Members of the Ultra Verde

“Stadiumphilia is about what the stadium contains in terms of affective and visceral levels of male experience. Football is wildly popular in Algerian culture. Since the Black Decade, the infrastructure for public mass entertainment has largely disappeared outside the major cities, with the exception of football stadiums, which have become one of the only places apart from religious services where large crowds are permitted to congregate for hours in public. Sahraoui is especially  interested in unaccompanied minors,  who are usually barred from entering  the stadium but who come anyway,  cheering from beyond its walls if they  fail to find a way past the guards.  

Sahraoui sees the football supporters’ enthusiasm and fierce desire to participate as spectators as an allegory for social conditions in Algeria, rather than simply as an allegiance to the game itself. He also understands the public protests that took place in Algeria in the lead-up to the presidential elections as having been rehearsed in the stadium, born of the solidarity learned as fans.”