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Our commentary article continues the discussion recently initiated by Smith et al. on the relationship between gambling and professional football in England. In their vital contribution to Soccer and Society, they argue that a reconsideration of the relationship between football and gambling is required, highlighting the importance of prevention schemes of gambling harms for athletes, and maintaining the integrity of football. We respond by arguing that a reconsideration of the relationship between English football and gambling must go further to reduce the risk of harms to all stakeholders. The expansive, neo-liberal nature of the gambling market has rendered gambling omnipresent within English football, with the volume of gambling-related marketing in the game giving rise to concerns of harms which could be experienced by stakeholders. A full reconsideration of the harmful intersections between football and gambling would involve a significant change in regulation at societal level, thus protecting stakeholders and maintaining integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a response to a commentary on football violence in Europe and England. The authors criticize the original commentary for lacking methodological rigor and ignoring existing knowledge on football hooliganism. They argue that cultural contexts and the issue of misogyny in English football should be considered. The authors address the conceptualization and scale of football-related violence in England and the effectiveness of measures to prevent it. They challenge claims about the decline of hooliganism in the UK and argue against the notion that all-seater stadiums contribute to safety. The article discusses safe-standing policies and the broader culture of violence associated with football. It emphasizes the importance of cultural differences and diverse perspectives in researching football fandom and calls for a more critical understanding of football violence. [Extracted from the article]

English Football League (EFL) clubs rely on season ticket (ST) sales as an annual revenue source. ST sales during the cost-of-living crisis in 2022 theoretically took on more importance given clubs' rising operating costs. Conversely, supporters may have faced a difficult choice in purchasing or renewing STs. This paper – through a Critical Realist approach – explores how the importance of financial sustainability was represented in the ST marketing deployed by EFL clubs ahead of the 2022/2023 season. The online ST-related promotional material of 71 EFL clubs was thematically analysed. Key themes consisted of economic mitigations, the importance of the supporter base, and the value promised to supporters. Retroduction uncovered a ST sales structure which unifies EFL clubs and supporters, between whom economic, social, and cultural capital are continuously exchanged. These forms of capital generate economic revenue for EFL clubs, and elevation within the supporter habitus for ST holders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early termination of football careers is a challenge for elite women footballers. They quit their careers before experience, competence, and performance are fully developed, and women's football is deprived of the opportunity to develop to the highest optimal quality. Women's elite football is mostly semi-professional, with athletes juggling between football, work, and education. This qualitative study was conducted through semi-structured interviews with Norwegian elite women footballers (N = 7). Findings suggest the main reason for early termination is the heavy workload due to the combination of studies, work, and elite-level football, which led to exhaustion and burnout. It indicates that providing enough time to recover, fewer "to-dos" pushed into the day, and sufficient resources, hinder the harmful effects of a heavy total workload. The aim of the article is to highlight the reasons for the early termination of football careers for elite women footballers in Norway and the challenges of reaching international standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football migration, including flows and effects, is measured over the first 27 years of the independent Czech Football League. Hierarchical multi-level analysis is used to test previous sport migration effects. Particular attention is paid to the economic and sport position of both sending and receiving nations by examining results through the world-systems theory. Though the number of football migrants continues to rapidly increase, the statistical results of this study indicate that receiving football migrants into the semi-periphery nation of Czech, where football is a primary sport, may increase winning percentage in the short term, but it does not lead to increases in fan attendance or improve the nation's FIFA rankings. Longer term deliberation needs to be taken by individual club teams, as well as national federations, in order maximize the benefits of migration flows in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in North American soccer is re-emerging following the multiple announcements that major club (e.g., 2025 FIFA Club World Cup) and international tournaments (e.g 2026 FIFA World Cup) will be held on the continent in the coming years. However, there is a dearth of evidence on talent identification and development originating from this part of the world. The top-tier domestic league in the United States and Canada, Major League Soccer, operates as a single-entity business model and its clubs have gradually expanded their organizational structures, assembling youth academies and reserves teams, to help streamline a talent pathway into their first teams. The overall growth in Major League Soccer has ultimately created greater opportunities for homegrown domestic talents in North America, particularly the US. The present commentary highlights the evolution of the talent pathway within Major League Soccer, particularly during the better part of the previous two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the ultras phenomenon in the Kolkata maidan as a mediatized spectacle in the context of sports fandom in 21st-century India. In contrast to the typical portrayal of football ultras as violent groups of conservatives in