In the Middle East and North Africa, ultras have been politically influential, too: Egyptian ultras played a key role in the 2011 Arab Spring that toppled Hosni Mubarak as president, and such was their street power and popularity that ultras were barred by one of his successors, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, after he came to power in a coup. The code of ultra culture is antagonistic and deeply anti-authority, and in constant conflict with the police and the news media. The answer was to tap into the region’s already fertile ultras culture and import it.īut that same culture is an unlikely fit with the commercialized reality of Qatar’s World Cup.

The scene was more reminiscent of soccer stadiums in South America and Europe than in Qatar, and the cheering section evoked those of the ultras, a highly organized soccer fan culture with roots in Italy that can be found across the globe, including in North Africa and the Middle East.

The men linked arms in long lines and jumped up and down. “Play, the Maroon!” they chanted over and over in Arabic, a reference to the nickname of Qatar’s national team. But now the sea of men understood what was expected, and they followed the order and fell into a strange silence as the match noise swirled around them inside Al Thumama Stadium. Moments earlier, a section of the crowd - more than a thousand strong, almost all men, all of them in identical maroon T-shirts with the word “Qatar” in English and Arabic - had been chanting in unison at the direction of four fan leaders. With unprecedented insider access, the book investigates how ultras have grown into a fiercely political movement, embracing extremes on both the left and right fighting against the commercialisation of football and society – and against the attempts to control them by the authorities, who both covet and fear their power.DOHA, Qatar - Midway through the second half of Qatar’s match against Senegal at the World Cup, the drumming stopped as a man in a bucket hat and sunglasses rose and asked for quiet.

In this book, James Montague goes underground to uncover the true face of this dissident force for the first time.ġ312: Among the Ultras tells the story of how the movement began and how it grew to become the global phenomenon that now dominates the stadiums from the Balkans and Buenos Aires. Yet they remain unknown: an anti-establishment force that is transforming both football and politics. A hugely visible and controversial part of the global game, their credo and aesthetic replicated in almost every league everywhere on earth, a global movement of extreme fandom and politics is also one of the largest youth movements in the world. You can see them, but you don’t know them.

1312 by James Montague