Football In England Research Articles

Events, turns, and critical junctures: unpacking the temporality of supporter rights and democracy in English football

ABSTRACT The future of professional men’s football in England stands at a critical juncture. In the wake of a global pandemic, the national game has been beset by volatility and upheaval. In April 2021, six of the most storied clubs in England announced they would be joining a new breakaway European Super League (ESL). These proposals triggered vehement opposition from fan movements, catalysing the intervention of the UK government who established a fan-led review of football governance (FLR) to consult fans on future regulatory reform and the security and safety of supporters at major events. Emerging out of these exogenous shocks and endogenous change, the governance of English football is set to be radically transformed via the establishment of a new regulatory regime. In this article, we employ eventful sociology and historical institutionalism to operationalise the concept of critical juncture and apply this through an analysis of two temporal periods (1985-1990) and (2020-2024). In doing so, we show how the current ‘regulatory turn’ is interdependently linked to prior historical transformative events, namely the Heysel and Hillsborough stadium disasters and the subsequent neoliberal transformation of English football across the last four decades. Incorporating a more nuanced understanding of change and continuity in the governance of English football, we argue that new regulatory frameworks, despite their transformative potential, may continue to exhibit institutional legacies of the existing regime and prevailing political economy.

‘They stand there looking really bored and pissed off': analysing efficient police resourcing at football matches in England and Wales

ABSTRACT Football policing in England and Wales is a key area of activity for the police service, with a reported £48 m being spent each season on policing football. There is a reported increase in football-related disorder following the Covid-19 pandemic, and debates in the football policing community about the requirement for increased resource levels being deployed to football. Using qualitative semi-structured interviews, this research captures voices from Dedicated Football Officers (DFOs); football club representatives; and other key stakeholders for policing football in England and Wales. The research shows multiple examples of ineffective and inefficient police resourcing at football matches. Despite calls for more liaison-based policing, there is an apparent emphasis on utilisation of public order units, which comes at great cost for the taxpayer, as well as football clubs. Here, it is argued that a focus on more specialised resources for policing football will lead to better outcomes in terms of preventing crime and improving relations with football supporter communities.

The “cost of football”: motherhood, coaching and work-family conflict

ABSTRACT Purpose/Rationale The gender-specific needs of employed female football players are now recognised, but it is more complex for female coaches. As such, this research aimed to document the experiences of elite female football coaches who are mothers as they navigate parenthood with paid work as a coach. Design/Methodology/Approach 4 full-time, elite level mother-coaches took part in a semi-structured interview, analysed using reflexive thematic analysis and with the Ecological-Intersectional Model as a theoretical lens. Findings Professional mother-coaches in women’s football in England report that they are exposed to several challenges. Mother-coaches felt pressure to choose their career over family, were perceived negatively by most colleagues, and highlighted the profession was unprepared for mothers. They relied on supportive individuals to navigate motherhood and coaching. Practical Implications Change is needed at both interpersonal and organisational levels in the football industry to better support mother-coaches at an individual level. This could include practical support for mother-coaches such as work flexibility, childcare support for out of hours work, alongside wider acceptance of family life within the industry. Originality/Value In highlighting the experiences of professional women football coaches and motherhood, and the navigation work-family conflict, this insight can provide a starting point for appropriate policy change.

22 Players Run After the Ball for 90 Minutes, and in the End England Wins. German Views of the 1935 and 1938 Germany–England Football Matches

This article studies the politico-diplomatic dimension of the 1935 and 1938 Germany-England football matches played during the National Socialist era. Despite being represented in both countries as international friendlies, these games proved highly politicized affairs because of the centrality of the British-German relationship in international affairs and the politization and diplomatization of international sport during the 1930s. The 1935 game, played in London, became the focus for a high-profile public campaign, led by trade union, Jewish, and other lobbying groups hostile to Nazi Germany, to ban the match. In turn, the 1938 fixture is famed for the Nazi salute, the ‘infamous gesture’ that British diplomats and Football Association officials instructed the England team to give before the beginning of the match. Using the archives of the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Ministry) and Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives) as well as a selection of German newspapers, this article provides an informed German perspective on both matches, which hitherto have been studied principally from a British perspective. Focused upon German aims, perceptions, political influences, and propaganda goals, this case study highlights the ‘soft power’ methods of totalitarianism in terms of both the adaptation of totalitarianism to football and the adaptation of football to totalitarianism.

