This study analyzes the response by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) after its top officials were arrested for corruption early in 2015. FIFA’s response included President Sepp Blatter’s brief address to FIFA Congress. In the days that followed, Mr. Blatter also gave a television interview and appeared in other media events where he attempted to repair the organization’s image. The analysis focuses on the effectiveness of FIFA’s attempt at image repair. First, it uses Benoit’s image repair theory (IRT) to analyze FIFA’s rhetoric. Second, it conducts a thematic analysis of content from 215 publications in eight newspapers selected from four continents during three crises stages. The results indicate that FIFA failed in its attempt to repair its image following the corruption crisis.

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This paper is a report of a quantitative survey of 312 Nigerian football fans to ascertain the relationship between their consumption of transnational media and attitudes towards foreign football and identification with foreign football. Thomas McPhail's Electronic Colonialism Theory is used as a framework for the study, and thus several claims of the theory are tested in the process. Results of the study show that Nigerian fans have a positive attitude towards foreign football and express significant identification with European football teams and football players. However, there was low identification with European football artefacts leading to questions whether previous studies overstate identification with such artefacts. Importantly, the study also found some demographic correlations with fan attitude and/or identification with foreign football. These important demographic variables are frequency of transnational media usage and gender of the football fan.

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This qualitative research investigated the meaning of the European football leagues’ domination of the Nigerian football market. It finds that the media use a frame of “Nigeria as colony” to report football. In essence, the media interpret Europe as center of modern football and Nigeria as periphery. The study uses 2 methods: (a) a frame analysis of 2 daily sports newspapers, 1 national daily newspaper, and a satellite television sports channel and (b) in-depth interviews of 10 Nigerian football fans. Each complementary method helps confirm results obtained by the other. The frame analysis discovers 4 themes and the interviews found 5 related themes. Each theme logically links to the archetype frame of Nigeria as colony. The results of the study confirm valence framing, demonstrating the impact of the frame on Nigerian sports fans.