Background: Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have changed the interaction between companies and consumers, enabling businesses to reach worldwide audiences, and impact marketing strategies. The same goes for the sports industry, where fan bases become more international, accessible and inclusive than ever before. Growing a global fan base allows football clubs to build a stronger brand name and benefit from a financial perspective. While multiple big European football clubs have developed global fan engagement programmes through SNSs and embraced the importance of these platforms, ascending clubs such as Ajax aim to reap the benefits too. For distant fans, SNSs display one of the few options to engage with one's focal club.

Purpose: This thesis explores the motivations and online behaviours of distant fans to engage with their focal club in an online environment.

Method: A quantitative study is conducted to meet the purpose of this thesis. As the thesis is written in cooperation with Ajax, the club distributed the online questionnaire to their distant fans database via e-mail, which resulted in 772 valid respondents. Besides demographical data, ten question blocks were developed in a way that they suit the integration of two models: motivations (Information, Entertainment, Personal Identity, Integration and Social Interaction, Empowerment, Remuneration and Brand Love) were studied based on the Uses and Gratifications Theory and behaviours (Consumption, Contribution and Co-Creation) were examined through Consumer Online Brand-Related Activities.

Conclusion: The need for Integration and Social Interaction, Empowerment and Remuneration mainly drive Consumption, Contribution and Co-Creation, while Brand Love revealed to be an overall important motivator for distant fans to engage with football clubs via social media.