Managing Football

Simon Chadwick, Simon Chadwick, Sean Hamil

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136437625
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Managing Football is the first book to directly respond to the rapid managerial, commercial and global development of the sport and offers a thorough analysis of how the football industry can meet the challenges that flow from these developments.

Expertly edited by two well known specialists in football business management, it draws together the work of a world-class contributor team to form a comprehensive analysis of the most important issues facing the managers of football businesses across the world.

The cutting edge analysis examines all the important business challenges in the football industry and the management of football businesses and covers all of the key football markets including England, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, North America, China, South Africa, South Korea, the Netherlands & Belgium, and Mexico.

Managing Football is simply a must-read for anyone studying or working in football business management and is set to be an important landmark in this rapidly moving and globally expansive field.

PART 1

Managing Football

		Chapter 1
	Introduction and Market Overview

Sean Hamil

Birkbeck Sport Business Centre, Birkbeck College, University of London

Simon Chadwick

Coventry University

Contents

Overview of the Chapter

Viking Heads, Independent Schools, and the Industrial Revolution

The Nature and Distinctiveness of Football

The Organisation of this Book

Conclusions

Discussion Questions

Guided Reading

References

Recommended Websites

Objectives

Upon completion of this chapter the reader should be able to:

• Explain the historic and global development of football.
• Understand issues that serve as the background to football management.
• Identify the distinctive features and characteristics of football.
• Understand the structure of this book and the chapters.

Overview of the Chapter

This chapter sets out to achieve a number of objectives, most notably to introduce readers to this book. The chapter begins by providing a brief history of football. Given the global development of the sport, generalising and summarising its history is not an easy task. As such, the history presented is simply one version among many stories, myths, and legends. Significantly, however, it illustrates that the popularity of football is not simply a recent phenomenon and that the sport is deeply socioculturally embedded. When addressing the challenges facing managers in modern football, especially those relating to commercial developments, this is an important point to remember. The chapter then goes on to highlight some of the key features of football, noting the size and nature of the football industry, as well as examining its distinctive characteristics. This is intended to serve as a backdrop against which subsequent chapters in this book should be read. In brief, each of these chapters is then previewed, and the reasons for dividing this book into four sections are explained. The chapter concludes by directing readers to key sources of information; it is hoped that this will help both newcomers to football and those with a long-standing interest in the sport to develop a stronger appreciation of what many people refer to as the “global game.”

Viking Heads, Independent Schools, and the Industrial Revolution

Football has variously developed across the world as a ceremony, a celebration, a physical pursuit, a leisure activity, and now, increasingly, a business. As an illustration, consider the case of football in England: some people believe that the sport emerged over centuries, thus giving it an extraordinary depth and context. In its earliest form, myth has it that during the Viking invasions of the late first millennium, victorious battlers among the resident population would cut off the heads of the invaders and kick the decapitated heads around their villages. Thereafter, in medieval times, a ritual emerged that still endures today: Large groups would gather in towns and villages to celebrate Shrove Tuesday,¹ a festival that is repeated across the world to mark the end of winter food stocks and the start of the new planting season. As part of the celebrations, a form of football would be played where a goal would be placed at either end of the town or village, and the objective was simply to score a goal. From these origins, football most notably began to thrive during the nineteenth century in the English independent schools system as a puritanical form of healthy activity for young men. Thereafter, the onset of the industrial revolution led to both an upsurge in the popularity of football as a diversion for the masses away from their harsh industrial lives and to the emergence of the professional game. Throughout the twentieth century, as people’s leisure time increased and communication links improved, regular international football began, the game developed, and the popularity of football began to take hold. By the turn of the twenty-first century, in the light of rapid technological and media changes, the impact of regulatory influence from bodies such as the European Union, the forces of internationalisation and globalisation, and the prevalence of liberal economic- and business- oriented thinking began to pervade across a large number of sports. Beech (2004) has generally characterised such an overall transition as having being comprised of seven phases: foundation, codification, stratification, professionalisation, postprofessionalisation, commercialisation, and postcommercialisation—essentially a journey whereby football evolved from being a simple sporting contest to become a sporting contest situated within a complex set of economic, social, and political structures with huge cultural and financial significance.

