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Victory for Africa or the Arab world? Moroccan nationalism, Arab exceptionalism, pan-African solidarity and digital fandom during the 2022 FIFA World Cup Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Lyton Ncube, Chengeto Pauline Mkwendi, Amos Batisayi
Football serves as a fetish for war, replaying past conflicts and sometimes setting off new ones. Deploying social identities theory and dramaturgy theory, we follow up on this assertion to explore...
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Referees in French professional football: from amateurs towards semi-professionals (1955-1995) Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Alexandre Joly, Olivier Chovaux, Jean-Nicolas Renaud
The aim of this study is to better understand how French refereeing and its elite-level referees accomplished the transition from amateur to semi-professional during the second half of the twentiet...
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East Bengal-Mohun Bagan football fans and Indian politics: parochialism and nationalism in simultaneity? Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Avipsu Halder
The footballing rivalry between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan in Kolkata, India, explicates important facets of the politics of nation-building and identity formation through sport. The sporting nati...
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Investigating the influence of fans on home advantage outcomes in association football across Europe Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-25 Brendon Bhagwandeen, Asad Mohammed, Isaac Dialsingh
Fan support has long been stated as one of the major contributors to the home advantage which football teams enjoy across Europe; whereby fans motivate the home team to increase performance levels,...
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Recognition, Ma Non Troppo: how FIFA dribbled the Spanish football schism during the Civil war Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-23 Bernat López
One of the facets of the Spanish Civil War’s sportive dimensions which has received relatively ample attention by scholars is the attitude of FIFA in the battle between de republican and the Franco...
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The end of terraces? Fans’ identity in times of crisis in Poland Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-23 Radosław Kossakowski
The main assumption of the text is that, in Poland, small fan groups are facing a threat to their existence, and many of them are functioning in an evident crisis. Based on secondary data, the main...
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Race and whiteness in football talk amongst English fans: audience receptions of televised national team coverage Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-23 Jacco van Sterkenburg, Max Walder
Televised football is still one of the main ways in which football fans consume football. Earlier studies into audience receptions of televised football often used focus group interviews with footb...
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This is not Soccer!!!: Blue Lock’s poststructuralist approach to soccer Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-23 Kevin Michael A. De Guzman
Like every particle in the universe encompassing the atomic structure of reality, soccer was a product of an entropic cycle whereby its inception in 1893 resulted from a historical hodgepodge of ga...
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Why win a World Cup? Thirty-six years of football and nation(alisms) in Argentina Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-22 Pablo Alabarces, Juan Branz, José Garriga Zucal
This article analyzes the categories established to study the connections between national identities and football in Latin America. It focuses particularly on that of the ‘public arena’, inspired ...
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Does anyone care where they are from? The importance of locally trained players in English football Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Steve Bullough, Lee Edmondson, Andrew Mills
English football originated from organizations rooted in the communities of towns and cities. Social identity theory explains how supporters feel a strong connection with their local community club...
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‘Liverpool daft’: the growth of British football clubs’ supporters’ clubs in the late twentieth century in Ireland - a history Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Conor Curran
This article examines the development of British football clubs’ supporters’ clubs in Ireland. While it has been previously established that this interest was at times linked to domestic and Europe...
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‘Our team will definitely win the cup’: the Keralan support of Brazil and Argentina during Men’s World Cup 2022 Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Ana Raquel Romeu Aguiar
At the end of 2022, the FIFA Men’s World Cup took place in Qatar, and Argentina won its third title. Among thr worldwide supporters, India, a nation that had never played at the event, caught my at...
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Beyond ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fans: exploring the mechanisms enabling football fans’ position as a stakeholder in the management of circulations Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen
This article explores mechanisms enabling football fans’ position as a (safety) stakeholder in the context of European football. It is clear that fans, in the eyes of some football and political au...
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Symbolic identities in football: a view from political science Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Christos Kassimeris
No detailed account is necessary for tracing the historical background of several football clubs and national football teams in Europe. While certainly not rejecting the obvious merits in detailing...
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‘You, me, we’: shared identities of African professional footballers’ diaspora in Thailand Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Chuenchanok Siriwat
African footballers comprise a significant group of sport migrants, who face structural challenges set-forth by specific visa requirements which have made entry into Thailand more challenging. Usin...
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The football commentator and the social commentator: a conversation Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Jack Woodward, Kath Woodward
Published in Soccer & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Club, nation, player: conflicted fan identities in African soccer Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Wycliffe W. Simiyu Njororai
Fans are major stakeholders in the football industry as they are a major component of memberships for clubs as well as followers of individual players as well as national teams. They are the ones w...
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‘Could have been a god but chose to be a Devil’. The 2004 European Championships and Wayne Rooney’s departure from Everton Football Club Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-19 David Kennedy, Peter Kennedy
The world of elite football is woven from complex and intriguing relations informing the identities of players, clubs and supporters, across local, national and international boundaries. Often, key...
