Are football fans booing their team more?

February 13, 2026 No Comments

Are football fans booing their team more?Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Manager Thomas Frank was sacked by Tottenham on WednesdayBySimon CassonBBC Sport senior journalistPublished39 minutes ago19 Comments

Booing at football is an accepted part of the game. It’s been around since time began, as normal now as pre-match pints and half-time pies.

For players and match officials it is what they have come to expect at some point in their careers. But are fans booing their own team and manager more nowadays? And if so, why?

This season we’ve seen some high profile examples in the Premier League, most notably with Thomas Frank on the receiving end of disgruntled Spurs fans.

Before his seemingly inevitable sacking the Dane was booed by home supporters once again – Tuesday’s 2-1 defeat by Newcastle proving to be the final straw.

With Tottenham having won just two of their past 17 league matches, Frank himself acknowledged he understood the frustration of fans in one of his final interviews.

“I understand the frustration, I also understand the easiest thing is to point at me.”

Frank is not alone. Arne Slot and his players have had similar treatment at times this season, albeit from a much smaller number of the Liverpool faithful.

It’s not just at Premier League games either. In the Women’s Super League Brian Sorensen couldn’t fail to hear the disgruntlement from sections of Goodison Park as Everton’s dismal run of form led to his eventual sacking.

Do players notice and does it matter?

Wayne Rooney, who made headlines in 2010 after hitting out at England fans for booing the team, remembers being booed quite a lot in his career.

“It’s always been there. Fans obviously have their opinions and sometimes they’re with you and sometimes they’re against you,” he mentioned.

“It’s probably just picked up a little bit more now with more TV cameras, with social media and with phones filming from the stands.

“Obviously if a player or a player’s family is getting abused at stadiums then it can become more of an issue, but generally I think booing is fine.”

Like his former England team-mate, Joe Hart agrees it’s part of the game.

“You get booed by the away fans,” mentioned Hart. “That’s kind of par for the course. I’ve probably received a few from home fans in my time – not many. If I was being booed I was probably doing something wrong!”

Both players think booing has always been there. But did it affect them?

“Maybe it did at the time,” says Hart. “I’ve got no scars from it though, put it that way. I was very much focused on what I was doing so whether I was getting applause or boos it didn’t make any difference to how I tried to play the game.”

Former Liverpool, Spurs and Fulham midfielder Danny Murphy also remembers difficult moments during his career.

“At Fulham when we were fighting relegation there were lots of boos,” he explains. “You have to take it as a challenge. You have to want to overcome it rather than go the other way and let it affect you, drain your energy and put fear into your play.

“I always felt like it was a challenge to overcome it, to try and do better. I think if you’re playing Premier League football and you’re at that level that’s your job to do so.

“We all love it when the fans are singing your name when you’ve scored the winner or when the team’s winning – you can’t have just one and not the other.”

Booing: is it ok?

The science behind booing

Why do we boo in the first place? The answer lies in thousands of years of human evolution.

Stephen Smith is chair of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology.

“We love to believe we are logical, rational animals at the pinnacle of evolution but that’s not how we work,” Smith mentioned. “85-90% of human decisions are irrational, illogical and completely emotionally driven.

“When fans boo they make a sound which is guttural and vibrates through the bones, which means it has to be deep. It sounds like a hunting animal and it goes to the heart of our DNA.

“Emotions feed through a crowd like nothing else. Emotions are infectious. It only needs one or two people to start leading the booing and if someone else starts doing it you want to fit in with the tribe.

“The emotional part of the brain kicks in and says ‘right, I want to display my emotions, the tribe around me are doing it with this behaviour, I’m going to fit in with them’. Booing is the most natural behaviour to show that you’re displeased.”

Smith also thinks the psychological relationship between clubs and fans has changed.

“Previously there was almost an agreement that existed between fans and the club. They wanted you in to come and support the team, wear the colours and support the boys, but they weren’t going to rip you off in terms of the cost.

“Clubs nowadays have changed that model, that psychological contract between club and fans is broken.

“They’ve mentioned ‘we’re just going to treat you as any other customer, all we’re interested in is what you have in your wallet, we’re not actually interested in your loyalty to the club’.”

Fans views

So is booing your own team and manager ever justified? The fans we spoke to have mixed feelings.

Spurs supporter Ali Speechly says she would never do it but can understand why some fans do: “I’ve booed the ref during the game, but I don’t think I’ve ever booed the manager.

“I think there’s definitely a correlation between ticket prices and booing. When you’re spending a lot of money on a product and you’re not satisfied with that product then you feel more entitled as a consumer – rather than a fan – of voicing your disappointment and your frustration.”

Fellow Spurs fan Darren Harvey says he would boo if the team was consistently bad.

“I would tend to feel similar to most other fans and therefore if there was booing and I agreed I’d probably go with it.

“Sometimes it feels like certain things are quite funny to be part of a group and you don’t think until afterwards that maybe you shouldn’t have done that, you just get carried away in the moment.”

A Manchester United fan we spoke to is less keen, however: “I heard the boos at Arsenal when they lost to United and I think they’re spoilt fans to be honest.

“You shouldn’t really boo your team, you should stick with them through thick and thin.”

One supporter, who wishes to remain anonymous, thinks alcohol and drugs play a role.

“Because you can’t drink, fans get tanked up before they come to the match and that creates more of a problem.

“I was at the Euros final when England lost to Italy. I witnessed men snorting cocaine right in front of me. The use of alcohol and drugs means fans don’t care how they come across.”

The changing media landscape and its impact

There is no doubt the mainstream media – including the BBC – plays a role in highlighting booing when it takes place.

In the case of Frank, the fact a large number of Spurs fans have booed this season is newsworthy and therefore inevitably makes headlines.

Social media plays a huge role too. Influencers – some with hundreds of thousands of followers – can help to spread a certain narrative.

Speechly says that probably makes fans more likely to boo: “On social media, the people who get the most traction are the ones who are spreading negativity.

“Some people whip up a bit of a frenzy and lots of fans follow these people. They then go into the stadium having read and consumed that narrative online and they’re already pre-fuelled with that rage.”

Is booing getting worse?

This is where it gets tricky. It’s difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove whether fans are booing their own team and manager more these days.

Compared with a generation ago it’s a safe bet to say booing is talked about more nowadays because of the proliferation of media. It’s probably hard for fans to escape all that noise.

Let’s get the final word from someone who has been on the receiving end of boos.

“In an ideal world it makes no sense because if its anything that’s likely to affect your players’ performance and then affects your team’s result why would you do it?” says Murphy.

“But we don’t live in this idealistic world where everyone is logical. The passion of football fans is what makes the game great.”