The five levels of sustainability in European football: mapping the sustainability approaches of UEFA’s member national associations

Abstract

ABSTRACT With increasing interest being drawn to sustainability development in sport, and UEFA’s recent sustainability strategy being introduced as a roadmap and pressure level for football organisations’ sustainability efforts to intensify, the implementation of sustainability policy is becoming key for football’s sustainable development. In this study, through the lens of institutional theory and isomorphism, we focused on the under-studied recipients of said strategy, the UEFA’s member national associations (NAs), to capture the existing sustainability efforts within them, as they are reported on their official communications, and thus the backdrop to which the strategy was introduced and is being promoted. Qualitative document analysis was conducted on all official communications (website, national strategies, press releases) of all UEFA’s NAs. Through this, five levels of sustainability in European football were identified, capturing patterns in the existence of social and environmental sustainability actions and strategies among UEFA’s NAs. The five levels of sustainability in European football presented allow for a better understanding of the full spectrum of sustainability in football to be depicted, while acknowledging potentially overlooked nuances in the existence of not only actions but also strategies to guide organisations in their sustainability efforts, and illustrating the gradual progression from no sustainability to more sophisticated social and environmental sustainability in football.