For many people across the world, football remains a celebration, a hobby, a leisure pursuit, and a rite of passage; yet, football is increasingly recognized as an industry in itself, an industry that must be managed in a businesslike fashion. There is no doubt that football is universally popular, and it is frequently referred to as the global game, a sport that transcends social, political, economic, and cultural boundaries. Figures reported by the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA) appear to confirm this, with the organisation reporting that there are 265 million registered players worldwide, playing for 1.7 million teams in 300,000 official clubs (FIFA, 2007). Although many of these players, teams, and clubs may actually play football simply for pleasure, the top tier of football clubs clearly operate as businesses of a kind, despite their sociocultural significance.

The financial value of football is obvious; Deloitte (2008, page 6) estimated that the total European football market was worth €13.6 million in the 2006/2007 season. It has been estimated (PR Newswire, 2008) that Real Madrid’s brand value was €1,063 million in 2008.

Football’s bigger clubs inevitably attract the attention of the media and public alike, but many other smaller clubs worldwide operate profitably, serve the needs of particular target groups, make a significant contribution to their local economies, or help in the creation and management of community projects. At the same time, financial problems characterise the reality for many football clubs, even at a club like Chelsea (English Premier League Champions in 2004 and 2005), where annual losses were over £75 million in 2006/2007 (Deloitte, 2008, Appendices, page 5). In some countries, massive debt may be less of a problem than general disinterest in the local product with interest in the English Premier League crowding out interest in local teams. Elsewhere, Italy has seen the appeal of football and trust in the game undermined by hooliganism and corruption; in countries like India and Australia, colonial (cricket) and local sports (Australian Rules football—AFL), rather than football, often dominate the sports scene, while the impoverishment, poor infrastructure, and player defections continue to pose problems for football clubs and the football authorities throughout developing countries in Africa. In countries like Argentina and Brazil, despite the passion and fervour of people’s support for football, crumbling stadia and serious financial problems represent a major threat to the future development of the game.

In Europe, professional football is fast becoming a major industry characterised by commercialism and the growth of formal, professional marketing practices. The maturity of some European football markets has resulted in leading clubs seeking growth opportunities in other countries, most notably in Asia. At the same time, clubs in many European nations continue to face difficult operating conditions as they struggle to maintain presence and profile in a complex, dynamic environment where the majority of the clubs continue to suffer financial losses.

Outside Europe, the growing popularity of football in Asia continues unabated. Spurred on by their hosting of the 2002 World Cup, football in Japan and South Korea is perceived to be on a growth trajectory, although the product on offer is not at a level of maturity commensurate with the major European leagues. Elsewhere in Asia, the industry essentially consists of two types of countries: countries where the interest in football is strong but is served by overseas clubs and leagues rather than domestic provision and countries where, thus far, receptiveness to football is limited, possibly due to the popularity of other sports or due to economic and social conditions.

In the Americas, the profile of the football industry is a starkly contrasting one. In Central and South America, football is hugely popular, spanning social, economic, and cultural divisions. Nevertheless, the industry is notoriously inefficient, as many clubs operate at a loss and have little regard for formal or professional approaches to marketing. In the United States, this formality and professionalism is present, but football does not enjoy the sociocultural prominence that it does elsewhere in the world, which presents a distinct set of challenges for those involved in managing the sport.

As for the rest of the world, football is very popular in Africa, but the notion of developing managerial focus and competence is one that has yet to effectively establish itself, compounding economic problems and the exodus of players to other countries, particularly to Europe. Yet, the African experience is too complex to generalise, especially as South Africa is set to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup and because North African football enjoys a much higher profile and is much more economically prosperous than football in most sub-Saharan countries. In Oceania, football is largely an immature product; in the former colonies of Northern European countries, there is some interest in football, but this tends to be centred on particular ethnic groups and is often overshadowed by other, often culturally specific, sports.

In light of the prevailing view that football is the global game, as well as the growing recognition that football is an industry in which there is a need to develop managerial competence, this book therefore sets out to examine football management in different geographic areas across the world. The book is not intended to focus on one particular aspect of football management, but rat...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Table Of Contents
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Managing Football
• Introduction and Market Overview
• Ownership and Governance
• New Media Challenges in the Twenty-First Century
• Public Relations and the Media
• Law and Regulation
• International and Global Development
• Sports Marketing and Sponsorship
• Finance in the Football Industry
• Supply Chain Management and Retailing
• Organising and Human Resource Management
• Leagues and Competitions
• Agents and Intermediaries
• Stadia and Facilities
• Managing Football in the Big Five
• England
• Spain
• Italy
• France
• Germany
• Managing Football in Emerging Markets
• Australia
• North America
• China
• South Africa
• Managing Football in Established Markets
• The Netherlands and Belgium
• Mexico
• South Korea
• Glossary
• Index