The S-Score of Financial Sustainability for Professional Football Clubs

This article extends the extensive literature on business failure and develops the approach of Altman to provide quantified recommendations for the financial sustainability of football clubs. The article uniquely identifies four scenarios that have caused insolvency for football clubs in the English Football League (EFL) and uses multiple discriminant analysis to identify financial models that delineate between professional football clubs that experience insolvency events and those that do not. These models produce an S-score which is introduced to suggest minimum financial tolerances for accounting ratios that provide a reasonable level of resilience for the financial sustainability of clubs in each scenario. The results are relevant for academics and non-academics with an interest in the business of football, professional football clubs aiming to avoid financial distress, and specifically, the Regulator that the U.K. government has proposed for football in England.

“If we're wrong, take us to court”: An analysis of special police services (SPS) arrangements for the policing of football in England and Wales

Under the Police Act 1996, Special Police Services (SPS) allow the police in England and Wales to partially cost recover for resources deployed to police events such as football, horse racing and music festivals. Historically, there have been numerous legal cases about SPS charges involving police forces and event organisers. Most recently Ipswich Town Football Club Company Limited vs. The Chief Constable of Suffolk Constabulary [2017] EWCA Civ 1484, resulted in clarification on points of law and a more restricted area within which police forces can charge for SPS. This qualitative research interviews police officers engaged in policing football, football club representatives and other key stakeholders involved in the SPS negotiation process. It finds that there are divisive approaches by both parties, which can result in compromising public safety. The notion of SPS being abolished is explored, despite potential benefits of this, further research is recommended to examine this further.

Generations, events, and social movement legacies: Unpacking social change in English football (1980-2023).

This article critically employs the case of association football in England, from 1980 to 2023, as a social movement timescape, to examine the political consciousness and long-term mobilisations of a generation of football supporter activists, and their capacity to influence politics, and respond to new, emerging, critical junctures, through networks of trust and shared memories of historical events. This is of crucial importance to sociology because it reveals the tensions between what are considered legitimate and illegitimate social practices which characterise contemporary society's moral economy. Focusing on temporal contestations over regulation, policing, governance and cultural rituals, the article deconstructs the role of generations in social movements, and critically synthesises relational-temporal sociology and classic and contemporary work on the sociology of generations, to show how legacy operates as a multifaceted maturing concept of power and time. In English football's neoliberal timescape, the supporters' movement has reached a critical juncture; the future will require a new generation of activists, to negotiate, resist and contest the new hegemonic politics of social control and supporter engagement.

Social Movement Ruptures and Legacies: Unpacking the Early Sedimentation of the Anti-European Super League Movement in English Football

Building on Della Porta’s work on social movement events, critical junctures, and legacies, this article studies the discursive practices, emotions and networks of the instant 48-hour mobilizations of the anti-European Super League (ESL) movement in English football in April 2021. In doing so, we show how this case reveals a new generation of conflict between the different supporter demographic and corporate constituencies that characterize elite football in England, and their politicized temporal structures. Showing how social movement ‘legacy’ operates as a multifaceted concept of power and time, we argue that the ‘puzzling out’ of a new post-ESL regulatory regime in football reveals the tensions between what are considered legitimate, and illegitimate, practices, which characterize the moral economy of the contemporary English football crowd.

Women's football in Brazil and England´s national football museums

The challenging trajectory of women's football in Brazil and in England is discernible with reference to its gradually shifting prominence within heritage and museums. Nonetheless, the persistent differences regarding visibility and recognition, and negative associations women’s football is attributed, have contributed to the underrepresentation of women's football heritage at both the Museu do Futebol in São Paulo, Brazil and at the National Football Museum in Manchester, England. This research identifies temporal milestones related to the presence of women's football in these national museums, as well as the proactive measures undertaken to ensure the inclusion of women’s football items into their respective collections since 2015. Combining theoretical references with exploratory research, we aimed to identify connections between the factors which stimulated the appreciation of women's football within these museums, contributing to discussions about the musealization of football. We conclude that women's football has been addressed progressively by the Museu do Futebol and the National Football Museum through the exhibition of its successes and milestones but we also consider the challenges of the past and the present, in a context in which demands and commitments have to be balanced.

