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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Challenging or Accommodating the Football System? A Case Study of Female Football Supporter Communities in Spain

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The chapter is dedicated to the study of a specific type of football community that emerged during the 1980s in Spain: women’s penas. Llopis-Goig and Flores discuss how women’s link to these penas provides them with networks of support and sociability, bonds of friendship and integration in a community as well as a door to the public space that helps them avoid the isolation of a nuclear family for some women. Thus, the female fans generate empowerment strategies that allow them to gradually combat the discrimination experienced in football and in society. However, Llopis-Goig and Flores argue that women’s penas cannot be regarded as initiatives that question the patriarchal structure of football; instead, the study shows female fans’ desire to belong to this male-dominated system.