Since the dawn of culture, rituals and other practices related to the sacrum sphere have been proven necessary for human societies to function. Now, when some notice the crisis of traditional religiousness, there is also a visible tendency to form many so called “secular religions”. One of such new “beliefs” is “the invisible religion of football” (the name taken from the authors of “Football Fans as a Community of Invisible Religion” – Dominik Antonowicz and Łukasz Wrzesiński.)

Football matches and such events as e.g. the upcoming Euro2012 seem to have a lot in common with traditional, ancient, or medieval religious practices and rituals. Football and religion or sacrum really have a lot in common. It is enough to mention “temples of football”, great stadiums built “for the glory of the team”, and actual denominational groups tightly related to the sport in question (the Maradona church in Argentina).

A separate set of customs and ritual practices has been preserved in the community of players, and a separate one – even more interesting – among the supporters. The “fans’ ritual” includes such elements as songs and chants, mottoes and slogans, club colours and scarves, stickers etc. What is interesting, the rituals of the football players are now vanishing due to the phenomenon of sport’s commercialisation. Due to economic reasons, many players no longer declare that they are tied to a club, and even – to the national team. There are different processes occurring within the supporters’ culture – ritual forms created by them keep developing and turn out to be a really important part of modern culture.