Abstract
In recent years, the literature on football and accounting has focused on some opaque spaces in the ownership of football clubs, as well as in the definition of collaboration and commercial partnership mechanisms that, even in the case of larger clubs, are at times misrepresented in financial reports (Chadwick et al., 2018; Sudgen et al., 2017; Holzen et al., 2019). Our paper describes the case of Italy and its main relevance lies in that spectrum of analysis; in effect, the strictly familial nature of Italian capitalism clearly emerges in the case of football, as well. The clubs are controlled by influential entrepreneurial families (often operating in the entertainment industry) who through football consolidate their image. Put in these terms, the risks of conflicts of interest and opacity in commercial formulas, already highlighted by the best and recent literature, are reflected in a system of economic and meta/non-economic returns in which the object “football” becomes an instrument of social recognition and financial growth via indirect mechanisms.
Highlights
The literature on football and accounting has focused on some opaque spaces in the ownership of football clubs, as well as in the definition of collaboration and commercial partnership mechanisms that, even in the case of larger clubs, are at times misrepresented in financial reports (Chadwick et al, 2018; Sudgen et al, 2017; Holzen et al, 2019)
This paper reflects on the recent global study “Legal, Financial and Integrity Aspects of Club Ownership in Football” published in 2018 and spearheaded by the International Association of Lawyers (UIA), the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) INSIGHT, and the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA)
The paper analyzes the case of Italy‟s Serie A, developing some considerations on the negative consequences of the lack of transparency
Summary
This paper reflects on the recent global study “Legal, Financial and Integrity Aspects of Club Ownership in Football” published in 2018 and spearheaded by the International Association of Lawyers (UIA), the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) INSIGHT, and the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA). In line with the study above, a growing body of recent literature has been devoted to the complexities and dark sides of the management of football teams consider, for instance: Chadwick et al, 2018; Sudgen et al, 2017; Holzen et al, 2019; Kelly et al, 2018; May et al, 2019; Porter et al, 2019. Some of those authors focus on football scandals and corruption, others on mismanagement by agents, others on whistleblowing as a new regulatory instrument in global governance. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 reviews the recent literature, Sections 3 and 4 focus respectively on the current status quo of football in general and in Italy in particular, Section 5 concludes
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
