Contemporary Football Research Articles

‘Brazil, Tell Me How It Feels’: Soccer, Music, Narcissism, and the State, or Mascherano’s Failure

During Brazil's 2014 World Cup finals, Argentine fans popularized a chant that stated “Brazil, tell me how it feels”. The chant became viral, and produced a Brazilian response, “Argentina, me diz que se sente”: both discussed relationship of rivalry by joking at the other's expenses. But it was surprising that the chant was based on the melody of a very old song from the American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, recorded in 1969, possibly before the birth of those who sang the melody in Brazil (“Bad Moon Rising”, a very popular song recorded many times). This paper discusses several topics derived from that fact: the relationship between popular music and football chants; the uses of popular music and global pop at the World Cups from 1962 to our days; the self-presentation of the “local” (national) fans before a globalized media scene; and, last but not least, the role of sport icons and heroes for the fans but also for the construction of national epics (the icons and heroes invoked in the chants included, obviously, both Maradona and Messi, two of the most important football heroes from the ‘80s until today). The core idea is to show how contemporary football culture must be described and interpreted in the continuous intersection of local texts -and fans’ practices- and global events.

Civic integration or ethnic segregation? Models of ethnic and civic nationalism in club football/soccer

This essay evaluates the ways that soccer has been used by various actors in the promotion of both ethnic and civic forms of nationalism throughout the world. By focusing on domestic soccer, this paper further investigates the phenomenon of nationalism in the world and provides broader theoretical and practical answers to the questions of integration and ethnic identity. This essay starts by examining the issue of ethnicity in historic and contemporary football, provides a review of the academic literature on ethnic and civic nationalism and then discusses the role of ethnic and civic models of identity within club football. Most notable is a discussion of five categories, which best explain why ethnic nationalism persists, and why it was initially mobilized. The essay then moves to a discussion of why most soccer clubs in the world have made the transition to a more civic form of nationalism. Finally, conclusions are drawn on the issue of ethnic nationalism in domestic football.

Staging and managing match events in the English professional football industry: an SME learning perspective

The English professional football industry has attracted considerable academic interest in relation to the tragedies that occurred during the 20th century. However, the bulk of this work has focused on historical, social and economic factors rather than match processes. Consequently, an in-depth view of contemporary football match event management processes does not exist. This paper aims to address this by examining small and medium enterprises (SME) and event literatures in order to surface the SME mentality evident in the majority of clubs. A Football Match Event Lifecycle Model is developed and then used to provide an insight into contemporary football event management issues and processes and demonstrate how clubs can generate, transfer and use knowledge to learn from the mistakes of the past. The paper adopts an interpretivist methodological approach and utilises qualitative primary data from semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation.

Power and logics in Scottish football: the financial collapse of Rangers FC

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the implications of power imbalance and over-emphasis on commercial logic on the structure and governance of Scottish football.Design/methodology/approach– An in-depth analysis of secondary sources is used to identify the logics at play in Scottish football and to explore implications of the liquidation of Rangers for the structure of the game.Findings– Over-emphasis on commercial logic has led to power being concentrated in two clubs, Celtic and Rangers, and to other clubs and the league itself becoming financially dependent on those clubs. The collapse of Rangers thus threatened the stability of other clubs and the league. The case highlights the challenge of reconciling competing logics and the role played by previously peripheral actors in bringing about change in the field.Research limitations/implications– The on-going nature of the case, related investigations and legal process meant that it was not possible to supplement the secondary source material with primary evidence.Practical implications– It demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of elite contemporary football and of the challenges faced by leagues and governing bodies in accommodating logics and multiple stakeholder interests. It also highlights the need for more effective financial regulation of corporate football clubs and their officials and emphasises the importance of inclusive stakeholder governance.Originality/value– It highlights the risks inherent in football business in small markets dominated by one or a few clubs. It highlights the role that previously peripheral actors can play in bringing about change within a field.

