Security has become one of the most important aspects of sport mega-event organisation. This book explores how Rio de Janeiro was imagined and transformed into a security fortress when the 2014 Men's World Cup and the 2016 Olympics came to the city and how the fortress was nonetheless permeable and porous. Dennis Pauschinger experienced exceptional backstage access at high level in the Brazilian mega-event security architecture as well as at street level with the local public security sphere. His ethnographic account takes us from the hidden world of surveillance and control centres, to the security perimeters around stadiums, and to the mundane routine of police officers during day and night shifts at local police stations or at the Special Forces' headquarters. This book shows how police officers' emotions and Special Forces' war narratives impact the static and technology-based security models at mega-events and how traditional patterns of police work, along lines of class and racial inequalities, still prevail and shape the city's public security. The book argues against the common narrative of the positive impacts of mega-event security legacies upon host cities by advancing towards a general understanding of how security governance is carried out in places where the use of digital security technologies co-exists with overly lethal and repressive forms of policing.

This book examines contemporary issues of security at sports mega-events (SMEs). It focuses on the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2020) - subsequently postponed to 2021 - the third biggest SME in the global sporting calendar and a unique multi-city, multi-country event that took place in the eye of the COVID-19 storm. Drawing on stakeholder interviews, policy documents, media sources and existing research, the book explores the constructions, meanings, and perceptions of security in the efforts to secure this football mega-event. It argues that Euro 2020 is a powerful case through which to better understand wider security governance and security-related processes in present-day societies, which are increasingly preoccupied with notions of ‘security’, ‘safety’ and ‘risk’. It assesses the precautionary logic and transnational knowledge transfer processes that guide security constructions surrounding SMEs in an uncertain and threat-conscious world, and captures the dramatic moments in which COVID-19 transitioned into a security threat with severe impacts on the world of football and well beyond. Sport Mega-Events, Security and COVID-19 advances existing debates in the sociology of football and sport, offering a critical understanding of security and safety in the modern world, and giving an insight into the changing ‘new normalities’ of security between 9/11 and the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of global sport. This is a fascinating reading for anybody with a professional or academic interest in sport management, event management, football, security studies, policing, risk and crisis management, the sociology of sport, the sociology of surveillance, or political science.

This volume unpicks mega-events as gendered entities and showcases how they both position athletes in relation to one of two binary sex positions and also push the boundaries of what we see and accept as a recognisably gendered male or female body.

Mega-events such as the Olympic Games, World Cup finals and international political summits are occasions of almost unparalleled economic, political and social significance for host nations and cities. The scale and scope of mega-event security has continued to grow enormously since 11 September 2001, consistently involving the largest policing and security operations for event hosts outside of wartime. This book is the first to focus exclusively on the organisational dynamics underpinning the design and delivery of mega-event security. Using the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia in November 2014 as a case study, in conjunction with comparisons with events such as the Toronto 2010 G20, the authors engage in a comprehensive assessment of the networks, strategies and tensions involved in mega-event security. By drawing on the insightful experiences of those responsible for securing the Brisbane 2014 G20, the authors look behind-the-scenes to capture the complexity of mega-event security. The authors argue that such an approach is essential to better appreciate how different conceptions of security, ways of thinking and acting, impact a range of security ideals and outcomes.

This edition stresses some critical reflectons regarding security policies before and during Sport Events in our contemporary era of generalized insecurity. Sport competitions at the national, European and global levels have evolved in terms of economic investment, social importance and media coverage. However, this evolution has brought with it major political concerns. At the same time, the dominant question regarding the organization of competitions in our post-modern, neoliberal risk societies is the creation of a safe and secure milieu; the need of construction of an environment of life where sport events and the multiple activities and interests related to them can be kept safe from any risk and potentially harmful occurrence. In the name of security, anticipatory dispositifs and risk management practices, rationalities and technologies of government do not exclusively attempt to prevent disastrous incidents or to maintain order in situ. Involving a set of heteronymous public and private organizations and bureaucraties, state "experts" and not state "security managers", proactive security strategies seek to imagine the future, to pre-empt, to act in advance, to anticipate possible catastrophic incidents by managing populations and spaces in order to set, to assure, with any cost, the ideal conditions. The aim of this volume is to highlight the complex set of legal provisions, surveillance and policing practices, discourses, bureaucratic procedures and spatial and architectural forms underpin the security governance of sport events and their effects in the contemporary era of widespread uncertainty. This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

