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.

Security Games: Surveillance and Control at Mega-Events addresses the impact of mega-events – such as the Olympic Games and the World Cup – on wider practices of security and surveillance. "Mega-Events" pose peculiar and extensive security challenges. The overwhelming imperative is that "nothing should go wrong." There are, however, an almost infinite number of things that can "go wrong"; producing the perceived need for pre-emptive risk assessments, and an expanding range of security measures, including extensive forms and levels of surveillance. These measures are delivered by a "security/industrial complex" consisting of powerful transnational corporate, governmental and military actors, eager to showcase the latest technologies and prove that they can deliver "spectacular levels of security". Mega-events have thus become occasions for experiments in monitoring people and places. And, as such, they have become important moments in the development and dispersal of surveillance, as the infrastructure established for mega-events are often marketed as security solutions for the more routine monitoring of people and place. Mega-events, then, now serve as focal points for the proliferation of security and surveillance. They are microcosms of larger trends and processes, through which – as the contributors to this volume demonstrate – we can observe the complex ways that security and surveillance are now implicated in unique confluences of technology, institutional motivations, and public-private security arrangements. As the exceptional conditions of the mega-event become the norm, Security Games: Surveillance and Control at Mega-Events therefore provides the glimpse of a possible future that is more intensively and extensively monitored.

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.

Whenever a major event requires police intervention, questions are raised about the nature of the police response. Could the police have prevented the conflict, been better prepared, reacted more quickly? Could they have acted more forcefully or brought the altercation under control more effectively? Based upon real case studies of events from all

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.

"Lifts the analysis out of the nuts and bolts of sports policy and into some really thought-provoking areas which will equip the policy maker for the challenges of the 21st century" - Dominic Malcolm, Loughborough University "This is an excellent analysis of the significance of globalisation for national sport policy and especially of the impact of global processes at the local socio-cultural level" - Barrie Houlihan, Loughborough University Drawing upon a range of empirical case studies, Catherine Palmer situates sports policy within a broader consideration of global processes, practices and consequences, exploring the relationship between: the local and the global globalization and governance new technologies human rights the environment corporate responsibility. In doing so she sets out the ground for an understanding of policy making in sport and how this affects society. Covering both theory and practice, it is a detailed and thought provoking resource for students of sports policy, sports development, sports management and sports studies.

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.