Regina v John Terry: The discursive construction of an alleged racist event

This article explores the conformation in discourse of a verbal exchange and its subsequent mediatised and legal ramifications. The event concerns an allegedly racist insult directed by high-profile English professional footballer John Terry towards another player, Anton Ferdinand, during a televised match in October 2011. The substance of Terry’s utterance, which included the noun phrase ‘fucking black cunt’, was found by a Chief Magistrate not to be a racist insult, although the fact that these actual words were framed within the utterance was not in dispute. The upshot of this ruling was that Terry was acquitted of a racially aggravated public order offence. A subsequent investigation by the regulatory commission of the English Football Association (FA) ruled, almost a year after the event, that Terry was guilty of racially abusing Ferdinand. Terry was banned for four matches and fined £220,000. It is our contention that this event, played out in legal rulings, social media and print and broadcast media, constitutes a complex web of linguistic structures and strategies in discourse, and as such lends itself well to analysis with a broad range of tools from pragmatics, discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics. Among other things, such an analysis can help explain the seemingly anomalous – even contradictory – position adopted in the legal ruling with regard to the speech act status of ‘fucking black cunt’; namely, that the racist content of the utterance was not contested but that the speaker was found not to have issued a racist insult. Over its course, the article addresses this broader issue by making reference to the systemic-functional interpersonal function of language, particularly to the concepts of modality, polarity and modalisation. It also draws on models of verbal irony from linguistic pragmatics, notably from the theory of irony as echoic mention. Furthermore, the article makes use of the cognitive-linguistic framework Text World Theory to examine the discourse positions occupied by key actors and adapts, from cognitive poetics, the theory of mind-modelling to explore the conceptual means through which these actors discursively negotiate the event. It is argued that the pragmatic and cognitive strategies that frame the entire incident go a long way towards mitigating the impact of so ostensibly stark an act of racial abuse. Moreover, it is suggested here that the reconciliation of Terry’s action was a result of the confluence of strategies of discourse with relations of power as embodied by the media, the law and perceptions of nationhood embraced by contemporary football culture. It is further proposed that the outcome of this episode, where the FA was put in the spotlight, and where both the conflict and its key antagonists were ‘intranational’, was strongly impelled by the institution of English football and its governing body both to reproduce and maintain social, cultural and ethnic cohesion and to avoid any sense that the event featured a discernible ‘out-group’.

From football stadium to Iron Age hillfort. Creating a taxonomy of Wessex hillfort communities

AbstractThe variability of Wessex hillfort form, use and development has long been noted, but not satisfactorily explained. This paper seeks to explain this variability and suggests that each hillfort may have had its own distinctive history of use, dependent upon the nature of the hillfort community – the people who visited, inhabited and used the hillfort. This paper starts by using grid–group analysis to define identities that can be found among modern communities – such as that of spectators of contemporary professional football clubs – which helps to frame our understanding of hillfort communities as constituted of households with differing motivations, loyalties and identification with the material environment. The variable trajectories of hillfort development are thus explained by the changing cultural relationships between Iron Age households and hillforts.

Modern English football fandom and hyperreal, ‘safe’, ‘all-seater’ stadia: examining the contemporary football stage

Through a critique of various social, cultural, political and technological changes in English football as a result of the Taylor report into the safety of football stadia post-Hillsborough in 1989, this paper explores the way in which the modern ‘safe’ all-seater stadium is often experienced by fans in a hyperreal and relatively passive fashion. The paper then considers some of the challenges posed by these developments and the potential for fans to renegotiate and adapt in the face of a middle classing of football discourse. Finally, the paper examines the social control agenda inherent within the neoliberal development of all-seater stadia, whilst highlighting the response of the English Football Supporters Federation and their ‘Safe Standing Campaign’. The paper will conclude by offering a tentative critique of an innovative response by Manchester City F.C. supporters and their participatory ‘Poznan’ celebration in all-seating areas based on auto-ethnographic interpretation.

When is a Drug Not a Drug? Troubling Silences and Unsettling Painkillers in the National Football League

This paper uses a genealogical approach to explore the conjuncture at which the longstanding but partial and uneasy silence surrounding painkiller use in the National Football League seems increasingly under threat. We historicize and problematize apparently self-evident narratives about painkiller use in contemporary football by interrogating the gendered, racialized and labor-related discourses surrounding Brett Favre’s 1996 admission of a dependency on Vicodin, as well as the latest rash of confessions of misuse by now retired athletes. We argue that these coconstructed and coconstructing moments of noise and silence are part of the same discursive system. This system serves to structure the emerging preoccupation with painkillers in the NFL, with Favre’s admission still working to placate anxieties surrounding the broader drug problems endemic to the league, and failing to disrupt our implicit knowingness about painkiller use, thus reinforcing ongoing cultures of silence and toughness in professional football.

