Lower League Football In Crisis

While the field of football studies has produced an abundance of literature on professional, top-league football, there is little research output to do with the non-top level football. This book explores the relationship between the top and lower leagues, laying open the drastic schisms that exist between the different levels. The study links the developments at the top level of English and German football in the past 30 years to transformational processes in lower league football. Illustrating how the hegemonic status of top football weighs hard on the spheres below, it depicts how it also serves as a blueprint for lower league football clubs’ strategies in coping with a threefold dilemma of institutional legitimacy that shows itself in economic, cultural and social dimensions. Taking the different club structures in both national contexts as a starting point, it portrays both the efficacy of institutional frameworks and how these can be challenged from below. This research will be of interest to students and scholars across football studies, sports studies, the sociology of sport, and organisation studies.

Football's financial bubble has finally burst. After years of growth, the English game is on the verge of bankruptcy with the future of many clubs seriously in doubt. This title explores just how this situation has come about.

This book cuts through the jargon and complicated formulae to focus on the key concepts in sports economics, introducing the fundamentals in a concise and engaging way to give the reader without a background in economics the tools with which to read and apply sports economics in their work. Full of real-world cases and stories, the book offers a short economic history of sport and explains the economic foundations of the world of sport today, from local leagues to mega-events. Covering both amateur and professional sports, it explores and explains the most important issues in contemporary sports economics, from player transfer markets and the rise of women’s sports to the spending behaviour of fans and the growing shadow of corruption. A fascinating read for any student, researcher or practitioner working in sport, or for the general reader who wants to understand the background to many of the most important stories in sport today, this is the only book on sports economics that you will ever need.

This book presents a fresh perspective on football fandom in England, going beyond existing debates surrounding the structural transformations English football has seen in recent decades, to consider the contested cultural ground upon which football fandom exists. Supporter Ownership in English Football connects cultural conflict experienced across society associated with negotiating structural changes such as globalisation, commodification and social exclusion, with supporter ownership in football – which is in itself an expression and reflection of broader social and political shifts in class-consciousness. Discourses of identity, authenticity, loyalty, ownership and above all, the possibilities and limitations for ordinary people to influence change, play a decisive role in how fans come to decide whether they could, or should, have a meaningful say in the future of their club and the game itself. While celebrating the achievements, progress and potential of the supporter ownership movement, the book is also careful to take account of the various setbacks, contradictions and limiting tendencies that continue to shape its developmental trajectory. Porter’s relation of football supporter ownership to the political and social class dynamics of contemporary society will be of interest to scholars of sport studies, sociology, cultural studies and politics, and those interested in social movements, consumerism, identity, authenticity and community.

Football Managers have to deal with a number of unique pressures, yet the challenges of the football manager are similar to those of managers in other sectors. This book examines the management of football and looks at ways that managers and leaders in other industries can use tools and techniques from the sporting world within their own sector.

Football is unquestionably the world’s most popular and influential sport. There is no corner of the globe in which the game is not played or followed. More countries are affiliated to FIFA, football’s governing body, than to the United Nations. The sport has therefore become an important component of our social, cultural, political and economic life. The Routledge Handbook of Football Studies is a landmark work of reference, going further than any other book in considering the historical and contemporary significance of football around the world. Written by a team of leading sport scholars, the book covers a broad range of disciplines from history, sociology, politics and business, to philosophy, law and media studies. The central section of the book examines key themes and issues in football studies, such as the World Cup and international competition, governance and ownership, fandom and celebrity. The concluding section offers in-depth surveys of the culture and organisation of football in each of the regional confederations, from UEFA to CONCACAF. This book will be fascinating reading for any serious football fan and an essential resource for advanced students or scholars undertaking research in football or sport studies, and any practitioner or policy-maker working in football.

In The Turning Season, Michael Wagg goes in search of hidden histories and footballing ghosts from before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He revisits the 14 clubs that made up the 1989 DDR-Oberliga, East Germany's top flight. From Aue in the Erzgebirge mountains to Rostock on the Baltic Sea, this quirky account of his whistle-stop tour is for fans who know that football clubs are the beating hearts of the places they play for. There are portraits of the lower levels as well as the big league, stories of then and now that celebrate the characters he met pitch-side. There's Mr Schmidt, who's found a magical fix for the scoreboard at Stahl Brandenburg; Karl Dr&össler, who captained Lokomotive Leipzig against Eusebio's Benfica; and the heroes of Magdeburg's European triumph, last seen dancing in white bath robes, now pulling in to a dusty car park by the River Elbe. The Turning Season turns its gaze on East German football's magnificent peculiarity, with 14 enchanting stories from a lost league in a country that disappeared.

Sport can be a vehicle for the expression of identity, and also a factor in the shaping of identity. This book explores the complex interrelationships between nations, regions and states in the landscape of contemporary international sport, with a particular focus on identity. Exploring important themes such as the geopolitics of sports events, contested identities, and ownership of sport and its impact on sporting cultures, the book presents contemporary and historical cases from around the world, including football in a divided Ireland; sport and the anti-Apartheid movement; Chinese sporting nationalism and soft power; and the role of sport media in the shaping of Catalan identity. This is an important resource for students and researchers working in Sports Studies, Sports Journalism, Sports Management Studies, Sports Marketing, Football Studies, Sport and Identity Studies, Sociology of Sport Studies, and Cultural Studies.