the global paradigm, this paper examines the Kolkata ultras as a distinct community formed by specific fan groups of two prominent football clubs—Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. Exploring the complex configurations of sports fandom and ultras activities, this paper considers the Kolkata football ultras as a pastiche of their European counterparts. Through their gallery activities, including the display of tifos, the Kolkata ultras attempt to narrativize the settlers-migrant conflict between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal in a neoliberal economy. While turning the identarian discourse on a visual level, the paper also analyses how the display foregrounds a change in the politics of sports fandom in India through their anti-NRC-CAA tifos in recent times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qatar 2022 World Cup provides a unique opportunity to explore how Zimbabwean football fans play out their 'Africanness' through supporting African teams. Most studies on transnational fandoms tend to focus on the growth of European football fandoms across the continent. Yet, there are transnational fandoms that are more regional and 'localized' to the continent. This paper uses the case of Zimbabwean soccer fans to explore these transnational fandoms within the context of supporting African teams at the Qatar World Cup. It utilized interviews with fans at various watching spaces during the competition and cyber ethnography focusing on the most popular social media sites related to Zimbabwean football. My main argument is that our understanding of transnational fandoms is enhanced by explaining the creation, recreation, celebration, and contestations related to supporting another African national football team. This is mainly because research has shown that football is intricately linked to national, ethnic, and social identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fans are major stakeholders in the football industry as they are a major component of memberships for clubs as well as followers of individual players as well as national teams. They are the ones who attract sponsorships, and money flows in the game through and because of them. However, African football has a unique challenge as the fans seem to be conflicted in wanting to support their own African football teams at club and national level while at the same time being drawn to European football as their star players are playing abroad and because of the historical legacy of colonialism that introduced the game to the African fans. This paper draws on different perspectives to discuss the conflicted nature of African fans and why European football and national teams seem to dwarf local club football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the categories established to study the connections between national identities and football in Latin America. It focuses particularly on that of the 'public arena', inspired by the work of Clifford Geertz, and that of 'free zones' in culture, introduced by the Argentine anthropologist Eduardo Archetti in his research into a 'popular sports nationalism' at the dawn of the twentieth century. As part of the analysis, it looks at the narrative of Argentina's recent victory of the Qatar World Cup 2022 on television and in the experience of fans, as well as the (futile) attempts by politicians to channel the fervour. Finally, the article explores how the political hero moves into post-politics: the narrative twists that enable the shift from Maradona to Messi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores mechanisms enabling football fans' position as a (safety) stakeholder in the context of European football. It is clear that fans, in the eyes of some football and political authorities, are considered to be 'potential troublemakers' or 'risks' that must be governed or controlled. However, at the same time, fans are also increasingly considered as contributors towards 'safe', 'secure', and 'enjoyable' football events. Borrowing theoretical insights from Foucault's writings on security and circulations, this article locates the football fan within what he calls a 'security dispositif'. By examining processes through which 'bad' and 'good' fan circulations and populations are enabled, this article looks at the conflicting and (sometimes) contradictory public fan identities that football and political authorities attribute to football fans. It is argued that fans' stakeholder role represents a counter to 'security' becoming defined solely on the terms of football's governing bodies and political authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an interview between Jack Woodward, a football commentator, and Kath Woodward, a sociologist. They discuss their personal experiences as fans of football and the reasons behind their support for their respective teams. Jack shares his memories of attending matches with his father and the excitement of being a fan and commentator. Kath reflects on her late introduction to soccer and the influence of her husband and children in her support for Sheffield Wednesday. They also discuss the thrill of being at live matches and the intensity of fandom. The conversation highlights the emotional attachments and sense of belonging that come with being a football fan. The text discusses the growing popularity and positive direction of women's soccer, highlighting the increasing role models and respect for female players. It also explores the impact of different factors, such as investment and skill development, on creating fandom. The conversation touches on the differences between men's and women's soccer, the joy and escapism that sports provide, and the emotional highs and lows experienced by fans. The importance of being present at games and the unique energy and atmosphere created by fans is also emphasized. [Extracted from the article]