La Premier League s’ouvre au monde : 60 ans d’expatriation des footballeurs en Angleterre

À l’aide d’une cartographie originale, cet article examine l’évolution du nombre d’expatriés en Premier League anglaise depuis les années 1960. Marqué par une immigration sportive essentiellement britannique à l’origine, le championnat d’Angleterre s’est ouvert progressivement à l’Europe, puis au monde. Balançant entre le désir d’accueillir les meilleurs footballeurs de la planète et la volonté de préserver les joueurs et une identité anglaise, l’évolution de la Premier League illustre les effets concomitants de la mondialisation du football et des évolutions des réglementations concernant les transferts de joueurs.

It's not about academic life. That's what I have to tell you

Gargi Bhattacharyya is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London, UK. They have written, co-authored and edited/co-edited a very wide range of books, including Tales of Dark-Skinned Women (Routledge 1998); Sexuality and Society (Routledge 2005); Crisis, Austerity and Everyday Life (Palgrave 2015); Race and Power: Global Racism in the twenty-first century (Routledge 2016); Rethinking Racial Capitalism (Rowman and Littlefield 2018); and Empire's Endgame (Pluto 2021). In this online interview, conducted in summer 2021, Gargi talks to Jo Littler about state patriarchy, racial capitalism, dispossession, culture wars, feminism, the England football team, environmental degradation, the state of universities and sex on smartphones.

The true cost of policing football in England & Wales: freedom of information data from 2015-2019

ABSTRACT In 2019, the reported cost of policing football, according to an infographic on South Yorkshire Police’s website, was £48 million per season with £5.5 million being recovered by the police from football clubs. These figures were discussed in Parliament and deemed accurate by politicians. Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for football policing, says police forces cannot continue to subsidise a multi-billion-pound industry. This research uses Freedom of Information requests submitted to all police forces in England and Wales to establish the true cost of football policing. The results demonstrate that previous data is unreliable, as the actual amount recovered through Special Police Services from football clubs averaged £10 million per season between 2015 and 2019. This paper shows that police forces do not have a grasp of how much is spent on football policing, and the £48 million headline figure is likely overestimated, raising concerns about the lack of transparency over the data in the South Yorkshire Police infographic. Finally, the paper calls for further research to establish the exact cost of football policing and consideration of more efficient methods of football policing that can help to reduce costs and prevent disorder, not only in England and Wales but across Europe.

Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel

Reviewed by: Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America by Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel Kirk Bowman Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America. By Brenda Elsey and Joshua Nadel. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019, p. 368, $24.99. Futbolera is a sweeping account of women, sports, and power covering much of a hemisphere for over a century. The book's aim is straightforward: the participation, emergence, banning, resurgence, and power dynamics of women and sports in Latin America is misunderstood and largely invisible, and there is much to learn from the varied efforts by a wide range of actors to support or undermine women's participation in soccer and other sports. While women's participation in other sports, particularly basketball, is covered in the book, the authors' primary focus is women and soccer. Elsey, author of the outstanding monograph Citizen and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (University of Texas Press, 2011), and Nadel, author of Futbol: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America (University Press of Florida, 2014), are uniquely qualified for this challenging project. One principal strength of the book is the wide geographical coverage while focusing in depth with chapters on specific countries or paired cases. The trade-off is the exclusion of a number of Latin American countries, including the entire Andean region. The book covers Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico in depth, with significant additional coverage of Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Uruguay. The superb chapters on Brazil demonstrate the payoff for this asymmetrical case strategy. Elsey and Nadel allocate 85 pages to women and fútebol in Brazil, which could stand alone as a monograph on gender, sports, and power. Just as officials used eugenics, religion, and the stated need to protect women as feminine mothers to ban football in England from 1921 to 1971, officials in Brazil used similar arguments to ban the game from 1941 to 1981. The authors compellingly demonstrate that the beautiful game was played enthusiastically long before 1940. Spaces emerged at the school, the circus, the factory, at charity events, and through physical education teachers. The forty-year ban itself is a potent example of Steven Lukes' three faces of power, as the game flourished for times in different regions such as Curitiba and Rio de Janeiro. Local officials and many women resisted and skillfully exploited loopholes and opportunities. The authors convincingly overturn the widespread belief that women in Latin America were not playing organized soccer until recent decades. Even today, superstar Brazilian players such as Marta and Formiga had to battle through stereotypes and resistance to play the game at the highest level, and the family of rising star Catarina Macario left the country of football of Brazil to live in the United States so that Catarina could flourish as a futbolera. [End Page 369] The interconnection of race, class, gender, and the socialization of sports features throughout the book. Sports for middle- and upper-class white women, such as tennis, volleyball, fencing, or field hockey are supported by men and women and appropriate, while football is portrayed as less feminine, practiced by non-whites, and a threat to traditional roles. While the book is mainly about power dynamics and systemic relationships, the authors bring to life a number of fascinating and heroic women. Some are well known, like Marta or Sissi. Many more have been largely invisible and voiceless. Elsey and Nadel portray Rose do Rio, Alicia Vargas, Elisa Alves do Nascimento, and others as protagonists with agency who are often courageous and innovative promoting the sport they love. The chapters on Mexico are a cautionary tale. While Brazil represents a bottom-up process, in Mexico women's sports was largely a top-down affair. Due to several unique factors, women's football boomed in the 1960s and early 1970s, with Mexico hosting the second women's world championships in 1971. The bust of Mexican women's football followed soon thereafter. Women's soccer throughout the region is presented as a constant struggle marked by periods of acceptance and rejection, growth and decline. Women's soccer globally and in Latin America is currently experiencing a boom. Players...

S01-3 Determining the social and economic value of football in England

BackgroundIn 2015 the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in England set out its new guidelines to redefine what success in sport means. This new focus on the social impact of sport including physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, individual development and social and community development, meant that any funding decisions will be made based on the outcomes that the sporting body can deliver. The Football Association have therefore begun a detailed assessment of the social and economic value of football in England.MethodsUsing national participation surveys of approximately 9000 individuals aged 16-75, we calculated the association between regular football participation and several health and social outcomes. This was combined with a review of published studies through to December 2019 examining the relationship between football, physical activity and disease risk outcomes across the life-course. This evidence base was then modelled with the estimated national football participation rate and the latest figures on national disease prevalence across 10 different diseases, to quantify the true value of football to society.ResultsPreliminary results have shown that football participation contributes to more than £10 billion to society each year across England. Team sport participants also reported significantly higher levels of happiness, confidence and trust compared to individuals who played no sport, or just individual sport. This impact also varies depending on the demographic groups including women, children and low-socioeconomic groups.ConclusionsThis analysis shows the large contribution of grassroots football to the nation's economy and to health and social wellbeing of individuals and communities. Moreover, it has proven the unique benefits of team sport participation and shown to policymakers which type of sports and activities contribute the most value to society.

Elite female footballers in England: an exploration of mental ill-health and help-seeking intentions

ABSTRACT Objectives Mental health research in sport is almost entirely focused on elite male athletes. However, recent research suggests that elite female athletes are at higher risk for mental ill-health when compared to their male counterparts. Given the recent growth of women’s football in England and lack of research surrounding mental health in this population, this study sought to explore the prevalence of, and factors associated with depression, anxiety, and eating disorder symptoms in females competing in the top two tiers of English football. Methods An anonymous online questionnaire pack, which measured personal and player characteristics and included the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), Generalised Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7), Brief Eating Disorder Questionnaire (BEDA-Q), and General Help-Seeking Questionnaire (GHSQ), was completed between November 2020 and March 2021 by elite female footballers competing in the Women’s Super League (WSL) and Women’s Championship. Results A total of 115 players completed the questionnaire (63 from the WSL; 52 from the Women’s Championship). 36% displayed eating disorder symptoms (BEDAQ) 11% displayed moderate to severe anxiety symptoms (GAD-7), and 11% displayed moderate to severe depression symptoms (PHQ-9). Significant associations emerged between starting status, want for psychological support, student-athlete status, help-seeking intentions score, and mental ill-health symptoms. Conclusion In summary, elite female footballers in England reported significant mental health symptoms, particularly disordered eating symptoms. Further research should explore the experiences of mental ill-health in this population, focusing on the factors that were important in this study.

