The governance network of European football: introducing new governance approaches to steer football at the EU level

Abstract

The authors of this article aim at introducing a new approach in the academic debate on governance failures in professional football. In recent years, political, legal and economic driving forces have led to the emergence of a governance network in European football. We state that this provides the European Union (EU) with the opportunity, if not the duty, to get a grip on the football sector through meta-governance. Further improvement of the network's democratic legitimacy through the enhancement of its democratic anchorage via the introduction of more openness, stakeholder participation and meta-governance by the EU should help the network to deal with the growing complexity of the football world. This way, governance networks in sport can be the solution to the governance failures in the sector, just like governance networks were the solution to many examples of government and market failures in modern society.