With eager eyes and taut nerves, screaming, jumping and dancing with zeal, football fans move about soccer stadiums and nearby cafes where sports fans crowd. When one club wins, the event is celebrated with festooned cars, while slogans are shouted across the city. This happens locally and internationally when matches are played.

Despite the fact this is usually a happy and exciting event, some fans are unable to reconcile their club’s defeat. They react with fury, abusing and humiliating the other team’s fans and players — acts which often lead to fistfights and vandalized properties. This is what happens when love for one team turns to fanaticism.

Fouad Nasser, 23, never misses a local, European or international tournament. He creates an atmosphere of spirited but nonviolent arguments. Despite the fact that he has never played football, he believes he is an expert on tactics of the game and detection of faults of some players in a match. He, however, claims that he expresses his views and criticism in a non-offensive manner and is willing to take victory or failure without “losing his mind.”

Abdullah Yasser, another local football fan, remembers an occasion in which he was thrown out of his uncle’s house while watching a football match. His uncle would invite relatives and young friends to view important tournaments. The uncle was careful not to upset any of the viewers.

“While a particular match was being played my uncle and I supported two different teams. When my team scored two goals, I was so excited that I started mocking my uncle’s team. He was so mad at me that he ordered me to leave the house. However, he cooled down and I apologized, and it was then that I realized the need to control myself, especially when watching football matches,” he said.

Abu Salim, 34, and his wife love the intoxication of victory, share the same interest in sports and are fans of the same club. They watch matches together. Their two children are under 12 and have inherited the sporting spirit from their parents. Abu Salim takes them to local football matches in the hope of making them professional players. He wants to send them to receive coaching at his favorite club.

For some people, love for a team can have a dramatic effect on their private lives. Naif Saeed says he turns into another person while cheering, and cannot control himself on such occasions. He unknowingly starts shouting insults and hurling abusive words at the rival team. He says this nature has negatively affected his family life and his career. He believes that he will never give up the obsession to cheer a favorite team under any circumstance.

Rasheed Munir, 35, attributes blind sports fanaticism to a low level of culture and lack of awareness about sportsmanship. According to him, the extreme zeal that makes people exceed the boundaries of mutual respect is generated by provocation from the media. He stresses the need for stricter regulations and close monitoring, as well as deterrent punishment for fans that break the law. Shaima Ali claims she is worried about her husband’s safety whenever he goes out to view matches. She says he gets into disputes with members of rival clubs due to his strong allegiance to his favorite team. She says there have been occasions when their car windows were smashed because it carried the logo of his favorite club.

Saudi national player Mohammed Amin says negative cheering is something that has been transmitted from generation to generation, locally and globally. Young children see their parents and relatives cheering enthusiastically, and conversely, yelling, breaking things and cursing rival teams. These scenes sow seeds in the young minds that cheering is a kind of expression of fanatical zeal for a particular team. In schools, teenagers hurl abuses and sometimes fight over their favorite teams.

Journalist Amal Baquzi believes that media have considerable influence on the public. “Unfortunately, club presidents use the media as a pulpit to provoke sensationalism,” she said. “The culture of sports should be based on respect for all teams.”

Sports media personality Faisal Al-Meshari thinks that sports fanaticism is an old issue with countless reasons for its negative consequences. Sometimes the provocative statement of a club president could cause a dispute with supporters and players of a rival team. He believes that the media should carry statements in a non-provocative manner. Social networking sites are also responsible to a certain extent in spreading false and dangerous trends, he said.

Psychiatrist Muhammad Al-Ghamdi says basic human impulses such as aggressiveness and defensiveness find expression in some people who are less educated. Even worse, Al-Ghamdi adds, is that they transmit this violent culture to their offspring. He believes that lack of regulations and punishments, in addition to drug addiction, are some of the major reasons for the spread of violence at sport events.