THE COLIGAY AND THE MEMORIES OF THE GRÊMIO FANS

Abstract

Football is a gender-building arena. During these battles, the construction of meaning associated with sports reproduce representations of gender and sexuality inside a logic that is hetero-normative, male chauvinist and homophobic. In Brazil, the verbal expressions, made in many sports venues by groups of fans, have been put into question. In 2016, the FIFA imposed pecuniary sanctions against CBF for fans' behavior during the 2018 World Cup qualification for chantics perceived as being homophobic. We can understand a certain "resurrection" of Grêmio's Coligay, its group of gay fans that existed between the late 1970's and the early 1980's. We can't see it returning to Grêmio's Arena at this moment, but a book and a short documentary were made about it, and the club itself has "officialized" Coligay's existence in its new museum, opened in early 2016. Through dialogues recorded with small groups of fans in the stadium, during fieldwork, at gameday, we directly asked how they perceived, as fans, Coligay's resurrection. Today's battles create new understandings of the fans' past, specially in the areas of gender and sexuality.