Metaphorical Analysis of the Perceptions of Professional Football Team Fans Toward Fair Play

The aim of the study was to analyze the perceptions of professional football team fans toward fair play. In the study, phenomenology, one of the qualitative research designs, was used. The research group consisted of 107 adult male fans who voluntarily participated in the research, who went to Erzincan 2nd League football team 24 Anagold Erzincanspor matches in the 2022-2023 season. Personal information form and worksheet created for the participants were used as data collection tools in the study. In the worksheet, the participants were asked to fill in the phrase Fair play is like ............ . Because ........... The collected data were analyzed and interpreted by the content analysis method. The metaphors most frequently used by professional football team fans regarding the concept of fair play are sportsmanship, brotherhood, justice, friendship, and humanity, respectively. When the conceptual categories they belong to are examined based on the reasons for the metaphors produced, it has been determined that the participants produced metaphors in six categories for fair play: Fair play as an expression of wisdom, Fair play as an expression of human qualities, Fair play as an expression of nature, Fair play as a must, Fair play regarding objects, and Fair play as a guide. It was noted that the participants used a large number of different metaphors and that there was no high consensus on a particular metaphor. In addition, it was determined that the participants mostly had perceptions of the structure of fair play integrating with high human values.