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Hooligans are coming home. A response to Ellis Cashmore and Kevin Dixon, ‘Why football violence made a comeback in continental Europe but spared England’ [soccer & society 25, no. 3 (2024): 378-384] Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Mateusz Grodecki, Dominik Antonowicz, Radosław Kossakowski, Mark Doidge
Published in Soccer & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Designing talent development in football – a document analysis of the Norwegian academy classification model Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-02-24 Ann-Kristin Nilsen, Glenn Øvrevik Kjerland, Vegard Fusche Moe
Norwegian football has recently witnessed a surge in the professionalization of talent management, marked by the launch of the Academy Classification Model (ACM) in 2017. The model aims to enhance ...
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Kicking off passion: the birth and rise of football in Belgium (1880-1914) Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Pascal Delwit
The article explores the early advent and evolution of football in Belgium until WWI, highlighting the crucial role played by British expatriates and the influence of Catholic and State schools.It ...
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Why are stadiums empty in Portugal? An examination of costs associated with being a fan of Premier League football in Portugal Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Ângela Monteiro, Paulo Reis Mourão
The goal of our work was to understand the costs that football fans of Portugal’s Premier League incur and whether those costs are detrimental to their stadium attendance. To that end, a questionna...
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Sociologie des supporters Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-28 Phil Bonjour
Published in Soccer & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Does competitive balance explain stadium attendance? Evidence from Finnish men’s football Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-24 Esa Mangeloja, Mihaly Szeróvay
In this article, we examine the Finnish football league attendance characteristics. Sport leagues usually claim that outcome uncertainty is necessary to maintain interest among fans. In this paper,...
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When stakeholder opinions diverge: a case study of Aberdeen Football Club’s proposed relocation to Westhill Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-23 Richie Bain, Kieran James
The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of Aberdeen Football Club’s proposed relocation from Pittodrie Stadium to the small town of Westhill, seven miles from the city-centre, and to a...
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Women footballers in Indochina: a place in the stadium? Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Brice Fossard
Indochinese women footballers proclaim a degree of liberty and very considerable autonomy; they thus play an essential role in extending women’s emancipation in Indochina. They aim to gain a level ...
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Playing football in Cameroon as a girl: a match for equality Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Béatrice Bertho, Françoise Grange-Omokaro, Iyama M. Douna, Dominique Malatesta
Football, whether played competitively or as a leisure-time activity, is a veritable social institution in Africa, that commands a strong physical and symbolic presence. It gives shape to social bo...
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‘A French woman is not born a footballer, she becomes one… or not’: an overview and perspective of the work carried out in the sociology of socialization and sport Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Oumaya HIDRI Neys, Christine Mennsson
In France, for the 2015/2016 season, there were 103,276 female members of the French Football Federation and 1,606,669 male members. This article proposes an overview and a perspective of the works...
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Football, lesbianism and feminism in Brazil: subversive acts Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Carmen Rial, Caroline Soares de Almeida
Feminist voices supporting women’s football in Brazil date back to 1924, and to journalist Cléo de Galsan. But the sport was never central to the feminist agenda in the country, and a law prohibite...
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Cultural anchoring of women’s football or deception? Comparative historical analysis of the processes of institutionalization of the practice Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Audrey Gozillon, Jean Bréhon
“More than a sporting event, the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup has been a cultural phenomenon (…) women’s football is attractive everywhere”. If the words of the FIFA President reflect the institutio...
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No Foreign Game: association football and the making of Irish identities Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Julien Clénet
Published in Soccer & Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Why football violence made a comeback in continental Europe but spared England Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2024-01-03 Ellis Cashmore, Kevin Dixon
Football violence has returned to continental Europe but not to England. This commentary explores reasons for the different experiences. It is argued that, after the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, ...
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Brand building and image perception in women football: a cross-country comparison between Brazil and Germany Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-12-29 Ana Costa, Clarice Secches Kogut
While women’s football (WF) experienced exponential growth after the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the drivers for building players’ personal brands (PB) remain opaque to our understanding of the sp...
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The marketing of season tickets in the English Football League during a cost-of-living crisis: the importance of financial sustainability and the role of economic, social and cultural capital Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Jamie Wheaton
English Football League (EFL) clubs rely on season ticket (ST) sales as an annual revenue source. ST sales during the cost-of-living crisis in 2022 theoretically took on more importance given clubs...
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Motivations for attending live matches among Mexican football fans Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-12-09 Josefina C. Santana, Arturo García-Santillán
Fan attendance at sporting events is an important contributor to club finances and to player motivation. Although attendance has experienced a downturn in professional sports around the world, Mexi...
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Banter and the rise of LGBTQ+ awareness in football cultures: a bourdieusian approach Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-11-28 Kevin Dixon, Jamie Cleland, Ellis Cashmore
Using data from a 2020 survey of 2,663 football fans, this paper explores their perspectives on LGBTQ+ language at UK men's football matches. Results revealed that 95 percent of participants expres...
