Introduction: football and community – practical and theoretical considerations

Brown, Adam; Crabbe, Tim; Mellor, Gavin

doi:10.1080/14660970802008934

Cited by 45 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In recent years there is also evidence of increased voluntary social disclosure in annual reports, as well as in other sources like websites (Hamil and Morrow, 2011;Slack and Shrives, 2008;Walters and Tacon, 2010), with clubs seeking to provide a fuller picture of their performance than simply a financial one. As organisations which have their origins in communities at one level it is unsurprising that football clubs may seek to be accountable to the communities from which they initially derived (Slack and Shrives, 2008;Morrow, 1999;Brown et al, 2006).However, while the desire to disclose more information is broadly welcome, a number of issues arise. Firstly, as social disclosure is less standardised than conventional financial disclosure, there is a risk of management capture, with management seeking to control the debate about what is or is not appropriate social or community activity, both in terms of (O'Dwyer, 2004).…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…(Brown et al, 2006;Brown et al, 2008;Morrow, 1999Morrow, , 2003; customer loyalty or partisanship (Simmons, 2006); high levels of stakeholder engagement and activism (Michie and Oughton, 2005;Morrow, 1999); and the enduring relationships between clubs and geographical communities (Bale, 2002;Brown et al,. 2008).…”

Section: The Political Context Of Accountingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ffp -Implications For Football Club Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Football club financial reporting: time for a new model?

Morrow

2013

Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal

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Purpose -To critically evaluate football club financial reporting with reference to: the long-standing debate on the nature and purpose of accounting; and the implementation of UEFA's Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.Design/methodology/approach -The paper is based on a review and analysis of academic literature, accounting regulation and football regulations.Findings -The focus of financial reporting on rational economic decision-makers results in football club financial reports being of limited use to many football club stakeholders. Consideration of the social and organisational context of football, as takes place in FFP, can be used as a catalyst to consider broader approaches to football club reporting. The paper calls for fuller and different pictures to be provided of clubs' performance, in particular broadening the scope of accountability to users beyond that provided by an economic account.Research limitations/implications -The paper is designed to stimulate debate about accounting for and reporting on football club businesses. A necessary next step is an exploratory project, focusing on one or a small number of clubs and their stakeholders, exploring in a practical setting what enhanced football club reporting might look like.Originality/value -While the weaknesses of financial reporting have been considered extensively in the mainstream accounting literature and on occasion in terms of sport, the paper seeks to progress this discussion by linking it to significant football policy initiatives and to wider social and community-based football research. IntroductionThe substantial increases in income enjoyed by top level football clubs in recent years coupled with the resultant benefits gained by elite players have perhaps inevitably resulted in increased emphasis on the business of football and football clubs. Financial performance has become one of the dominant narratives about football with regular commentary on financial success or failure at league and club level. More pertinently, to some extent at least, football as an economic activity has become normalised, in the sense that increasingly clubs are being viewed and reported on by leading commentators as if they were normal businesses (Moorhouse, 2007).Notwithstanding football's highly commercialised nature, this process of normalisation is problematic: football has always been and continues to be a social business; economic in basis, but social in nature (Hamil et al., 2001;, Morrow, 2003Nash, 2000). This approach encourages recognition of the social aspects that distinguish football from purely economic activity; that is how its economic activity affects or is affected by its communities of interest or stakeholders. In recent years there has been increased attention afforded to the ways in which elite level clubs give effect to their putative social and community role and to their resultant accountability to those communities or stakeholders. At one level this has focused on the organisational and governance structure of clubs (see, ...

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confidence: 96%

Section: The Political Context Of Accountingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ffp -Implications For Football Club Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Football club financial reporting: time for a new model?

Morrow

2013

Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal

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“…The aim of their paper was (in part) to "clarify and better understand who football communities might be." [2] Using the projections of Crawford and with an endeavour to ensure that future research into soccer fandom is inclusive of "all aspects" of community, we argue that the proliferation of Internet use and the interactive processes (that are available for fans through this medium) should be taken seriously by academics in order to understand the full extent of English soccer fandom communities in our technology laden society.…”

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confidence: 99%

‘Surf’s up!’: A call to take English soccer fan interactions on the Internet more seriously

Gibbons

Dixon

2010

Soccer & Society

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“…However, from the early 1990s there has been a significant re-alignment of football's social structures, and such traditional fan groups have declined (Brown, Crabbe, & Mellor, 2008). Once thought of in terms of a loyalty to a geographic community, football fans are now fragmented and described as customers in a transient marketplace (Giulianotti, 2002).…”

Section: The Role Of Sport Leisure and Football In Tackling Social Ementioning

confidence: 97%

Football fandom, social inclusion and learning disability: opportunities and constraints

Southby

2011

World Leisure Journal

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In Britain, within the contemporary drive to use sport to tackle the isolation of socially excluded groups, football (soccer) fandom has been suggested in many policy documents as a possible site for enabling people with learning disabilities to become more socially included. Forming the basic theoretical work for my doctoral research, this paper provides a critical analysis of this so far unexamined discourse. Conclusions suggest that current policy represents a simplistic and overly romanticised view of people with learning disabilities as football fans, leaving many unanswered questions about what social inclusion targets can reasonably be met through football fandom.

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Introduction: football and community – practical and theoretical considerations

Cited by 45 publications

References 9 publications

Football club financial reporting: time for a new model?

Football club financial reporting: time for a new model?

‘Surf’s up!’: A call to take English soccer fan interactions on the Internet more seriously

Football fandom, social inclusion and learning disability: opportunities and constraints

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