Oceania The main supporter group of the
Australia national soccer team is Socceroos Active Support (SAS). SAS was founded in January 2015 as an independent group, that uses social media to organise and keep in touch. This replaced the former active support group Terrace Australis, who were founded by the
FFA and fans in 2013, during Australia's
2014 World Cup qualification campaign. Its establishment came in the wake of poor off-field action and minimal community engagement. Previously, the emergence of Terrace Australis saw the Green and Gold Army relinquish its role as a hub for active support, which it had claimed since its establishment in 2001. The main supporter group of the
Australia national rugby league team is The Roo Crew. The supporters of the
New Zealand national football team are known as the 'White Noise', a play on the All Whites nickname. The official
South Sydney Rabbitohs supporter group is known as "
The Burrow". Their active supporter group is known as "Gate38" and is made up of young men who were involved in the "scumgate" scandal in 2013. The Rabbitohs also have a large supporter base in
Perth, where they rival the
Fremantle Dockers in supporter size. The official
New South Wales rugby league team supporter group is known as "Blatchy's Blues". The official
Queensland rugby league team supporter group is known as "Maroon Crusade". The official
Gold Coast Titans supporter group is known as "The Legion". The official
Canberra Raiders supporter group is known as "The Greenhouse". The
Brisbane Broncos have the largest fan base of any NRL club and they have been voted the most popular rugby league team in Australia for several years. A Broncos supporters' group called "The Thoroughbreds", made up of prominent businessmen, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase News Ltd's controlling share of the club in 2007. The Bulldogs Army is the core support group for the
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, with the section they sit within known as 'The Kennel'. To be sitting in this section, supporters must become a member of the club itself and register any large flags and/or banners which are brought to the game. At all away games the Bulldogs Army locates themselves in the general admission section. The main aim of the Bulldogs Army is to show support and passion for the Bulldogs. As the region's traditional local representatives, the Bulldogs predominantly draw on a support base in and around the suburbs of
Canterbury and
Bankstown in
south-western Sydney, although in recent years club administration and home matches have relocated to
Sydney Olympic Park. The Bulldogs are the most supported NRL club in regional NSW – over 25% of Bulldog fans are located in regional NSW, over 25% are located outside of NSW and over 10% are located in QLD. The club has one of the highest average attendances in the league: over the
2010 season, it was one of only two clubs to record an average home crowd of more than 20,000. The multicultural demographics of the suburbs in the club's support base, such as
Lakemba, means the club has a large number of supporters from a range of non-Anglo ethnicities. In recent years the club has become particularly identified in the media with the Lebanese and the Greek community, particularly with the club's former star goalkicker
Hazem El Masri, being a Lebanese immigrant who migrated from Lebanon as a young child. The Greek community has a huge history of Greeks playing for the club dating back to the 1970s with club legend
George Peponis, being a Greek immigrant who migrated from Greece as a very young child who captained the Bulldogs and Australia. El Masri retired at the end of the 2009 season. The
Melbourne Storm's supporter base grew from almost 500,000 in 2004 to almost 800,000 in 2009, making them the fourth most popular rugby team. The club's supporter group, the "Graveyard Crew", make an
Aussie-rules-(AFL) style banner for the team to run through in important matches. The
Sydney Roosters have a strong support base across Australia. Aside from its traditional fan base in Sydney, which is most concentrated in its homeland in the affluent eastern suburbs, the club is also popular in
South East Queensland,
Canberra and
Newcastle. The club has an internet message board for supporters, "The Wall", which has been the official forum since 1999. The club has announced that "The Wall" will be closing as of late January 2012. "The Chookpen" is an unofficial site. In 2013 the club tallied the fourth-highest home attendance of all National Rugby League clubs (behind the
Brisbane Broncos) with an average of 19,368 spectators at the
Sydney Football Stadium. At the club's home ground, the Sydney Football Stadium, the supporters congregate in distinct sections. The "Chook Pen", a designated area in Bay 35, is the preferred location for the most animated fans. Members of the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust are seated in the Members' Stand on the western side of the ground, and season ticket holders are located just beneath the Members' area, in Bays 12–14. in addition to the 45,550 members of the Roosters' Leagues Club, which is the major benefactor of the football club. The
Easts Leagues Club and the Sydney Roosters "operate as one entity" known as the Easts Group. Under this arrangement, the Eastern Suburbs District Rugby League Football Club is the 'parent company' of the Easts Group. The Football Club delegates, however, overarching responsibility for both football and leagues club operations to a single general manager who oversees the whole group's performance. The leagues club group provides financial support to the football club, only where necessary, as in recent years the football club's sponsorships and TV revenues are generally covering most Rugby League expenditures.