Televised football is still one of the main ways in which football fans consume football. Earlier studies into audience receptions of televised football often used focus group interviews with football fans and generally concluded that majority ethnic audiences tend to be engaged in 'football talk' that reproduces already existing racial/ethnic stereotypes and identifications. The current study takes one step further and has explored the consumption of televised football amongst White, male football fans while it takes place. We have watched matches together with young people in England combining participant observations in domestic settings with group interviews. Results give insights into the 'backstage setting' of football consumption, identifications amongst fans with the national team, and the reproduction of racialized discourses. We will pay specific attention to the different 'shades of whiteness' that participants in our study (re)constructed based on their interpretations of the football matches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The footballing rivalry between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan in Kolkata, India, explicates important facets of the politics of nation-building and identity formation through sport. The sporting nationalism of the colonial era gave way to narrow parochialism in post-independent India where the cultural differences of Bangals (original Hindu residents of East Bengal in colonial India and Hindu migrants from East Bengal/East Pakistan in postcolonial India) and Ghotis (original residents of western parts of Bengal in colonial India and of West Bengal in postcolonial India) emerged as the key linchpin of expressing allegiance to their respective club football teams particularly in the aftermath of immigration of refugees which took place as a result of the partition of 1947 and the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war. However, the legislations pertaining to Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and National Register of Citizens (NRC) have propelled fans of these clubs to forego their sub-cultural differences and act in unison to express their grievances against the new regulations of the Indian state. The anti-NRC protest by the fans hinges on the link between football and the debates pertaining to the idea of citizenship in contemporary Indian politics. The displaying of Tifos by the fans that exhibited significant social messages bears semblance with the Ultras of European football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English football originated from organizations rooted in the communities of towns and cities. Social identity theory explains how supporters feel a strong connection with their local community club. In English football, clubs and the media often reference 'local lads', referring to locally born players as on-field representations of the community which is considered to reinforce supporters' connection to the club. However, whether supporters care where players come from remains under-researched. This research surveyed 661 supporters with headline findings outlining financial sustainability and winning trophies as main priorities with local player representation a minor priority. Supporters of Premier League clubs were significantly more likely to prioritize winning trophies, and significantly less likely to prioritize their clubs' financial position compared to the lower leagues, where financial stability was a priority. Further research would develop our understanding of the perceived importance of local players in the complex global landscape of modern football support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Eurocentric Globalization of Football (EGF), that is, the concentration of capital, broadcasts, players and coaches from around the world in the most powerful football leagues in Europe. It presents a historical analysis based on statistics and an ethnographic approach to three groups of fans of European clubs in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. It is concluded that EGF is defined by an unequal international division of labour that mainly benefits the European clubs and contribute to the reproduction of a kind of (neo)colonial world system. In Latin America, transnational fans are often seen as mere imitators of the so-called 'first world' lifestyles and traitors of the national culture. On the contrary, transnational fans conceive the EGF as an opportunity to transit freely through different cultural references, distinguish themselves socially, and build trans-scale identities that creatively challenge traditional ways of building identity in the globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers the flying of Palestinian flags by Celtic Football Club supporters in Scotland as an illustration of political activism in sport. Despite being over 4000 kilometres away and holding no ethnic, national or religious connections with any community involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle-East, fans wave these flags to demonstrate backing for Palestinian people. With reference to an historical context of the ethno-religious origins of Celtic FC and its supporting fanbase being significantly composed of members of a multi-generational Irish-Catholic diasporic minority community in Scotland, through utilizing fan writings, self-representations, and the results of a small survey of supporters, this research provides for deeper understanding of the intermittent use of sport as a space for 'taking sides' in conflicts that have ethnic, national, religious, and political resonances. Critically, this insight also offers important reflections regarding narratives of antisemitism in football and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Egyptian society, soccer serves as a powerful platform for the expression of national, regional, and individual identities. This study explores the interplay between soccer, identity formation, and societal factors, shedding light on how fans and players shape and are shaped by their involvement in the game. It explores how soccer has become a platform for Egyptians to express their patriotic fervour, regional affiliations, and political ideologies. The paper also explores the experiences of Egyptian soccer professionals and their engagement with identity formation. It investigates how players navigate the complexities of representing their clubs, regions, and country while maintaining personal identity. Understanding the role of identity in Egyptian soccer has implications for stakeholders, including players, fans, policymakers, sports organizations, and advertisers. Recognizing the significance of identity promotes strategies that leverage the emotional connections