Friday 4 September 2026, 2:00–3:45pm (GMT+1/BST) — online — free, register for your ticket via Eventbrite.
We’re delighted to invite you to the first digital seminar of WARN, the Worldwide Antifascism Research Network. This inaugural symposium brings together three exciting presentations on antifascism and football, exploring the sport as a site of contestation between fascist and antifascist movements across Britain, Brazil, and Poland.
Please sign up for your free ticket at Eventbrite, and do share this invitation widely with anyone who may be interested.
Presentations
Mr Cameron Huggett — Fascism and Anti-Fascism within British Football Fandom: A Brief History
This presentation charts the history of British football fandom as a site of contestation between fascist and anti-fascist actors from the 1970s to the 2020s, outlining key groups, events, and movements.
Bio: Cameron Huggett is a historian, currently undertaking an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Project between the British Library and Teesside University. His research employs an interdisciplinary approach to examining racial discourses within association football fanzines and e-zines from c.1975 to the present. His broader research interests include working class leisure, particularly music and sport, and the connections between people and place in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain and Ireland.
Dr CK Snyder — “Subversive Play: Trans Masculinities, Fascism, and Brazilian Football”
This paper examines the intersection of trans resistance, football, and antifascist politics during the rise of Bolsonarismo in Brazil (2016–2019). As the far-right movement leveraged anti-gender rhetoric to fuel a broader fascist shift, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB) — Brazil’s first trans men’s football team — found ways to resist state-sanctioned oppression within the national sport. Focusing on the team’s strategic use of naked protest, this study analyzes how MBB countered censorship, moral panic, and authoritarian backlash. Beyond athletic competition, MBB mobilized football to expose the precarity of trans lives, subvert fascist body politics, and demand belonging outside the confines of normative citizenship, demonstrating how grassroots football can serve as a vital vehicle for antifascist struggle.
Bio: Dr CK Snyder (she/they || ela/elu) is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Louisville. They have also taught at Federal and State Universities in Bahía and Pernambuco, Brazil. Snyder earned a Ph.D. from the Harriet Tubman Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, with certificates in Teaching and Learning and Digital Studies, at the University of Maryland, College Park, where they also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center. Snyder’s scholarly work has been published in journals including Latin American Research Review, TSQ: Trans Studies Quarterly, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, International Journal of Women’s Studies, and The Radical Teacher. Snyder’s forthcoming book, Which Team Are You On: Visibility and Gender Dissidence in Brazilian Soccer (University of Texas Press), is due out in March 2027.
Dr Grzegorz Piotrowski and Jan Bobrowski — When Football Terraces Are Closed: Strategies for Creating Antifascist Football Spaces in Poland
Bio: Grzegorz Piotrowski is an assistant professor at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Gdańsk and a senior researcher at the European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk, Poland. He focuses on research on radical social movements, civil society, and protests. Jan Bobrowski is a sociology student and antifascist activist whose work focuses on football and social activism.
Free tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/warn-symposium-antifa-and-football-tickets-1993125069737
Worldwide Antifascism Research Network 
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