This paper investigates how political campaigns engaged UK football fan communities on Twitter in the aftermath of the Brexit Referendum (2016-2017). Football fandom, with its strong collective identities and tribal behaviours, offers fertile ground for political influence. Combining social network and content analysis, we examine how political discourse became embedded in football conversations. We show that a wide range of actors -- including parties, media, activist groups, and pseudonymous influencers -- mobilised support, provoked reactions, and shaped opinion within these communities. Through case studies of hashtag hijacking, embedded activism, and political "megaphones", we illustrate how campaigns leveraged fan cultures to amplify political messages. Our findings highlight mechanisms of political influence in ostensibly non-political online spaces and point toward the development of a broader framework in future work.

翻译：本文研究了英国脱欧公投（2016-2017年）后，政治活动如何在Twitter上渗透英国足球迷社区。足球迷文化凭借其强烈的集体认同和部落化行为，为政治影响提供了肥沃土壤。通过结合社交网络分析与内容分析，我们探讨了政治话语如何嵌入足球相关讨论中。研究表明，包括政党、媒体、激进团体和匿名影响力人物在内的多元行为体，在这些社区内动员支持、激发反应并塑造舆论。通过对标签劫持、嵌入式行动主义和政治“扩音器”的案例研究，我们阐释了政治活动如何利用球迷文化放大政治信息。研究结果揭示了表面非政治的在线空间中政治影响的机制，并为未来工作中构建更广泛的分析框架指明了方向。