Estimated metabolic and mechanical demands during different small-sided games in elite soccer players

The present study examined the extent to which game format (possession play, SSG-P and game with regular goals and goalkeepers, SSG-G) and the number of players (5, 7 and 10 a-side) influence the physical demands of small-sided soccer games (SSGs) in elite soccer players. Training data were collected during the in-season period from 26 English Premier League outfield players using global positioning system technology. Total distance covered, distance at different speed categories and maximal speed were calculated. In addition, we focused on changes in velocity by reporting the number of accelerations and decelerations carried out during the SSGs (divided in two categories: moderate and high) and the absolute maximal values of acceleration and deceleration achieved. By taking into account these parameters besides speed and distance values, estimated energy expenditure and average metabolic power and distance covered at different metabolic power categories were calculated. All variables were normalized by time (i.e., 4min). The main findings were that the total distance, distances run at high speed (>14.4kmh−1) as well as absolute maximum velocity, maximum acceleration and maximum deceleration increased with pitch size (10v10>7v7>5v5; p<.05). Furthermore, total distance, very high (19.8–25.2kmh−1) and maximal (>25.2kmh−1) speed distances, absolute maximal velocity and maximum acceleration and deceleration were higher in SSG-G than in SSG-P (p<.001). On the other hand, the number of moderate (2–3ms−2) accelerations and decelerations as well as the total number of changes in velocity were greater as the pitch dimensions decreased (i.e., 5v5>7v7>10v10; p<.001) in both SSG-G and SSG-P. In addition, predicted energy cost, average metabolic power and distance covered at every metabolic power categories were higher in SSG-P compared to SSG-G and in big than in small pitch areas (p<.05). A detailed analysis of these drills is pivotal in contemporary football as it enables an in depth understanding of the workload imposed on each player which consequently has practical implications for the prescription of the adequate type and amount of stimulus during exercise training.

Playing the game: how football directors make sense of dismissing the coach

Coach dismissals are frequently carried out in European club football, and the decision to dismiss a coach is generally depicted as a very simple organisational measure: A club is not able to fulfil what is expected of it, and as a consequence, the directors of this club decide to make a change. From such a perspective, however, the decision and the intended outcomes are reduced to a desire to improve sporting performance. Indeed, low sporting performance often functions as a key trigger when the decision to dismiss is being made, but exactly how dismissals make sense to the decision makers has not yet been examined in academic terms. Based on interviews with eight Danish football directors, this study explores how these directors make sense of dismissing coaches. This sensemaking can contribute to explaining the increasing frequency of coach dismissals in contemporary club football and provide insights into the management of and decision making in professional football.

How the “People’s game“ conquered the world: A short socio-economic history of football in Europe and Serbia

Contemporary football represents a highly commodified spectacle, a segment of the entertainment industry where huge amounts of money change hands, and the popularity of football competitions - whether national or international - is a global phenomenon, which billions of people take part in. Only thirty years ago, however, the situation was very different. In Western Europe, and especially Great Britain, football was mostly associated with hooliganism, and the audiences at the run-down stadiums were dwindling in numbers. On the other hand, in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin wall football was at its peak, only to fall from grace and onto the European periphery in the 90’s, where it is, by and large, still situated. This dramatic transformation which turned football into “entertainment for rich people” did not occur by accident, it has deep roots in the history of the sport, but also in the wider socio-economic transformations within the context of which this segment of pop culture exists. In this paper I will offer a look at the social and economic conditions in which football developed with the aim of establishing a framework for understanding the changes which occurred within the sport and within the society, with a special focus on the connection between football and the rise of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia, but also wider social processes linked to the descent of Serbia into the so-called process of “transition”, or the acceptance of parliamentary democracy and capitalism as bases of social order. It is my intention to, through the analysis of sociohistorical elements which influenced the development and transformation of the game of football, indicate the wider frame of possibilities for the analysis of contemporary events through the prism of this segment of pop-culture.

