World Of Soccer Research Articles

The world of soccer between stereotypes and fan profiling

Soccer is a game, but also a social phenomenon. As Simon Kuper said, 'when billions of people care about a game, it stops being just a game'. With this new sport, the idea of dispassionate cheering and support for one's hometown team has also spread, synonymous with a sense of belonging to one's homeland. In order to understand the phenomenon of organized supporters, it is necessary to put aside the prejudices and stereotypes that see a veil of violence and ignorance around this world. Through this study, supported by various bibliographic sources, newspaper articles, websites and field surveys, we have investigated the phenomenon in order to better understand its origins, its diffusion and the internal links within the groups that lead most of the public opinion to consider the so-called "Hooligans" as hooligans and troublemakers. The parochialism behind the violent events, the mentality and the hierarchies were examined. The aim of the study was twofold: to verify the knowledge and opinions of a selected sample about the social phenomenon analyzed, also in relation to macro topics such as the relationship with organized crime and political extremism, and to outline a profiling of the organized fan.

Implementation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) as a Career Change-Event: The Israeli Premier League Case Study.

The inclusion of the video assistant referee (VAR) in the Laws of the Game [International Football Association Board (IFAB)] reflects a historic action in the world of soccer. The VAR was designed to reduce critical errors in soccer referees’ decision-making (DM), thereby increasing the social perceptions of justice. From the referees’ perspective, the implementation of the VAR represents a technical–technological career change-event. This case study adopted an intrinsic mixed-methods methodology to investigate the implementation of the VAR system within the Israeli Premier League context. The results indicated that the initial VAR performance rates of the Israeli referees were not high compared with data from other countries (e.g., Italy). The Israeli referees perceived the VAR implementation as a moderate change-event in their careers. The largest effects were in pre-match preparation, players’ management, public perception, and DM. The referees felt that their perceived pressure during the matches decreased. This change-event produced off-field demands mostly related to the educational process and on-field demands mainly related to developing VAR proficiency. The referees also experienced off-field (e.g., lack of clear goals and rewards system) and on-field barriers (e.g., errors of the VARs). To effectively cope with these new demands and barriers, most of them initially consulted with others and then made a decision to apply all necessary adjustments in response to the new situation. They also received considerable support yet perceived their cooperation with the professional committee as moderate. The referees showed some professional improvements; still they experienced scrutiny from the clubs, the media, and the Referee Union. Thus, three of them perceived the outcome of this change process favorably, four naturally, and four negatively. The discussion presents reflections of these findings in light of the recently emerging literature on technological officiating aids in sport. Recommendations are provided for referee unions who aspire to integrate the VAR system into their operation.

Collaborative learning methods and multimedia tools for the education and training of instructors

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the new collaborative learning methods and tools used by elite FIFA referee technical instructors, referees and assistant referees to master the Laws of the Game. These tools allow instructors to learn through practical exercises off the field of play, while they carry out activities in a participative context in which they can share and improve their knowledge regarding the Laws of the Game and consequently the interpretations and the considerations soccer referees throughout the world use to make decisions on the field of play.Design/methodology/approachIn this work, we assess a collaborative learning experience that took place during the annual FIFA FUTURO III courses that FIFA provided to FIFA referee technical instructors from its six confederations between 2013 and 2015, where 48 referee technical instructors selected from 211 national associations participated. These instructors constitute the elite of FIFA’s professional training and development chain. They teach other referee technical instructors who will then instruct international referees and assistant referees all over the world with the aim of achieving uniformity when applying the Laws of the Game.FindingsThe course participants showed a high degree of satisfaction with respect to these materials and methods, especially regarding the possibilities they offer for organizing group discussions and for “learning by doing,” and a lack of skills in ICT management has been detected for some participants, who have shown a willingness and interest to improve their skills in this field.Research limitations/implicationsThe training and education of soccer referees is one of the most heterogeneous training processes in the world. This complex task is even more difficult because of the growing demand for video technology in referee decision making where successful teamwork requires a high level of communication and agreement among its members.Practical implicationsWith 211 associations, FIFA is one of the largest organizations in the world. In international competitions such as the FIFA World Cup, the referees’ decisions are analyzed by media, thousands of fans and millions of viewers. Preparing new professionals for match analysis, interpretation of Laws of the Game and working in a team is a priority for FIFA and the world of soccer.Originality/valueIt is the first time that collaborative learning methods are used with interactive multimedia tools that facilitate collaborative work in the training environment of soccer referee instructors, international soccer referees and assistant referees. This paper establishes a basis and a reference for future research on the effectiveness of the new collaborative technologies used by FIFA for the training of international referees and assistant referees in general.