fans have with their teams and players, leading to meaningful fan engagement and driving positive social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football violence has returned to continental Europe but not to England. This commentary explores reasons for the different experiences. It is argued that, after the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, English football recreated itself, purging what it considered its undesirable elements and transforming into a type of family entertainment. Hooliganism declined amid the changes and policing of football softened. Traditional conceptions of masculinity associated with football morphed into something consistent with today's cultural climate. Meanwhile, much of continental European football, especially in Eastern Europe, remained unchanged, leaving a football culture that resembled England's of the 1970s and 1980s. The unbridled passion, fervour and frenzy once associated with but now absent from English football, remains in continental Europe, fuelling the kinds of violence witnessed in England of the last century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to critically examine the paradoxical coexistence of social benefits and the perpetuation of racism in Belgian club-organised junior football. In doing so, this article begins by providing a literature review of racism in junior football and describes the social, historical, and political context in which the research is taking place. Subsequently, we draw on 15 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in Belgian club-organised football about their personal experiences with racism to examine attitudes towards race, manifestations of racism, and its formative aspect. Based on the analyses, the article argues that the "white colonial frame" serves as a dominant attitude towards race in Belgian club-organised football. Ultimately, this cultural place does not inherently entail social progression or transformation, rather it reinscribes the dominant racial frame and sustains a status quo. Social progression seems only achievable through the decolonisation of ideologies and reform of social norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the life of a football club at the forefront of the game's initial development in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Dingley Dell's football arm was founded in 1858 but disappeared from view in 1864, during which time they engaged mainly in matches against the schools of Westminster and Charterhouse. However, their history has been sorely neglected and this paper is designed to redress that balance. The most significant question Dingley Dell's existence poses is why they failed to send a representative to the early meetings of the Football Association in late 1863. Yet, in a story full of contradictions, even their absence appears open to question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on how Dalkurd, a club founded in 2004 by Kurdish-Swedes in Borlänge, Sweden, inserts itself within a century-old tradition of Swedish football, predicated on local belongings. By using their ethnicity in order to be able to play, the presence of Dalkurd FF leads to a reconfiguration of local rivalries through the lenses of the club's ethnicity and its claims to Swedishness. The reconfiguration occurs through a process known as schismogenesis, in which relationships of rivalries and oppositions are used to maintain a larger structure comprised several members. Dalkurd fans, thus, place their team in relation to other teams, interpreting themselves and other clubs in Swedish football through those very rivalries. By doing so, they insert Kurdishness as another relevant element in playing football in a Swedish environment and their club in a Swedish tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Real Madrid F.C. was one of the few major European football teams that avoided financial losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the team improved its performance on social media and in terms of web traffic achieving the number one spot for both indicators. This exploratory study sets out to shed light on the strategies used by the club. The methodology uses a content analysis of professional and academic journals, official websites, surveys and managerial reports as well as in-depth interviews with academics, team managers, and fans. Findings reveal that nurturing existing relationships with sponsors and building new sponsorship agreements were key factors to survive in times of crisis. Our research also illustrates the importance of enabling supporters to build consumer-brand relationships and be active in the creation of their own brand experience. Lastly, the study shows that CSR initiatives strengthened the relationship between the club and its followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how football players and scouts in Sweden narrate their stories of transfers within the Swedish football system. This article presents first-person narrations as male players as well as scouts from elite clubs were interviewed in connection to transfer patters to, from and within Sweden. The aim is to analyse how the transfer system takes shape in stories presented by scouts and players, and what it can tell about the football transfer market. The interviewed persons present story logic while constructing a narrative of transfer patterns. Theoretically, the study is framed using Marcel Mauss concept of gift economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist voices supporting women's football in Brazil date back to 1924, and to journalist Cléo de Galsan. But the sport was never central to the feminist agenda in the country, and a law prohibited women from playing football from 1941 to 1979. This exclusion was internalized by many women, including feminists, who expressed little interest in the world of Brazilian football. This disinterest is paradoxical, not only because of the importance of football in the national imaginary, but also because women's sports involve fundamental dimensions in gender relations and feminist activism. The article asks why Brazilian feminism displayed little interest in this sport and concludes that part of the response lies in the social distance between feminists and footballers and in the predominance of lesbians