This book is aimed at undergraduates and postgraduates studying sport-related subjects as well as anyone interested in how and why football has evolved as it has. It features contributions from prominent experts in the field, authors and journalists, and covers ground seldom attempted in a single volume about football.

This book constitutes the first full volume dedicated to an academic analysis of British football as depicted on film. From early single-camera silents to its current multi-screen mediations, the repeated treatment of football in British cinema points to the game’s importance not only in the everyday rhythms of national life but also, and especially, its immutable place in the British imaginary landscape. Through close textual analysis together with production and reception histories, this book explores the ways in which professional footballers, amateur players and supporters (the devoted and the demonized) have been represented on the British screen. As well as addressing the joys and sorrows the game necessarily engenders, British football is shown to function as an accessible structure to explore wider issues such as class, race, gender and even the whole notion of ‘Britishness’.

Human beings are the only creatures known to engage in sport. We are sporting animals, and our favourite pastime of football is the biggest sport spectacle on earth. The Philosophy of Football presents the first sustained, in-depth philosophical investigation of the phenomenon of football. In explaining the complex nature of football, the book draws on literature in sociology, history, psychology and beyond, offering real-life examples of footballing actions alongside illuminating thought experiments. The book is organized around four main themes considering the character, nature, analysis and aesthetics of football. It discusses football as an extra-ordinary, unnecessary, rule-based, competitive, skill-based physical activity, articulated as a social (as opposed to natural) kind that is fictional in character, and where fairness or fair play – contrary to much sport ethical discussion – is not centre stage. Football, it is argued, is a constructive- destructive contact sport and, in comparison to other sports, is lower scoring and more affected by chance. The latter presents to its spectators a more unpredictable game and a darker, more complex and denser drama to enjoy. The Philosophy of Football deepens our understanding of the familiar features of the game, offering novel interpretations on what football is, how and why we play it, and what the game offers its followers that makes us so eagerly await match day. This is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the world’s most popular game or in the philosophical or social study of sport.

At Wembley in 1966, England’s football captain Bobby Moore received the World Cup from Queen Elizabeth and FIFA president Stanley Rous. This book takes the life of Rous (1895-1986) as a lens through which to understand the escalating profile of football both nationally and globally. It illuminates how it was possible for Rous to emerge from a Suffolk village and ascend to the top of FIFA’s hierarchy and the company of elites. Educational opportunities, service in the Great War and an international referee’s profile prepared Rous for the position of Secretary at The Football Association, alongside charity work in World War II and organisational responsibilities for the London 1948 Olympics. His FIFA role combined diplomacy with development, in post-colonial times of volatile international relations. The book informs scholars and fans alike, showing too that Rous’s crowning achievement as FIFA President at the 1966 World Cup marked a peak for England’s power and influence in world football.

This book examines the development of sport sponsorship and its impact on global public health. It argues that sport governing bodies should not continue to treat fans solely as consumers, and that a more ethical approach should be taken to sport sponsorship. Drawing on research from sport studies, marketing and public health, the book presents a brief history of advertising and marketing in sport, including the importance of tobacco in the development of sport sponsorship, before exploring key aspects of the contemporary relationship between sport and corporate sponsors, including mega-events, digital technologies and brand engagement. It offers an in-depth case study of sponsorship in the English Premier League – one of the world’s most successful sporting properties – before considering how sport might be better regulated, now and in the future, to better protect the interests of fans and other stakeholders from a health perspective. The book features a number of insightful images showcasing sport sponsorship in connection with tobacco, mega-events, alcohol, junk food and drink, and gambling over the years. Addressing a topical and hugely important issue, this is important reading for students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers with an interest in sport business and management, the ethics of sport, physical activity and health, event studies, marketing or public health.

Football in Fiction represents the most comprehensive historical mapping and analysis of novels related to association football (soccer). It offers a theoretically informed field guide, a scholarly cartography of football fiction’s uncertain – and until now – only partially explored terrain. Combining an extensive search for texts with up-to-date academic research, journals, surveys, catalogues, and reviews the book demonstrates a topographic perspective of the field – one that captures and establishes its breadth, depth, and distinctive identity. The book uses and adapts two distinct reading models of abstraction, in conjunction with closer textual analyses. Together they assist in realising a set of demonstrable conventions, outline a taxonomy of fictive types, establish the genre’s current state of play, and advance the football novel as a form with its own literary history and traditions. This book is a valuable resource for those studying and researching in the areas of the social and cultural aspects of football, sports fiction, sports writing, creative writing, and literary and genre studies. Furthermore, related industry professionals will find this a fascinating read, particularly football writers, fans of the sport, and those interested in sports history and cultural phenomena.

This book presents a synthesis of the work on early football undertaken by the authors over the past two decades. It explores aspects of a figurational approach to sociology to examine the early development of football rules in the middle part of the nineteenth century. The book tests Dunning’s status rivalry hypothesis to contest Harvey’s view of football’s development which stresses an influential sub-culture outside the public schools. Status Rivalry re-states the primacy of these latter institutions in the growth of football and without it the sport’s story would remain skewed and unbalanced for future generations.

This book combines pieces of work on Europe and Latin America, the two continents where football arouses the most ardent passions among its spectators. Curiously, an undertaking to compare on a large scale the forms extreme fandom takes in these two geographical areas is still lacking. A situational analysis of the scientific literature devoted to the subject over the last two or three decades represents a step in this direction, making a scattered store of knowledge accessible. It thus answers a need to clarify regional differences in identities and in the practices of supporters.

As the digital revolution continues apace, emergent technologies and means of communication present new challenges and opportunities for the football industry. This is the first book to bring together key contemporary debates at the intersection of football studies, leisure studies, and digital cultural studies. It presents cutting edge theoretical and empirical work based around four key themes: theorizing digital football cultures; digital football fandom; football and social media; and football (sub)cybercultures. Covering topics such as transnational digital fandom, online abuse, and gender, Digital Football Cultures argues that we are witnessing the hyperdigitalization of the world’s most popular sport. This book is a valuable resource for students and researchers working in leisure studies, sports studies, football studies, and critical media studies, as well as geography, anthropology, criminology, and sociology. It is also fascinating reading for anybody working in sport, media, and culture.

Football is big business. The top teams and leagues in world football generate billions of dollars in revenue and serve an audience of billions of fans. This book focuses on the marketing of football, as the apex of the contemporary football industry. Drawing upon key theories and concepts in sport marketing research, it highlights the critical strategic and operational elements that underpin effective marketing in football clubs around the world. Covering developments in sponsorship, marketing communications, CRM, strategic marketing, international marketing and digital media, it features authors and cases from countries including the UK, US, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, China and Japan.