Background: The football industry is a giant economic driver in the world with the English Premier League being the one with the largest following worldwide. Recently, the Premier League club Manchester City FC got charged with over 100 breaches of the leagues financial fair play rules invoking discussion and reactions among fans. This provides an opportunity to conduct research of social identity threat situations of a real-time event. Therefore, the study of Manchester City FC fans is a valid case to contribute to the understanding of British football fans´ reactions to social identity threats and coping strategies.  Purpose: This study aims to explore the reaction and coping mechanisms of football fans as their supported club has been accused of potential rule-breaking activities. Method: The study is following an interpretivist approach through a single case study. A qualitative content analysis method is used to analyse the data gathered through a Manchester City online forum. The data is analysed through manual coding, where the sub-categories emerge from the raw codes gathered from the Manchester City online forum. Conclusion: This study suggests that social mobility is not prominent amongst Manchester City FC fans in the occurrence of this Social Identity Threat, while aggressive coping strategies such as Social Competition and Social Creativity are prominent in the analysis of the sample. The study also supports previous research identifying humour as a prominent coping strategy and identifies similarities between British sports fan and sports fans in other cultures.

The present study examined procedural and distributive justice outcomes of discipline in an athletic team setting. A 2 (Consistency of Punishment: consistent vs. conditional) x 2 (Violation Severity: moderate vs. severe) x 2 (Punishment Severity: moderate vs. severe) x 2 (Decision Maker: head coach vs. team captains) factorial design was used. Participants responded to four of the 16 hypothetical scenarios resulting from the design. Participants included 354 fans in attendance at a several university athletic events and students in psychology courses. The results indicated that consistent punishment was perceived as more fair to the punished athlete, teammates, and fans than was conditional punishment. Consistent punishment was perceived as more likely than conditional punishment to deter future misconduct by the punished athlete and teammates. The findings of the importance of consistency to fairness perceptions are consistent with the organizational justice literature and suggest that principles derived in traditional organizations may apply in athletic team settings. However, the current study did not find that severe punishment was more likely than moderately severe punishment to deter future misconduct by the punished athlete and teammates, which was inconsistent with the research literature on punishment. The present research indicated that inconsistencies in applying punishment based on status likely will have a negative effect on fairness perceptions in an athletic setting just as it does in an organizational setting. Intercollegiate athletics are unique in the sense that there are many outside observers, most notably fans, who pay close attention to athlete misconduct and its subsequent outcome. According to the present results, if coaches are interested in fan perceptions of fairness, punishment should be consistently applied according to team rules for all players regardless of their status on the team.