among the athletes, while practice of football by women could be a fundamental subversive act for gender transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football, whether played competitively or as a leisure-time activity, is a veritable social institution in Africa, that commands a strong physical and symbolic presence. It gives shape to social bonds and occupies a special place in the public's imagination – globalized modernity, success – that is highly valued, in particular because of the great international careers of some African players. It thus creates opportunities for experiences that involve a political dimension: in the realm of football, social and cultural norms can be negotiated, and economic as well as cognitive resources circulate. Using ethnographic data gathered in the context of a study under way in Cameroon, we examine the ways in which girls gain access to the practice of football through a range of practices and strategies within a context characterized by multiple constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In France, for the 2015/2016 season, there were 103,276 female members of the French Football Federation and 1,606,669 male members. This article proposes an overview and a perspective of the works situated at the confluence of the sociology of socialization and the sociology of sport to inform in a different way the question of the transmission of taste, knowledge, habits, dispositions leading to the practice of football or to non-practice. After justifying the choice to focus on primary socialization, it analyzes the weight of family socialization in the transmission of football, socialization by peers but also that provided by the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expression "southern question" is used in reference to the poverty and economic underdevelopment, less advanced social relations, and clientelist style of politics that characterize South-Italy compared to North and Central Italy. This study aimed to investigate the presence of the "southern question" in Italian soccer. Accordingly, we examined the birthplace distribution of 2,012 Italian soccer players who have played in any national representative team (U15: n = 466; U16-U21: n = 1,939; Senior Team: n = 217). Chi-square analysis revealed an overrepresentation of players born in North and Central Italy, in all cohorts, compared to national norms (all P values < 0.0001). Odds ratios showed that players born in North and Central Italy had the greatest likelihood of representing Italy internationally at both youth and senior levels compared to players born in South Italy (ranging from 2 to 3.2). Factors that negatively impact upon South-Italy players' soccer developmental journey have been proposed and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran's football has been plagued by substantial safety and security problems. This paper argues that these problems represent to some extent the adverse effects of the repressive policies the government has adopted towards football. First, football matches have become focal points for social and political protests. Second, attempts to control football by limiting its commercialization have facilitated underinvestment in stadium safety. Third, the repressive policing of football crowds is likely to escalate football related riots. We provide support for these ideas on the base of a qualitative case study. Iranian football will need some fundamental reforms to escape the vicious circle of repression and conflict escalation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the broader implications of the recent case involving the professional football player, Ivan Toney, who was sanctioned by the English Football Association for gambling-related offences. Gambling and English professional football have many interconnections, underscored by the prominent betting culture within the sport and athletes' distinctive risk factors for pathological behaviours. Common punitive measures for betting-related offences, like complete bans from "all football-related activity", may inadvertently exacerbate extant vulnerabilities, particularly in cases where gambling disorder has been noted as a mitigating circumstance. Accordingly, this article recommends holistic approaches to such incidents, emphasising the need to balance applicable punishments with the provision of sufficient mental health support informed by current evidence. Moreover, a wider reconsideration of the potentially harmful intersections between gambling and English professional football may be necessary, involving proactive initiatives to expand prevention schemes, increase psychoeducation, and reduce mental health stigma in football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fairness is one of the key requirements for sport. Thus, the refereeing must be impartial. Therefore, to ensure that a referee can make verifiable correct decisions increasingly technical aids are used during live play. In soccer, next to goal-line technologies (GLT), the introduction of a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) was a major step to increase fairness in decision-making. Accordingly, the present study aimed to further investigate how the VAR in soccer is accepted and whether there is a difference between soccer referees' and fans' perceptions regarding the VAR. Therefore, self-identified soccer fans and/or former or active referees were contacted through various outlets leading to 1.442 completed questionnaires. The results indicated that soccer referees evaluate the VAR more positively compared to soccer fans. This supports previous research regarding the VAR but highlights the need for soccer associations to further educate spectators about the merits of the VAR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While sporting research has focussed on the performance factors and activities contributing to elite performance, there is still limited acknowledgement of the athlete's voice on the specific experiences and milestones that shaped their development into elite athletes. Therefore, the current study, used qualitative first-hand experiences of international level players to understand their developmental stories. In total, 17 players who represented the Australian National Soccer team during the "Golden Generation" Australian