An Examination of the Experiences of Practitioners Delivering Sport Psychology Services within English Premier League Soccer Academies.

Sport psychology has become increasingly recognized and accepted within professional sports, including soccer. To date, there is a lack of research that examines the provision of sport psychology within elite soccer, particularly from the experience of applied practitioners working within the field. The current study adopted a qualitative, inductive approach, to examine the experiences of practitioners responsible for sport psychology delivery within elite soccer academies in England. Seven participants (four females; three males), working within academies in the English Premier League, took part in semi-structured interviews about their experience of delivering sport psychology services within elite soccer academies. Results demonstrated that the provision of sport psychology is continually evolving, yet there are a number of factors that appear to inhibit the full integration of the discipline into academy soccer. Six key themes were identified: The breadth of sport psychology provision; what is sport psychology; the stigma surrounding sport psychology services; psychological literacy; the elite youth soccer environment; and the delivery of sport psychology under the Elite Player Performance Plan. Participants identified a lack of psychological literacy among coaches and academy staff, as well as a low level of guidance regarding the provision of psychology within the England Football Association’s guiding document—the Elite Player Performance Plan—leading to considerable variation in the nature of the sport psychology provision. Future research would do well to also sample from a range of staff working within English soccer academies, in order to assess their perception of the level of provision and understanding of psychology.

Sponsorship eras in the English Premier League: changing industries and globalization between 1992 and 2021

ABSTRACT The English Premier League, the elite division of association football (soccer) in England, exploited commercial opportunities and market growth since its rebranding in 1992. The companies involved in professional football sponsorships represented a variety of industries and origins. How substantial did these representations fluctuate to indicate a periodization of sponsorship eras? This paper provides a systematic and longitudinal review of shirt sponsors within the league. The investigation of historical patterns clarified the changing playing field and the current state of play of sponsorships in English football. The remarkable patterns resulted in an interconnected periodization of five sponsorship industry eras and four sponsorship globalization eras. Future sponsorship challenges were identified regarding the corporate context, community fundamentals and the level of involvement affecting new sponsorship eras. These patterns in the world-leading football competition serve as an excellent case for decision makers in other domains to recognize the dynamics in corporate community involvement.