Port Adelaide Football Club has many
supporter groups, with every state or territory containing at least one supporter group. In addition, many country towns within South Australia have their own supporter group, many of which travel to both home and away games. • Port Adelaide Cheer Squad • Alberton Crowd • Interstate Groups There are also a number of English supporters' groups located in Australia for premiership teams and championship teams. The Hornets Down Under are an example of a championship supporters' group.
East Asia In Japan, supporters' sections are mostly known as the
oendan sections and are prominent at various sports, specially in
baseball games and association football matches. Baseball cheering is also common in
Taiwan and South Korea The supporters' group for the
South Korea national football team is known as the
Red Devils South Asia The
India national football team has a supporters' group called the
Blue Pilgrims. They were formed with a motive to support the national team and the
U-17 team during the
2017 U17 World Cup held in
India. Mariners' Base Camp and
East Bengal Ultras are the ultras fan group of
Mohun Bagan Super Giant and
East Bengal FC respectively, two of the
oldest football clubs in Asia. Derbies of the two clubs called as
Kolkata Derby often witness record breaking spectator, one such moment was during
1997 Kolkata Derby in the
Federation Cup Semi-final, where a recorded crowd of 131,781 turned up for the match while the official capacity of the stadium was 120,000. Fans of the clubs formed in the early 2010's also created ultras fan group, like
Manjappada, which supports
Kerala Blasters FC, West Block Blues, which supports
Bengaluru FC and some more. Among the Bangladeshi Active Supporters' groups, there are
The Black & White Warriors, which supports
Mohammedan SC (Dhaka) ,
Bashundhara Kings Ultras, which supports
Bashundhara Kings, and Bangladeshi Football Ultras, which supports the
Bangladesh national football team.
South America In South America,
barras bravas are the main supporter' groups. Similar to hooligan firms and
ultras, the phenomenon originated in
Argentina in the 1950s, but it has spread throughout most of the region during the following decades. This gang-like groups coordinate chants (which accompany playing bass drums and, less, trumpets) and display choreographies (like throw balloons, confetti, smoke bombs and firecrackers when their team goes out to the pitch; and wave banners, flags and umbrellas during the whole matches) to encourage their teams and intimidate rivals and referees, seek fights against opposing
barras bravas and repel police repression. They wield enormous power and influence over football in their respective states, especially in Argentina, which is home to some of the largest and strongest organised supporter groups worldwide. The exception is Brazil, where the clubs have active supporter' groups named
torcidas organizadas, who play a similar role to the
barras bravas. However, the southern part of Brazil, in the south part of
Santa Catarina and in all
Rio Grande do Sul, contrary to the rest of the country, the supporter groups are
barras bravas.
Continental Europe In Europe, there are primarily three types of groups: official supporter groups,
ultras, and
hooligan firms. Official supporter groups primary function is to liaise with the club board and protects supporter interest as well as have a say in the running of the clubs, and they usually represent all types of supporters of all ages ranging from fanatical supporters, to disabled supporters, to supporters who rarely frequent games, however they are still an independent body. The oldest of which is Torcida founded in 1950 as supporters of Hajduk Split from Croatia.