soccer (i.e. represented the Australian National Soccer Team during the Qualification period and subsequent 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cup competitions) participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with all participants, with the analysis identifying six key themes which described the developmental story of players. The themes included, Passion; Family; Mentality; Environment; Practice; and Pathway. The findings provide a detailed description of the environmental and socio-cultural factors the players perceived as critical in their journey to representing their nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English is no doubt the language of soccer. At the same time, many countries have over the past century introduced heritage alternatives for English soccer terminology. This paper aims to better understand the resulting choices that need to be made between sports terminology borrowed from English (e.g. keeper) and heritage alternatives (e.g. Dutch doelman). Two studies on Belgian Dutch mass media soccer reporting are presented. Study 1 charts the frequencies of English words and heritage alternatives for 20 soccer concepts in three genres for 38 journalists, revealing a highly variable presence of English. Study 2 reports on a thematic analysis of semi-structured expert interviews asking three journalists to reflect on the position of English terminology in (their own) reporting. Though study 1 reveals a dispersed pattern, the interviewees in study 2 report they do not see a need for more uniform practices or top-down language policies. At the same time, they believe that commentators, pundits, and journalists should adapt usage patterns. Overall, the results of our innovative mixed-methods approach allow us to better understand how the language of soccer has been and is being shaped through the interaction of the individual and the collective, the local and the global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racism is a major social and cultural problem that has, in various forms, plagued football for a long time. Despite the attempts of official bodies to root it out, racist talk and behaviour are still rife among players as well as in fan communities. The present paper provides a case study of online users' comments on the media coverage of a series of controversial incidents during a recent UEFA Europa League matchinvolving an alleged verbal act of racial abuse between two players. Adopting a discourse analytical perspective, the paper contrasts how the match controversies were reflected in the users' public online discourses in two different cultural communities, namely the UK and the Czech Republic, and identifies some of the similarities and differences between the two. The analysis shows how the users reframe the underlying racist issue, trivialize it through humour and relativize its seriousness. The data indicate that such discourses surrounding football are important for understanding how fans construct various group identities and how specific socio-cultural contexts influence the perception of race-related controversies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In "Fan identity and football culture: locating variation in the discursive performance of football fan identities in a UK stadium" Thomas Worlledge and Kieran File critically assess the common stereotype of the football fan as hooligan with the help of insights derived from a linguistic ethnography of football fans at an English professional football club. This indicates that the discourses surrounding football are an important area to understand the fans' complex constructions of group identities and how specific socio-cultural contexts influence race-related controversies and perceptions. In contrast, this thematic issue brings together cutting-edge linguistic research based on theories and models that focus on formal, functional, social-constructivist, interactional and applied aspects of language and discourse in the domain of football. Football has witnessed a continuously growing popularity and intensive coverage in various kinds of traditional and new media, and besides the traditional association between football and men, female football has most recently gained impressive grounds as the media attention and spectator numbers in the 2022 UEFA European Women's Championship in England and the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand impressively illustrate.[4] Playing football no longer automatically means football played by men. [Extracted from the article]

Scholars have argued that the increased coverage of African football in western media attests to broader changes within western media, covering more diverse affairs concerning Africa. Subsequently, this change is said to have led to more positive portrayals of African affairs in western media that challenge Afro-pessimistic narratives. This article argues that these findings are limited to English and French-speaking newspapers, as other western contexts were overlooked. To fill this gap, the following article examines how Africa and Africans are portrayed within the Israeli football media. Based on a content analysis of newspapers, sports sites, and podcasts, the article argues that African affairs are still mostly portrayed through colonial stereotypes. African footballers are often perceived as backward and commodified as precious stones, while the African continent is frequently homogenized. The article ends, though, on a positive note, recognizing a few journalists who rise above problematic tropes by addressing local contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the roots of Everton Football Club and, given their shared heritage, Liverpool FC. It concerns a dimension to the history of both clubs that has been largely overlooked but should be considered in light of Liverpool's ongoing civic reckoning with its historic slave trade connection. The research carried out suggests that the foundation period of professional football on Merseyside was marked by the patronage of well-known figures in Liverpool society who, directly or indirectly, profited from the exploitation of slave and other forms of coerced labour. It is contended that there was a reciprocal relationship between a cohort of club patrons and the evolving football