Building and maintaining the relationship with football fans during covid-19

Pandemic restrictions implemented by the government in order to reduce spread of illness with SARS-Cov 2 changed the face of Polish sport, including football. Matches without audience participation, or with a limited number of fans(25% or 50% of all available seats on stadium) and even suspension of PKO Ekstraklasa games changed communication with fans that moved to social media. The football clubs of PKO Ekstraklasa, which had already built their relations with fans based, onsocial media, had an easier task during the coronavirus pandemic. How football teams used social media to build and maintain the relationship with their supporters during coronavirus pandemic? The aim of the article is an attempt to analyze the posts published on Facebook by the football clubs of PKO Ekstraklasa in the period from March 9 to June 19, 2020,focused on building and maintaining relationships with fans during the coronavirus pandemic. The analyzed data were divided into 4 thematic categories:promotion of safety, mobilization for financial support of the club, maintaining relationship with fans and actions taken by the club's fans during a pandemic promoted by football clubs.Thisallowed for a broad assessment of the activities of PKO Ekstraklasa football clubs in social media based on the reactions of Facebook users. The analysis of the most interesting posts and actions taken by football clubs during the coronavirus pandemic allows to develop a set of good practices for building and maintaining relationships with fans in difficult times using social media. The set of good practices could be put to good use in other industries also due to universal. © JPES.