Fandom Before “Fan”

vol. 6, 2014 Copyright © 2014 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA These are interesting times for reception theorists, especially those who study fandom, an extraordinary form of audiencing that includes everything from emotional attachment to performers to obsessive collecting. In particular, the nature of fandom’s extraordinariness has changed a great deal in the past several decades, thanks to the advent of the Internet and digital production. Previously “abnormal” fan practices have not only become more and more accepted but also explicitly supported and nurtured by new technologies and reframed by niche marketing. We live in an age when “following” a stranger because you “like” her or him represents a harmless form of networking. As Twitter encourages us, “Follow your interests.”1 What has fascinated me most, however, is not the specific quality of these shifts but rather the ways they have begun to shape our understanding of fandom as a historical phenomenon. When I talk to my students about fandom, they often marvel at what it must have been like before the World Wide Web. “How did fans find out about things?,” they ask. “Where did fan communities exist before Facebook?” As an ethnographer who did extensive fieldwork with popular music fans in the late 1980s and early 1990s—not that long ago—I was at first amused by the shaping the history of enthusiastic audiences Fandom Before “Fan”

A Statistical and Technical-Tactical Study of the Dribbles Conducted by Three Midfielders in Three 1st League matches, in the 2011-2012 Competitive Year

Abstract Technical preparation implies training increasingly skilled players, with an ever-improving capacity of performing, in order to succeed and cope with the demands of contemporary football. In order to achieve this objective, a continuous increase of quality and efficiency when selecting the players is needed; furthermore, the optimization of the process of preparation and discovery of the most efficient methods in the training process are also necessities to be dealt with. By observing the various technical executions made by the players on the football field, one can obtain practical demonstrations and optimal solutions of how to improve the technical-tactical way of playing of the entire team and can foreground the problematic areas and the less skilled executions of each player and of the entire team

What is the Optimal Method to Value a Football Club?

This paper introduces an original multivariate model developed to value English Premier League (EPL) clubs. Prior to developing the model, established valuation methods were assessed for their accuracy in estimating an EPL club’s worth. Of these models, three were general company valuation techniques: market capitalisation, discounted cash flow and bankruptcy values; and three were contemporary football industry valuation models: revenue multiples, Forbes ‘Most Valuable Soccer Teams’ and broker values. For comparison purposes the models were calculated for a sample period of nine seasons between the 2003/04 and 2011/12 seasons. Estimated valuations were also compared to actual club sale transaction prices during the same period. Comparative results show the multivariate model introduced in the paper is the only universally applicable and reliable methodology to value EPL clubs of the methods evaluated.

Globalisation, stadiums and the consumerist city:The case of the new Juventus stadium in Turin1

Contemporary football is crossed by relevant changes that may be interpreted as outcomes of the globalisation process. The transnational dimension of football, its financialisation, and the normalisation of the supporters’ practices appear as some of the most important outcomes of this process.In this paper, based on the case study of the new Juventus Stadium in Turin, we will explore the transformation of football as a consequence of a specific aspect of globalisation, namely the growing importance of consumption processes in contemporary societies.All over Europe a strong convergence can be observed towards a single model of organisation for football. This model involves the management of clubs and sporting events, and the organisation of specific spaces, i.e. stadiums.After having briefly retraced the genesis of the new Juventus Stadium, the article highlights how the planning choices – about spaces and the activities acted in those spaces – tend to transform the stadium into a place of consumption and to select its visitors on the basis of their spending power. We will also see how the selection mechanisms observed for football fans (in Turin as in many European cities), are then put into practice outside the stadium and correspond to general trends typical of modern global cities.

British-Asians and racism within contemporary English football

Racism within professional English football is said to have diminished in recent years as football has evolved since the days of the 1970s when monkey chants, thus overt racism, were commonly witnessed in the stands. However, although overt racism within the game has perhaps reduced, other forms of racism still exist and may have contributed to the lack of professional British-Asian football players. This essay will (a) explore notions of nationalism and racisms within Britain; (b) examine racism within contemporary domestic football; and (c) present interview material with half of the professional British-Asian demographic in England to gauge an insight into what barriers they may have faced, whether racism is still a prominent threat and reasons behind the poor participation levels. By focusing on these areas in detail, the essay intends to explore the British-Asian demographic and makes an attempt to theorize the future of British-Asians within professional English football.