scene in the city. It is also argued that Everton FCs recent commitment to memorialize the slave associations of the dock land site of its new stadium – a move it has reaped praise for – can also be viewed negatively as an underscoring of the 'maritimisation' of the impact of slavery, further obscuring the pervasiveness of the slavery story beyond maritime spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While football is a billionaire spectacle, the figure of the referee mainly presents an amateur career and a notorious diversity among the different national and regional federations. In this article, we analyse which variables determine the lifespan of the referee's career in Madrid. We apply survival analysis toa dataset of 2,978 registered referees provided by the Real Federation de Fútbol de Madrid (RFFM). The results show relevant conclusions like the different career paths of men and women, the incidence of belonging to each of the three branch offices, the effect of being a 'talent', which are the category levels where men and women mainly drop, the relevance of starting on an earlier age and the positive effect of having been born in Madrid for men. They all constitute remarkable insights to be considered when establishing recruitment policies, training and development and support for young and active referees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the stardom of retired Italian football legend, Francesco Totti, in terms of his attachment to place. In an era defined by globalization, mass media, consumerism, and identity politics, Totti emerged as a public symbol of the city of Rome and for what it means to be Roman. His Romanità (Romanness) stands in contrast to the global media brand of his contemporary, the English footballer, David Beckham. Totti's star informs us on how people might develop and negotiate identities rooted in place in an era of global media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to explore the socio-cultural predictors (SCp) effects in home advantage (HA) in European men's and women's national football leagues. A total of 69,223 matches in 21 countries were analysed. Exploratory regression modelling for HA gender gaps (HAGG) included each country's SCp (KOF-Cultural Globalization [KOFCuGI]; Global Gender Gap [GGGI]; macro-regionlocation); male and female league competitive balance (MCB, WCB). The HA was demonstrated in 41 leagues with a large HAGG effect (4.3%) in 14 countries (men, 58.4 ± 3.6%; women, 54.1 ± 3.9%; p< 0.001; ES = 0.84). The KOFCuGI ( β = 0.19, p< 0.001) and WCB ( β = 5.40, p< 0.001) could explain moderate variance in HAGG (R2 = 0.17, F(5,183) = 7.44, p< 0.001). The western region had the lowest HAGG with medium magnitude differences to the southern region (~3%; p< 0.05, ES = 0.54). The SCp may offer new approaches in studies of gender disparity in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing conceptual considerations through the lens of the commons, this study explores the emergence and expansion of the self-organized Antifa sport clubs movement in crisis-stricken Greece. The analysis elaborates how groups of politicized fans found bottom-up Antifa sport clubs, implement practices of commoning and articulat a counter-discourse which give meaning to the football experience from the particular perspective of grassroots social movements. Antifa performative discourse offers a new articulation of dissenting political culture that attempt to undermine or reshape existing arrangements in modern football. Politicized fandom activity and protest in Greece is a sign of disaffection of many young people who experience labour market uncertainties and feel alienated from mainstream politics, reclaiming some control over their favourite game resisting neoliberal football order. Their counter-discourse offers an intriguing possibility of thinking about the experience of football club as a commons experimenting towards the collective re-appropriation of the 'game of the people'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the liberating and socializing effects of football on women by exploring the history of the female fan group 'Purple Violets', who have been passionately devoted to the football team 'Orduspor' from 1967 to today. The women in the fan group, who never missed matches in the 1970s and 1980s, slowly disappeared from the stadium. This transformation was also related to the gender politics of the current government. The article is derived from a documentary project which involves interviews with 29 key players: female fans, football players and team managers, and archival research, This study suggests that football fandom played an important role in the socialization and liberation of women in Ordu in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the contemporary commercialization and politicization of football, bad management of the team and the gender discriminatory policies affect female football fandom negatively and keep them away from the stadium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, rumours of a European Super League (ESL), comprised of the major clubs from England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, have mounted. According to these rumours, this new league would break away from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). Many clubs would operate outside the current European federative system, abandoning their national leagues and football federations. An ESL thus conceived would present a menacing alternative to the UEFA Champions League (UCL) and, depending on the format of the ESL, national competitions such as leagues and cups. In this article, we draw on literature in the fields of philosophy and sport law to identify legal and ethical challenges that would result from creating an ESL. Our goal is not to provide exhaustive analyses of the identified challenges. Rather, we aim to examine the challenges to uncover intersections among sport law, sport ethics, and European football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UEFA Champions League (CL) has tremendously shaped the power alignments in Europe's top league since its renewed invocation in 1992. Acting both as a counter-balance but also as an amplifier to the competitive imbalance imposed by the English Premier League, UEFA has sought to maintain a