Angry football fans across Australia have vowed to boycott A-League games this weekend, leaving embarrassing empty spaces in the stands.

Their immediate grievance is the perceived failure of Football Federation Australia (FFA) to respond more robustly in the two weeks since Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph published the names of 198 people who have been banned from A-League grounds. That sparked inflammatory rhetoric about “general thuggery” (Daily Telegraph reporter Rebecca Wilson), the Paris terrorist attacks (broadcaster Alan Jones), “grubby pack animals” (NSW assistant police commissioner Kyle Stewart) and “suburban terrorists” (News Corp columnist Susie O’Brien), and in turn a fierce backlash from fans.

Football fan culture has long been the reviled outlier of mainstream Australian sport

All too predictably, the response to the two female journalists on social media has included grossly offensive personal abuse. But the reaction of organised fan groups has effectively and reasonably chanelled discontent at the governing body over a number of grievances, as John Davidson has outlined. Above all, they feel FFA chief executive David Gallop spent too much time reasserting the body’s right to ban fans without the right of appeal (subsequently qualified), and too little defending them against the wilder accusations.

The Telegraph affair brought a grumbling sense of alienation to the surface, and the divide between the FFA and the most vocal fans is certainly a threat to the immediate future of the code. But it also points to a wider question of how Australian fans of all sports want to experience live events.

Football fan culture has long been the reviled outlier of mainstream Australian sport. In the 1970s and 80s it was painted (not always without justification) as a proxy for violence between rival ethnic minority groups, and a local manifestion of European hooliganism.

Aside from football’s identification with migrant groups, its key point of difference has been the collective nature of its support, for good and ill. Misbehaviour at other football codes and cricket has always been more individual, and thus more easily hidden, trivialised or even celebrated. (In 2008 the Sydney Cricket Ground erected a statue to its most famous exponent of supposedly good-natured abuse.)

Since the establishment of the A-League one of its most impressive features has been the spontaneous organisation of the fan groups. The songs, chants, banners and other displays they have created give football a very different flavour from the often larger, but much more passive, crowds at AFL, rugby league or cricket.

The FFA naturally plays on this unique characteristic as a selling point. Gallop, is especially keen to introduce more big-city derby matches to the league.

“There’s no question that the Melbourne and Sydney derby games have driven so much of the boom in the A-League’s crowds, TV ratings, membership and digital audiences,” he said last year. “These matches showcase one of our key advantages over all the other footy brands – the atmosphere created by passionate fans.”

So keen is Gallop to replicate these scenes that this season the FFA has refused the Wellington Phoenix a long-term A-League licence, amid strong hints it wanted a third Sydney team in the competition instead. He insists any teams added to the competition will be in cities with “millions, not just a few hundred thousand” people – that is, creating new derbies in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

By contrast, the anti-football crusaders such as Wilson and Jones highlight the derby between Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers in particular as a hotbed of violence. It now included “vicious assaults on rival fans by some supporters as they walk to the stadium”, Wilson reported. Some stadiums were “moving to ban” the games, she wrote, without a hint of evidence or plausibility.

Gallop’s positive characterisation of the atmosphere is much closer to the truth than the florid descriptions of Wilson and Jones, which is one reason fans have been so dismayed by his performance over the past two weeks.

Yes, if you go to an A-League game, particularly a derby, you may well hear unpleasant abuse, see boorish behaviour and even – though it is a very long shot – experience actual violence. And no doubt women are more at risk than men of being targeted, with verbal if not physical aggression.

But as Gallop seems to be aware, there is a large audience (including many women) that is prepared to put up with that, in exchange for something he never talks about: adrenaline, engagement, tension, everything that goes with losing yourself in a collective experience and caring about the outcome. This is the key element missing in the words of Gallop and others in the football hierarchy, even those whose instinct is to side with the fans.

There is a serious disconnect between their rosy view of football’s ideal audience and the actual conditions that create the “passion” they say they relish.

Responding to the threat of this weekend’s boycott, Sydney FC chief executive Tony Pignata insisted the A-League environment was and should be “fun, relaxed, safe and secure”. The overwhelming majority of fans wanted to “attend matches for a family outing, for entertainment and to spend some time with friends”.

That sounds more like AFL or T20.

If football wants to heal the divide between its governing body and most committed fans – surely a key constituency – it needs to own the idea of going to a match as a participant, not just a consumer. While firmly drawing a line at violence and racist or sexist abuse, it needs to hold on to those who are invested in the result and eager to contribute by actively and noisily supporting their team.

If that means being a bit less relaxed – and sometimes even a bit less fun – it’s a price worth paying.