The contribution of football clubs to the international projection of cities: a causal analysis based on German and English cases

Abstract

The study analyses the extent to which the presence of a football club with an international projection increases the visibility and global projection of the city that it belongs to. It specifically focuses on knowledge of a selection of English and German cities. The analysis is based on probabilistic methodology and uses data from surveys completed by Catalan university students. Our findings demonstrate that cities with famous football clubs are better known than others from the same country and similar urban hierarchy. Moreover, the best-known cities are also the ones where football has the greatest weight in the overall knowledge of the city. Furthermore, the study also demonstrates that the inclusion of the name of the city in that of the football club becomes a key factor for determining the intensity of the previously mentioned effects.