) approach, we identified opinion leaders on X (formerly Twitter) to assess their influence in shaping the discussions and narrative. Systemic racism theory (SRT) was used to theoretically underpin the findings. In turn, we found that many users were critical of BLM and offered perspectives within a White supremacist frame; however, others supported football’s anti-racist endeavours. We found that some users hijacked the incident to help fuel far-right agendas, demonstrating that football fans are being targeted online. Our study highlights the differences between individual and organized racism and illustrates that far-right and White supremacist groups use football to fuel racist rhetoric and potentially radicalize fans. The study emphasizes the cruciality of understanding digital influence networks, information dissemination and the role of opinion leaders in shaping online narratives in contexts that intersect sports, politics and societal issues.