Reflections on the 1862 football match in Port Elizabeth

The oldest recorded football match in South Africa was played in Port Elizabeth on 24 May 1862. This article explores the available evidence for this match before moving on to a more general discussion of three broader contexts in which the match was played. These contexts are contemporary football developments in colonial Britain, the emergence of ‘carrying codes’ in the Cape Colony and the mid-19th century development of sport in Port Elizabeth. Very little is known about the 1862 match in Port Elizabeth. The discussion of the match therefore serves as a pretext for a situated exploration of the 19th century codification of ‘football’ – which produced, inter alia, the dominant South African codes of ‘rugby’ and‘soccer.’ Here, ‘codification’ involves more than the establishment of rules and clubs; it includes the association of sporting practices with other social ‘codes’ – notably those associated with class, gender and race. In this article particular attention is given to the association of ‘football’ with a particular public school mediated model of masculinity. The author argues that the reason the Port Elizabeth game has gone largely unnoticed in most sporting histories is because it cannot easily be classified as ‘a code’ and thereby slotted into prevailing South African code historiographies.Key words: Sociology of sport; History of sport; Sport and leisure studies;Football; Rugby; Soccer; Masculinity; Port Elizabeth

Investment, Advertisement, and Sponsorship: Business in Dutch Football 1910–1920

Contemporary professional football in the Netherlands has a close relationship with business and finance. This relationship is often one that is concerning to supporters of clubs who feel that they are being treated more as consumers than loyal followers of their team. This paper will represent the historic situation in Dutch football between 1910 and 1920. Particular focus will be placed on the role of advertising in the media and the illustration it gives of businesses interaction with the cultural field of football at this time. This paper will also give an overview of how businesses and individuals in the business field sometimes interacted with clubs and wider football projects. The paper suggests that the idea of football supporters as consumers is perhaps not as new as is often thought.

Chariot racing in the Roman Empire

A massive crowd of people, cloaked in the colors of their beloved athletes, slowly fill a 150,000-seat arena to cheer on their favorite teams. Athletes enter the stadium amid great pomp and circumstance as opposing fans hurl insults at one another and place bets on the day's outcome. Although this familiar scene might describe a contemporary football game, it also portrays a day at the chariot races in ancient Rome, where racers were the sports stars of the ancient world. Following close on the heels of his successful book on gladiators, Fik Meijer reveals all there is to know about chariot racing in the Roman Empire. After recounting the Nika riot of 532 AD-where tens of thousands of people were killed after a politically heated tournament of races-Meijer reviews the historical background, organization, and popularity of these games. He profiles the sport's famous teams, jockeys, and horses and discusses how the whole business fed into the strategy of Juvenal's bread and circuses to keep the citizenry happy. Expertly translated by Liz Waters, Chariot Racing in the Roman Empire also examines the political importance of these spectacles, where patricians and plebeians alike filled the stadiums. Meijer sees these contests not so much as an opiate for the people but as a political barometer: the Circus Maximus was the only place in the Empire where the supreme leader was confronted with the approval or disapproval of his people. Meijer makes use of scarce and obscure sources in this lively narrative, describing an exciting race with such enthusiasm readers will feel they are in the stands themselves. From the length of the track and the need to ride small horses, to the risks, techniques, and training methods involved in racing, Meijer recreates ancient Rome's favorite pastime in impressive detail.

We're not really here: Manchester City, mobility and placelessness

In a contemporary football landscape of locational and geographical change, the analysis of Manchester City Football Club and the relocation to the City of Manchester Stadium highlights some interesting issues surrounding the new British football stadium and a sense of place. In reaction to the placeless stadium environment, thinking around the sporting tophilia can then be developed around these new cultural spaces by looking at how the power of the fans to refigure and renegotiate their fandom has been used in a variety of ways to try to create a sense of identity within the new stadium space. A bringing of the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ appears to be central to the attempted creation of place in these new social spaces with no history or identity of their own, whilst the physical presence, organization and mobility of activated fan groups such as Bluewatch present not only the collective concern over the ability to identify with the new stadium environment, but also demonstrate the power to organize as a collective force to make an impact on how the stadium is appropriated and to change activity within. With the current drive to relocate within British professional football showing no signs of slowing down, the move to these new stadiums will continue to be a rich and fertile ground for the analysis of the sporting tophilia and indeed for the development of football fan culture itself.