Abuse, Intimidation and Violence as Aspects of Managerial Control in Professional Soccer in Britain and Ireland

Abstract

Using semi-structured tape-recorded interviews, this study focuses on the ways in which managers maintain control over players in professional soccer clubs. More specifically, the article focuses on the ways in which disciplinary codes are established by managers and the sanctions that are imposed on players for breaches of club discipline. The findings highlight the arbitrary character of these codes and the central part played by intimidation and abuse, both verbal and physical, as aspects of managerial control within clubs. We argue that these techniques of managerial control reflect the origins of professional soccer in late Victorian England, when professional players were the equivalent of industrial workers and, like industrial workers, were seen as requiring authoritarian regulation and control. This pattern of management has persisted in professional soccer long after it has been superseded in industrial relations more generally because, while many aspects of the management of soccer clubs have involved increasing professionalization and bureaucratization, the role of the manager has proved remarkably resistant to these processes. The authority of the team manager continues to be based on traditional forms of authoritarianism and this allows managers an unusually high degree of autonomy in defining their own role, while placing relatively few constraints on their authority in relation to players.