Ultras groups are independent of the club; however, they too are frequently supported by the club as they cater to the majority of the most vocal and committed supporters, producing atmosphere and encouraging the players. However, frequent tensions also arise, due to often vocal and pro-active criticism of management or players and the illegality of some their actions, such as
graffiti and lighting
pyrotechnics during matches. Many ultras groups, to maintain their independence and raise money, run their own shops selling supporter merchandise, most commonly clothing such as
supporter scarves, and sometimes in collaboration with the club match tickets.
Hooligan firms are largely restricted to a secretive
sub-culture, due to the illegal nature of their activity. As they mostly socialise with other hooligans, they therefore have little contact with other sets of supporters. In the past, the distinction between ultras and
hooligans was blurred, with the majority being considered both. Due to the increase in condemnation and punishment of hooligan activity, the divide has become increasingly visible, however for some groups, especially groups who support smaller teams and therefore have less members, this divide is still very much blurred; some groups have started using the label
hooltras.
Britain and Ireland Most supporters' groups are not only officially endorsed by the affiliated club, but also recognised on the club's website and hold regular meetings at the stadium. In England and Wales, nearly all official supporter groups are affiliated with the
Football Supporters' Federation. Also In England and Wales only,
Supporters Direct are an
umbrella organization promoting fan-ownership. For example.
Leeds United has a number of supporters groups representing people with protected characteristics which include Punjabi Whites. LGBT fan group inclusion in
Leeds United. There are also numerous
hooligan firms in Britain, also known as
casuals in itself a style of support and sub-culture, stemming largely from the fact that Britain is the birthplace of the phenomenon of
football hooliganism. In the Republic of Ireland the supporters embrace a mixture of both ultra and casual styles.
North America 's
Northern Guard Supporters celebrate a goal in a
National Premier Soccer League match. The major supporters' group for the
United States men's and
women's national teams is
The American Outlaws. The major supporters' group in Canada is
The Voyageurs. There are independent supporters' groups for teams in
Major League Soccer (MLS), which operates in the United States and Canada, and the
National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), as well as for many teams of the lower divisions of the
United States soccer pyramid. Many of these groups are members of the
Independent Supporters Council. MLS holds an annual "Supporters' Summit" to meet with the leadership of most of its supporter groups to discuss issues including security, self-policing, supporter group managed sections, and strategies for league success. Many teams in other leagues, including the
National Premier Soccer League,
USL Pro,
USL Premier Development League, and
North American Soccer League (2010) have associated supporters' groups. Supporters' groups can be found for some
NCAA soccer programs such as Legion 1818 at
Saint Louis University, Englemann Elite at the
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, or the Red Cedar Rowdies, influenced by Detroit City FC's
Northern Guard Supporters, at
Michigan State University. In Canada, there are supporters' groups for all
Canadian Premier League teams. There are also supporters' groups in cities hoping to get a CanPL team in the future.
Major League Baseball supporters' groups include
Dodgers' Pantone 294 group and
Oakland Athletics' Section 149.
NFL supporters' groups include the
Raiders' Black Hole,
Pittsburgh Steelers' Steel City Mafia,
Arizona Cardinals' Bird Gang, and the
New Orleans Saints Big Easy Mafia, which includes international chapters. The
Dallas Cowboys, who bill themselves as "America's Team", and other successful teams such as
New England Patriots, have supporters' groups around the U.S., and
Jacksonville Jaguars' Bold City Brigade includes a
UK chapter as part of its bid to promote Jaguars as
London's "home team".
NHL supporters' groups include the
New York Islanders' Blue and Orange Army est2009. The Blue and Orange Army aka BOA, was officially formed in 2009, and is the first true supporters section in the NHL. In
Mexico there are
porras, that are older and are not violent like the first ones. Some association football clubs in Mexico also have animation groups, which stage
tifo and other choreographed displays. A brawl between groups at
Querétaro-
Atlas match in 2022 injured 20 fans and resulted in
Liga MX banning animation groups from organizing in opponents' stadiums. ==See also==