How Online Communities Are Changing Football Culture

The Palestinian Football Association declared in early August that they would resume their national championships after almost three years. Registration of teams was opened on August 2 and will close on August 25, so the teams have to give their regional associations notice by August 6. Most of the fans learned about the news from social media rather than from television or newspapers.

The under-20 national team had the same experience in July. The team was training in Jericho, and then they played three matches against Bahrain in Manama. The first finished 1:0 for Bahrain; the second came to 2:0 for Palestine, thanks to the goals from Jasin Abou Chaker in Germany and Zaki Hamade in Denmark. There was not much television coverage; this is why the fans learned about the results, lineups, and highlights through the fan pages, chats, or emails.

Now fans receive live updates from the games thanks to advanced technologies. Well-known mobile apps, such as MelBet Mobile (Arabic: ملبت موبایل), show the official line-ups approximately one hour before kick-off. This means that even without commentary or a broadcast, fans can still follow possession, goals and cards as the match unfolds.

The scale of the audience

The federation has its own Facebook page where it has more than 360,000 followers worldwide. This number is greater than the audiences of almost all local sports outlets. Independent media that cover Palestinian football mostly work as newsletters or social media platforms. They publish information about matches, such as previews, and follow the careers of Palestinian players abroad. In some cases, they even provide streaming links to their subscribers before matches, as there is no local broadcaster in the country showing the games.

This situation was born out of necessity. There was a break in football activities in the territory for almost three years; the games of the national team were conducted in neutral venues, and football players were scattered on foreign football fields, and websites became the only option to follow the game. With no domestic broadcast to rely on, the audience shifted to whoever could publish fastest, and that was rarely a broadcaster.

Alongside the apps, fan-run pages cover matches in their own format. MelBet Facebook Palestine (Arabic: ملبت فیسبوک فلسطین), for example, posts fixtures and closing statistics within minutes of the final whistle. In practice, these pages work much like the official channels of clubs and federations: fast publishing and consistent replies to questions in the comments.

What the communities actually provide

The functions these groups perform are specific and, in most cases, practical:

• locating and sharing streams for matches with no broadcast agreement;
• translating match reports from Vietnamese, Korean, Danish and other coverage;
• recording minutes played by professionals abroad every week;
• archiving footage that would otherwise be lost;
• organising group viewings in cities with a Palestinian population;
• discussing squad selection, often at length.

The archival function deserves particular mention. Video from domestic matches played in the 2000s survives largely because individuals uploaded copies and other users reposted them over the following years, and no formal archive covers that period in comparable detail.

Clubs began publishing directly

One important structural modification has changed the connection between clubs and the media. Previously, clubs informed about news through journalists, but now most clubs provide news about their teams, the number of goals scored and interviews on their own websites, and now, instead of making this information available for reporters, they take ready-made quotes from their sites.

The overall influence of this phenomenon is mixed. Some clubs bring their accounts into shape and provide information about rosters, injuries, and training, while others publish only the schedule of matches at the beginning of each season and forget about it until the end of the season. Fans can notice the differences between these two approaches, and the first group of teams is generally mentioned more often, no matter how they perform.

The diaspora connection

Historically, Palestinian communities in the Americas, Europe, North America, and the Gulf have had limited access to football at home, using personal contacts and occasional news reports instead. With the emergence of online communities, information promoters are now able to connect with their supporters who are watching the same live stream from anywhere in the world.

Such online networks bring tangible benefits to national teams. The current U20 lineup consists of Palestinian players from Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Lebanon, Norway, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. In some cases, supporters could watch the player’s performance online before any scouting report was written.

Recurring problems

The fast speed of circulation comes with some costs. Information about unsubstantiated transfers can be shared in several countries before anyone looks into them. Moreover, by the time corrections reach the original audience, only a small part of it is usually informed.

There is an increase in criticism of various individuals. A negative game played by a young footballer can create a viral clip and lots of comments within a day, something that people from previous generations did not have to deal with.

This leads to federations and teams changing their behaviour. Some of them have started providing information about the injuries before receiving any speculation from others.

The calendar ahead

The next six months contain several fixtures that will test how these networks operate once competitive football resumes.

The U-20 squad will face off against teams from Vietnam, Iran, and North Korea, with only the group champion reaching the finals in China in 2027. Sri Lanka is competing in Group A of the Asian Cup along with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman, as they will be making their fourth consecutive trip after the 2015 competition in Australia, 2019 in the UAE, and 2024 in Qatar, where they advanced to Round 2 for the first time.

Riyadh is also one hour ahead of Jerusalem, so the games will commence at reasonable hours for viewers back home.

Institutional communication

In addition, the federation also utilized these platforms for administrative purposes. By using this method, training courses, licensing demands, judicial appointments, and lists of youth teams can be distributed directly without intermediary actions. For example, last year, a level three coaching course was conducted together with a local university, where twenty-six students were involved.

The information regarding this event has been made public, thus allowing clubs to find out the qualifications of the event since the information about trainers is now easily accessible to parents, whereas this information used to be available only among the members of the association.

Such networks came into existence on their own accord, without the influence of any organization. Their birth coincided with the time when local football seemed to be non-existent, and fans had very little choice for sources of information. Thanks to such networks, a lot of practices that used to be done through the media now take place. It is true regarding the information about young squads as well. When it comes to the athletes originating from small towns, their names become famous even before they enter adult sports, which has an influence on both their chances and the interest of the local population.

The networks in question have emerged without any central or specific authority coordinating their actions. The process of their emergence took place due to the suspension of the domestic football competitions and because only a few opportunities were available to the fans in terms of information coverage. Now this is the work that was previously done by the media. When the domestic football season resumes, the situation will hardly change. Most supporters will keep using their gadgets instead of the media to receive up-to-date news.

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