Racism and English Football: For Club and Country analyses the contemporary manifestations, outcomes and implications of the fractious relationship between English professional football and race. Racism, we were told, had disappeared from English football. It was relegated to a distant past, and displaced onto other European countries. When its appearance could not be denied, it was said to have reappeared. This book reveals that this was not true. Racism did not go away and did not return. It was here all along. The book argues that racism is firmly embedded and historically rooted in the game’s structures, cultures and institutions, and operates as a form of systemic discrimination. It addresses the ways that racism has tainted English football, and the manner in which football has, in turn, influenced racial meanings and formations in wider society. Equally, it explores how football has facilitated forms of occupational multiculture, black player activism and progressive fan politics that resist divisive social phenomena and offer a degree of hope for an alternative future. Focusing on a diverse range of topics, in men’s and women’s football, at club and international level, Racism and English Football extends and expands our knowledge of how racism occurs and, critically, how it can be challenged. This is an essential read for scholars and students working on race, ethnicity, sport and popular culture, together with those interested in the social and organisational dynamics of English professional football more generally.

Founded more than 125 years ago, Liverpool FC is a soccer club with a storied past and an exciting future. Liverpool supporters never walk alone. They carry a rich team history and thrive off the companionship of some of the game's most passionate and loyal fans. From the Kop at Anfield to television sets across the world, Liverpool FC sparks excitement and hope in millions of people every year. This book explores the formation of the team in 1892, the successes and failures of the early years, the dominating run of the 1970s and 1980s, and recent events in the twenty-first century. It also examines the social progress and tragedies related to the team, showing that sport can be used as a unifying force in the world.

Offering an overview of the sport industry and coverage of the foundational knowledge and skills required of the today's sport manager, Principles and Practice of Sport Management is devoted to educating students on the various industry segments where they can focus their careers. After detailing the history and various principles – from management and marketing to finance, legal and ethical – the book delves into key sports management segments, discussing the skills needed in those sectors, the types of positions available, and the curre

From the makers of the UK’s best football magazine! MATCH is the UK’s bestselling football annual and is top of Christmas wish lists for footy fans everywhere. Inside the MATCH Annual 2025, readers can build the ultimate player using superstars from the Premier League, check out the craziest football haircuts through the years, swot up on the 2025 Women’s Euros, learn about the best academies on the planet, and look back on Jurgen Klopp and Emma Hayes’ rocking reigns in England! Plus, don't miss the best moments from Euro 2024, epic profiles of the world's top wonderkids, tons of brain-busting quizzes, cool cartoons, the chance to design your own boots, pick your MLS team, LOL at the funniest footy snaps, and loads more! Don’t miss it!

This book offers an evidence-based guide to the development, management, and retention of sports officials. Drawing on research at all levels of sport, from grassroots to professional, this book focuses on best practices for sports officials and for anybody involved in the management or training of sports officials. This book is divided into three parts. The first takes a close look at who sports officials are, their motivations, and the formal and informal organizational relationships that define an official’s position in sport. The second examines the factors that can keep an official engaged in their sport, from building healthy cultures and good physical preparation to mentoring and mental health. The final part looks at the development of officials to elite level, including effective communication, improving decision-making, interpreting rules and laws, and career pathways. With case studies, real-life examples, and the voices of practicing officials included throughout this book, it introduces core concepts and best practices applicable across sports and different national and international contexts. This is an essential reference for all sports officials and for practitioners and policymakers working in sports organizations at all levels.

While the field of football studies has produced an abundance of literature on professional, top-league football, there is little research output to do with the non-top level football. This book explores the relationship between the top and lower leagues, laying open the drastic schisms that exist between the different levels. The study links the developments at the top level of English and German football in the past 30 years to transformational processes in lower league football. Illustrating how the hegemonic status of top football weighs hard on the spheres below, it depicts how it also serves as a blueprint for lower league football clubs’ strategies in coping with a threefold dilemma of institutional legitimacy that shows itself in economic, cultural and social dimensions. Taking the different club structures in both national contexts as a starting point, it portrays both the efficacy of institutional frameworks and how these can be challenged from below. This research will be of interest to students and scholars across football studies, sports studies, the sociology of sport, and organisation studies.

As modern football grapples with the implications of a global crisis, this book looks at first in the game’s history: The First World War. The game’s structure and fabric faced existential challenges as fundamental questions were asked about its place and value in English society. This study explores how conflict reshaped the People’s Game on the English Home Front. The wartime seasons saw football's entire commercial model challenged and questioned. In 1915, the FA banned the payment of players, reopening a decades-old dispute between the game's early amateur values and its modern links to the world of capital and lucrative entertainment. Wartime football forced supporters to consider whether the game should continue, and if so, in what form? Using an array of previously unused sources and images, this book explores how players, administrators and fans grappled with these questions as daily life was continually reshaped by the demands of total war. From grassroots to elite football, players to spectators, gambling to charity work, this study examines the social, economic and cultural impact of what became Football's Great War.