The Emergence of Football: Sport, Culture and Society in the Nineteenth Century

Peter Swain's monograph The Emergence of Football: Sport, Culture and Society in the Nineteenth Century makes an important contribution to one of the major ongoing debates within the historiography of soccer. This centers on the significance afforded to the public schools and their former pupils in the codification of the game, its spread, and the extent to which forms of folk football had died out by the 1830s. The book is structured around ten chapters. Following the introduction, chapter 1 examines the earliest evidence for football in Britain. Swain carefully chronicles its presence from (possibly) the twelfth century onward, mainly through evidence of government legislation and rulers’ attempts to curtail its existence, owing to its sometimes violent nature.This is a solid opening before the author goes on to discuss the historiography of the Industrial Revolution in chapter 2. Having provided new evidence for the presence of camping or “camp-ball” until its demise in the 1830s, the author then moves on to challenge the view posited by Graham Curry and Eric Dunning that there was “a cultural marginalization of folk football” during the period from 1780 to 1850, in which a “civilizing spurt” occurred whereby people became less inclined to participate in or view violence.In chapter 4, Swain draws largely on the work of fellow “revisionist” Adrian Harvey and, at times, challenges his opinions on the state of folk football in the nineteenth century. Swain then provides evidence in chapter 5 of how folk football continued in forty-two areas in England and Scotland, arguing that “the so-called ‘civilising spurt’ had bypassed vast areas, if not all, of the country and that, after 1830, mass, folk and traditional forms of football were certainly not ‘dead’ as claimed by many ‘dominant paradigm’ historians.” In chapter 6, Swain provides more evidence for forms of football outside the public schools, although as he admits, the origins of the game were complicated, and some forms gave way to religious interference and other “immense economic, social and cultural pressures, particularly with regard to Parliamentary enclosures and migration, and collapsed under the pressure” (124–25).In chapters 7 and 8, he specifically addresses the idea that the playing of football went into decline “in the wider community between 1830 and 1860” by providing more evidence to the contrary. For example, Swain has unearthed reports of a ten-a-side match between the parishes of Ruskington and Walcot in 1831, while it was also played in Sheffield, London, and Bedford that year (135). Chapter 8 is the shortest chapter, but at the end, Swain references an array of examples he has found in the newspapers covering the 1840s until the 1850s, highlighting, as he states, “that the game was extant all across the country outside the public schools” (166). His references include reports from the army, religious meetings, the workplace, school outings and festivals, clubs, and other forms of associational culture.The final two chapters focus on the formation of the English Football Association in 1863 and the development of clubs in Sheffield, Lancashire, and elsewhere. In chapter 9, Swain stresses that a strong culture of football in Sheffield “prevented the FA from disbanding in 1867” and that this area had a much stronger influence on the rules of the game than has been acknowledged elsewhere (186). The growth of professionalism within football in Lancashire was aided by an existing culture of commercialized sport and the influence of the lower middle class. In the final chapter, Swain reaffirms his belief in the importance of these men, rather than the educational elite, in helping to get the FA off the ground as the organization was “saved from oblivion by Sheffield and then recast into the professional game by the lower middle and working classes, particularly in the cotton towns of south-east Lancashire, drawing on their own footballing cultural heritage” (232).Generally, the overall structure of the book's chapters might have been improved as the author varies between the use of subheadings (some chapters have none) and more structured sections. Chapters 5, 6, 9, and 10 each have a conclusion, while the others do not, and the book lacks an overall conclusion at its end. More maps would also have been welcome given the rich geographical detail throughout. In producing such a passionate work, Swain has certainly made his mark on the historiography of the origins of association football, with his highly detailed research adding greatly to the study of regional areas and to what we know about how the world's most popular sport initially developed.

The European Super League debacle: why regulation of corporate football is essential

ABSTRACT On 18 April 2021, 12 European football clubs collectively issued a letter of intent to form a new European Super League. This attempted coup was strongly opposed across English football. Afterwards, the responsible owner-oligarchs were singled out for special criticism from pundits and supporter organizations alike. What emerged was a focus upon the personal greed and social indifference of those individuals, but what was less forthcoming in the days following was an analysis capable of putting the ‘greed thesis’ into a more effective social, economic, and even historical context. This article strives for a more sociological understanding of the April 18th coup, to understand better the broader social developments in the political economy of English football from which the coup has come into being. This article calls for regulatory reform of professional football in England, to show why such reform is not merely more plausible now but more necessary.

‘If you haven't got the contacts … you have no choice’: A figurational examination of unpaid work in football scouting in men's professional football in England

Association football has been viewed as an industry with considerable lucrative career prospects; however, this has not prevented the use of unpaid staff throughout football in the UK. There has been increasing academic research regarding the professionalisation and commercialisation of football, yet there has been little acknowledgement of the role of those working in football in an unpaid capacity. Therefore, this paper examines the culture of unpaid work in football scouting, by exploring the motivations of 12 unpaid scouts at professional clubs, from a figurational perspective. Our findings suggest that scouts want to work in the industry because of their ‘love of the game’, in a ‘quest for excitement’ in their career. Unpaid work was in the pursuit of experience and contacts, the latter of which was highly valued in the industry. Football clubs are enclosed figurations and the scouts placed importance on developing interdependent social relations to gain entry to the industry, demonstrating how football may be perceived nepotistic. The likelihood of gaining a paid role directly from an unpaid position was low and therefore the decisions to continually accept unpaid work represented the notion of fantasy-laden thinking.