The Digital Revolution: Lights and Shadows

The digital revolution has brought about a wave of technological optimism, sustained by all the things technology does for us in our every day lives. This is in principle good, but it has a dark side, as the poor use of the new technologies may lead us to become lazier and to replace or strain rational processes of deliberation with the mechanical accumulation of numbers and data, which, allegedly, help objective and clear decision-making. This dark side produces a number of pathologies, which we could term digitalitis. Manifestations of digitalitis include top5itis in the world of academic publishing, VAR-itis in the world of soccer, scooteritis in the world of means of transportation, or digital populism in democratic societies.

Book review: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Book review: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Innovation in soccer clubs – the case of Sweden

This essay gathers what we know about innovation in soccer clubs but also reports from an ongoing study on innovation in Swedish elite soccer clubs. The research could be described as an ethnographic endeavour into the world of Swedish elite soccer. By picking up pieces here and there at meetings, games, interviews and so on, I gradually build knowledge on ‘what is going on’ and ‘what do they think they are up to?’, The empirical material is presented in relation to four innovation options identified in the literature: adding new products/services, changes in the business model, new ways to manage the team and organize the team around the team and rethinking what the business is all about. The study shows that there are many innovations going on in Swedish soccer but also that there are several ways to improve both what is being done and how.

Soccer and homosexuality: The conflicts that lie within the affective game of the coach-adolescent athlete relationship

Discussions regarding homosexuality within a sports context are mediated by emotional nuances, especially in the world of soccer, where practitioners are required to have attributes such as strength, masculinity and aggressiveness. As a consequence, this work aimed to analyze the symbolic representation of homosexual relationships between adolescent soccer players and their coaches; and, furthermore, to understand the intention behind homoerotic relationships that are established between members of the management team and its players. In this study, researchers used the life history methodology, with participation from three adolescent athletes, ages 14, 15 and 16, and three former athletes, ages 26, 28 and 45, who we called speakers. Based on the collection and analysis of research participants' testimonies, homosexual relations were found to have occurred between athletes and coaches, or between athletes and other members of the management team, as a part of a "social contract" that is exclusively linked to their professional objectives. These relationships appear to be purely objective; authentic affective links are absent, due apparently to the transient nature of the athletes in these groups. Too, this context is usually marked by the athlete's physical and emotional vulnerability, and the agreements he makes within this context are accompanied with moral dilemmas, because such adolescents idealize the coach as a paternal archetype.

Small-country soccer and the integration debate: the case of Switzerland

This essay examines how immigration and integration issues intersect with the cosmopolitan world of elite soccer in Switzerland. In a small country like Switzerland, expectations are lower: soccer fans are satisfied if their national team merely qualifies for major tournaments. When the Swiss U-17 team unexpectedly won the World Cup in Nigeria in November 2009, the public response was overwhelming. As two-thirds of the players on that team had a migration background, it reignited a debate about immigration, integration, naturalization and national identity – a debate that is over a century old in Switzerland but so far seldom focused on sports figures. This essay shows how even the mainstream media questioned the ‘Swissness’ of these young players and how Swiss soccer players with a migration background are held to higher standards in terms of identification with Switzerland and loyalty to Swiss soccer, both at the national team and club levels.

Japan's Embrace of Soccer: Mutable Ethnic Players and Flexible Soccer Citizenship in the New East Asian Sports Order

Baseball and sumo were Japan's twentieth-century centre sports, but soccer is likely to replace them in the new century. This article outlines several reasons for Japan's embrace of the sport, focusing on how ethnicity and nationality are expressed and confirmed in the world of soccer. It proposes that the Japanese sports world has moved through three eras of ‘sports citizenship’ over the last century. The first four decades of the twentieth century constituted an era of ‘imperial athletes’, a coercively inclusive and hierarchical order of belonging as ‘athletes of Greater Japan’. The post-World War II decades reconfigured sports citizenship around ethnic alterity, establishing a cultural-essentialist binary between Japanese ‘athletes’ and ‘foreign athletes’. What we see now, in and through soccer, is an emerging third era of mobile athletes, mutable ethnicity and flexible sports citizenship, determined in the case of soccer by supra-governmental FIFA eligibility standards and sports federation rules rather than by nation-state laws. Soccer is demonstrating a broader sense of national belonging in and for twenty-first-century Japan than was the case with the more rigid distinctions that characterised the twentieth-century centre sports of baseball and soccer, and this has both domestic and regional consequences.

Consideraciones sobre la formación y transformación de la identidad de atletas profesionales de fútbol en Brasil

<p style="text-align: justify;">El artículo contribuye a la comprensión del proceso de formación y transformación de la identidad profesional del jugador de fútbol en Brasil. La investigación de los caminos de los atletas en la búsqueda de reconocimiento profesional, sean los caminos de buenos como los de malos resultados, son nuestra vía de acceso para este análisis y reflexión. Bajo ese propósito y basados en la teoría de Habermas, planteamos una reflexión sobre el deporte, en particular sobre el fútbol, como un segmento social apropiado por el orden sistémico, gobernado por el dinero y el poder, que por ser colonizado estratégicamente por la razón instrumental, ese deporte de multitudes, de atractivo comercial fuerte, trae al mundo de la vida (cultura, sociedad e identidad), los sueños y expectativas distorsionadas de miles de personas y sus familias. Por ese motivo, las historias de vida y ejemplos del texto, sirven como indicadores de las relaciones sociales entre el "mundo de la pelota", el sueño de una carrera exitosa, la posibilidad real de frustración y la formación y transformación de la identidad psicosocial dentro de la caja de sorpresas que es el fútbol.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Palabras clave: </strong>identidad, psicología social, psicología del deporte, educación física.</p>

Homosociability and Homosexuality

This article analyses the biographical and contextual elements favouring the involvement of female athletes playing high-level team sports in homosexual practices, a recurring issue in the sporting arena. The study takes place in the world of soccer, archetype in France — along with rugby— of a male-oriented, homophobic sociability that is unfavourable to feminization of the sport. Based on in-depth interviews and on a long observation period, this study contributes to the current scientific debate regarding the construction of identity, notably gender identity. It focuses in particular on Becker and Goffman's work on the process of normative construction. We first point out the role of female-team homosociability in the acquisition of knowledge that facilitates involvement in homosexual practices. Next, we discuss the biographical life routes — either circumstantial or relatively permanent — that tend to favour homosexuality.

Den stædige belgiers kamp - en artikel om 'Bosmandommmen' og konsekvenserne for professionel sportsudøvelse

Analyse af den belgiske fodboldspiller Jean-Marc Bosmans sejr over de store fodboldorganisationer ved EF-domstolen og afgørelsens betydning for professionel sportsudøvelse inden for fodboldens verden.The Case of the Stubborn Belgian – The Bosman CaseOne of the most important issues in recent times for professional soccer and professional sport as a whole has been the Bosman case and verdict. It is a case, which, when it came to a head on December 15th 1995, shook up the world of professional sports. The Belgian soccer-player, Jean-Marc Bosman, had successfully fought and won his case against all of the major soccer associations at the EU courts, and hereby destroyed the former player transfer system. With a description of the principles in the Bosman case, the article will throw light on the central and most important parts of the verdict. In this first part the entire situation that resulted in the lawsuit will be considered. The second part of the article is an analysis of the consequences of the verdict for professional sports, focusing mainly on soccer, where there also will be looked back on the four years that have passed since the verdict. Again the starting point is within the world of soccer, and from here the article will draw parallels to other professional sports.

The grass of another country: a journey through the world of soccer

The grass of another country: a journey through the world of soccer