link to football supporters in Europe and branding and streamlining one of football's top products at the same time. This paper embeds these parallel and often ambivalent aspirations in a framework of organisational input and output legitimacy claiming that the CL can serve as a prime example to depict UEFA's strategy to maintaining the status quo of European football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By fulfilling the gaps in the competitive balance literature in the sports industry and referring to Resource Dependence Theory, we analysed the mutually dependent relationship between UEFA and elite European football clubs, and precisely, elite clubs' attempt to establish European Super League. Then, we examined the competitive balance within the top five European leagues and the UEFA Champions League and how unprecedented hegemony has occurred such that Juventus, Bayern Munich, PSG, Manchester City, and Barcelona won at least half of their national league titles in the last decade. Findings suggested that firstly participation rules and revenue distribution policies applied by UEFA in the Champions League may have harmed the competitive balance within national leagues. Secondly, increasing financial differences due to UEFA's policies might also increase the power asymmetry between the top five and semi-periphery countries. Finally, we discussed what UEFA and football federations should do to eliminate these competitive disadvantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst there is a romantic myth that the European Cup was developed for sporting reasons, power, nationalism and money were significant factors. Since the formation of the European Cup in 1955, European competitions have grown in prestige and finances. The spectre of a breakaway Super League has been used repeatedly to assert the power of elite clubs. In 1992, the result was the Champions League which established a league format providing more televised games, more money and more opportunity for larger clubs to proceed in the competition. The threat of a Super League led UEFA to redesign the format of the Champions League to privilege larger clubs. Despite this, a Super League was still announced, before facing widespread resistance. This article sets up the special issue by contextualising the current Champions League in the aftermath of the Super League. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The women's national football team of Iceland, from a population of 350,000, has written its name in the history books by qualifying for four consecutive European Championship finals (from 2009), reaching the quarter finals in 2013. However, the women's team has stood in the shadow of the men's national football team of Iceland, which has attracted international attention. Thus, in the male-dominated world of football, the success of the women's team has largely gone unnoticed. This paper seeks to analyze a particular case of the rise of women's football, as it sheds light on the development and success of Icelandic women's football and frames this development in a socio-cultural context. More precisely, Icelandic women's football is emerging from within: a relatively gender equal Nordic culture; increased sport professionalism; and general strong national sentiments among Icelanders, which, when combined, have made women players the new and emerging stars of Iceland's football. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2019, FC Copenhagen and Malmö FF met in the final round of the UEFA Europa League group stage. The match was in media labelled 'the battle of the bridge' since the two clubs from Denmark and Sweden were just a bridge apart. The two clubs both have the ambition to be a leading club in Scandinavia and the aim of this paper is to examine to what extent it is possible to determine which one of the two clubs can claim to be superior in Scandinavia. The evaluation is based on a comparison of the two clubs' performance in three dimensions: success in sports, financial performance and contribution to society. Given the different organizational and contextual conditions, a relative comparative approach was used. Results show that none of the clubs is superior as a whole, but have respective strong competitive advantages in the individual dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay address different forms of 'extensive joyfulness' among football spectators, and the Swedish legal responses to these actions, due to the actions' classification as pitch invasion and trespassing, in legal terms. The essay presents the legal context, by focusing on external regulation of public order and surveillance as well as internal by-laws dealing with spectator security. By using two cases, from the district court, the essay reflects on the legal systems possibility and relevance in order to react on expressions of 'too much joy', as a legal sign of pitch invasion and the disturbance of public order. The analysi focuses on the problems of juridification when the law has to handle various mundane and 'trivial' social issues. The argument is that the football management has to amalgamate different forms of 'extensive joyfulness', in a discretionary manner, to the logics of entertainment before turning them to legal issues [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the conflict between, on the one hand, the Swedish police and law enforcement and, on the other, supporters, football clubs, and the organization of Swedish Elite Football. The core of this conflict is the introduction of a new structure for maintaining order, referred to as the Condition Ladder (Villkorstrappan), aimed at addressing disturbances and pyrotechnics in the stands. The aim of this article is to chart and analyse the impact of the Condition Ladder on Swedish football culture. The methods are media analysis, analysis of police documents and interviews. The study confirms previous findings regarding the role of the media in public discourse, but also indicates that the previously negative media image of the supporter culture has changed into a more positive view. The study shows that the new restrictions create conflicts and tensions between the involved actors when these actors are to handle risk elements in Swedish supporter culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]