The summer Olympic Games are renowned for producing the world’s biggest single-city cultural event. While the Olympics and other sport mega-events have received growing levels of academic investigation from a variety of disciplinary approaches, relatively little is known about how such occasions are experienced directly by local host communities and publics. This ethnography examines the everyday policing of the London Borough of Newham in relation to the London 2012 Olympics. It explains how police defined, monitored, prioritized, contained and investigated ‘Olympic-related’ crime, and how ‘Olympic-related’ policing connected to the policing of Newham. The authors examine how the threat of terrorism impacted on the everyday policing of the 2012 Olympics, as well as the exaggeration of other threats to the Games – such as youth gangs – for political reasons. The book also explores local resistance to Olympic policing, and the legacy of the Games with regard to policing, local housing, demographics and social exclusion. Discussing the lessons that can be learned for the future staging of sporting mega-events, this book will appeal to scholars and students with interests in sport, policing, crime and criminology, mega-events, event management, urban studies, global studies and sociology.

This challenging new study examines gender and sexuality in relation to the ‘roving colonialism’ of sport mega-events. Built around four case studies in postcolonial and settler colonial contexts—the Olympics in Vancouver, London and Sochi and soccer fans in the Egyptian revolution—the book examines sporting 'homonationalism' and anti-colonial resistance. The first part discusses different moments of ‘homonationalism’ in sport. The second part explores how indigenous and anti-colonial protests against mega-sport events lead to different views about gender and sexuality politics in sport. It offers a critical counter-narrative to the view that gay and lesbian inclusion in global sporting events is simply a matter of universal human rights. The book calls for LGBT social movements in sport to move away from complicity with neoliberalism, nationalism and colonial-racial logics, particularly Islamophobia, toward a decolonial politics of solidarity. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically grounded, this book draws together important threads in the contemporary study of sport to illuminate the relationship between sport and wider society. It will be fascinating reading for any student or researcher interested in the sociology of sport, Olympic studies, gender and sexuality studies, postcolonial studies, indigenous studies, settler colonial studies or the politics of race and inclusion.

What are the social, political and economic consequences of staging sport mega events such as the Olympics and the World Cup? Capitalism, Sport Mega Events and the Global South presents a new approach to sport mega events and related issues, exploring elements that are not present or are not developed in the existing literature. This book explores the socioeconomic impact of these events on host countries in the Global South. Drawing on a thorough case study of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, it examines how the residents of Porto Alegre perceived how they were affected and considers the relationship between sport mega events and the wider social sphere of global capitalism. Supported by original socioeconomic research conducted in the area, this is fascinating reading for all students and scholars interested in sport mega events, sport tourism, international development, sport geography and the sociology of sport.

Managing Sport Mega-Events explores global developments in the management of sport mega-events. Sport mega-events such as the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup have been examined from a number of academic perspectives including history, sociology, politics, urban planning and economics. What is lacking, however, is a book which identifies and evaluates the current issues and complexities faced by those charged with the responsibility of managing these sport mega-events. This book fills the gap. The book addresses three broad but interconnected themes. First, strategic matters are explored focusing on the rise of sport mega-events, the management of stakeholders and governance issues. Second, how organisers can best ensure the sustainable management of sport mega-events is considered. Third, operational matters and related issues are examined including media management, broadcast management, venue management, risk management, marketing and sponsorship management. The book draws on leading international sport management scholars, each of whom has expertise in the organisation of sport mega-events. It makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature.