Sport management education in Denmark and its relationship with professional sporting bodies: Football as a case study

Abstract

This chapter explores the interactions between football and sport management education in Denmark. It focuses on how education and football play together on and off the pitch with past, present, and future development perspectives in mind. The chapter illustrates how the professionalisation and commercialisation of Danish football sparked the development of sport management education within the country. The cultivation of the professional football market allowed sport management education to grow, especially after football's market maturity had been manifested around the start of the new millennium. Today, the football industry and sport management education in Denmark are closely linked. Thus, various competencies and expert skills are necessary in a constantly changing football industry. The foundation of these competencies is often formed by sport management education, which likewise responds to the needs of the football industry. This interdependency between football and education has resulted in close collaboration, e.g., internships for sport management students and formal partnerships for knowledge sharing. As such, the aspirational aim related to football industry actors and to sport management education is to engage in mutually beneficial interactions, which are believed to be vital for their co-existence.