Dear Sports Fan,

Why is it that when you watch a soccer game on TV, especially an international one, you always hear the crowd whistling? Why do soccer fans whistle? What does it mean?

Wondering,

Whitney

Dear Whitney,

When international soccer fans whistle, they are expressing displeasure with what they see on the soccer field. It’s very similar to how fans in the United States boo in sports stadiums, with only minor differences. I don’t really know why we use booing while most of the world whistles to express themselves in this way. As far as I can tell, there internet doesn’t know either.

You’ll hear wide-spread whistling from soccer fans for three main reasons:

The crowd disagrees with a foul the ref has called or not called

The crowd is holding a grudge against a particular player for some reason and he or she has the ball

The crowd feels a team is playing cynically through “simulating fouls” by diving or time wasting or playing too passively by passing the ball backwards excessively

It’s the last scenario that is a little different from how American fans using booing as a weapon. I would say booing is a little more aggressive and whistling a little more derisive. The only direct parallel to a crowd that whistles at their own team for playing too passively is a crowd that boos an American football team for running when they think they should throw or for conceding the end of a half when they think the team should try to score.

The roots of whistling to express these feelings are, as I mentioned before, pretty obscure. The Wikipedia page about whistling gives plenty of speculative meat to chew on even if it doesn’t make any of its own conclusions. In its section on superstition, Wikipedia states that whistling “is thought to attract bad luck, bad things, or evil spirits” in many cultures. Examples given are in the UK, where whistling is thought to “foretell death or a great calamity” and in Russia and its surroundings where whistling indoors is “believed to bring poverty”. I imagine that the flip side of repressing your whistling instincts to avoid bad things happening to you would be wanting to whistle aggressively in situations (like sporting events) where you fervently (if somewhat light-heartedly, I hope) wish bad things would happen to others.

As for why international soccer fans whistle to express negativity while American fans boo, I do have a wild guess. In American arenas, even during the most exciting games, the prevailing noise is applause, rhythmic but non-melodic chants, or scattered, disorganized shouting. In international soccer arenas, the prevailing soundtrack of the games is the organized singing of fans supporting their teams. If you’re trying to cut through the normal background noise to express your displeasure, a long, drawn out “boooooooooo” on one tone might work against the noise of an American sporting event but it definitely won’t against the singing of an international soccer game. A high-pitched whistle on the other hand is shrill and loud enough to break through even the most fervent supporters song.

Hope this answers your question,

Ezra Fischer