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The influence of football celebrity endorsements on the attention paid to advertising: eye tracker research related to amateur online poker players in Portugal Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Luis Mañas-Viniegra, Ana I. Veloso, Patricia Núñez-Gómez
The aim of this research is to determine how football stars influence the attention paid to online poker advertising and whether a corresponding nationality might influence the perception of audien...
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Destination attributes on attendance at away football games: scale development, and validation on fans Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-11-22 Meltem Altinay Ozdemir, Celil Cakici, Zeynep Tombas
This study aims to explain destination attributes that affect football fans’ attendance at away games using a sequential method design. The research developed a scale through a six-phase process, i...
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Beyond the final whistle: vocational careers of retired soccer players of the female Swiss national team Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-11-22 Michael J. Schmid, Bryan Charbonnet, David Kurz, Merlin Örencik, Juerg Schmid, Achim Conzelmann
The present study surveyed 57 retired female soccer national team players to examine their athletic, educational, and vocational careers. The respondents achieved higher educational degrees compare...
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Instagram as a tool of ‘social navigation’: women’s soccer in the Islamic Republic of Iran - between censorship and (r)evolution Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-10-16 Caroline Azad
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Instagram has proven to be a very relevant source of information about Iranian women’s soccer. The growing popularity of female professional football pl...
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Putting the football back into football stardom: a case study of Gareth Bale as a national football ‘star’ Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-10-15 Thomas Alcott
Work on footballing stardom has struggled with positioning on-field performance within the image of notable players. This is mainly born out of early scholarship that positioned the topic primarily...
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‘Bigger than football’: racist talk on and off the soccer pitch Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-10-09 Jan Chovanec
Racism is a major social and cultural problem that has, in various forms, plagued football for a long time. Despite the attempts of official bodies to root it out, racist talk and behaviour are sti...
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The development of women’s football: under what conditions? – an introduction Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-10-08 Oumaya Hidri Neys, Hugo Juskowiak
This special issue, entitled The development of women's football: under what conditions? focuses on the political, sociological and cultural issues surrounding women's access to football. The artic...
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Football migration in the Czech Republic: A multi-level analysis of football migration in a semi-peripheral European Nation Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-30 William Crossan, Jakub Riedl
Football migration, including flows and effects, is measured over the first 27 years of the independent Czech Football League. Hierarchical multi-level analysis is used to test previous sport migra...
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Palimpsest: women write about football Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-30 Amir Ben Porat
Published in Soccer & Society (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Young and burned out – the dilemma of women’s elite football. Early termination of the football career for elite women footballers in Norway caused by a high degree of emotional and interpersonal stressors Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-30 Linda Wilhelmsen
Early termination of football careers is a challenge for elite women footballers. They quit their careers before experience, competence, and performance are fully developed, and women’s football is...
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Video Assistant Referee (VAR), gender and football refereeing: a scoping review Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-20 Sigbjørn Skirbekk
The increasing use of VAR globally affects the refereeing role and may have unintended gendered consequences for referees. This scoping review 1) summarizes and maps the research on refereeing, gen...
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The language and discourse(s) of football. Interdisciplinary and cross-modal perspectives: introduction to the thematic issue Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Eva-Maria Graf, Marcus Callies, Melanie Fleischhacker
Published in Soccer & Society (Vol. 24, No. 7, 2023)
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Dingley Dell: a conundrum, within a puzzle, hiding behind a contradiction Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Phil Martin, Graham Curry
This article traces the life of a football club at the forefront of the game’s initial development in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Dingley Dell’s football arm was founded in 1858 but disappeared...
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Fan identity and football culture: locating variation in the discursive performance of football fan identities in a UK stadium Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Kieran File, Thomas Worlledge
In this article, we critically assess a common discourse of the football fan as hooligan, with the help of insights generated from a linguistic ethnography of football fan behaviour in one of their...
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Football for development, an arena for imperial hierarchies? Racism, the ‘white colonial frame’, and junior football in Belgium Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-11 Nathan D’Hoore, Jeroen Scheerder
This article seeks to critically examine the paradoxical coexistence of social benefits and the perpetuation of racism in Belgian club-organised junior football. In doing so, this article begins by...
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Inserting Kurdishness within Swedish football Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-10 Tiago Duarte Dias
This article focuses on how Dalkurd, a club founded in 2004 by Kurdish-Swedes in Borlänge, Sweden, inserts itself within a century-old tradition of Swedish football, predicated on local belongings....
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Communication and power in the President of Real Madrid: in the wake of the Renaissance and Baroque masters of reputation Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-07 César García, Rafael Barberá
Florentino Pérez is the most successful president of soccer organizations in the world. His leadership in Real Madrid is uncontested. This paper explores his use of communication and power. It delv...
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Politics and fan communication in football stadia in Germany – a multimodal linguistic analysis of protest banners Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Marcus Callies
Various forms of multimodal fan communication, e.g. choreographies, chants, and banners, have been understudied in linguistic research on the language and linguistics of football to date. In partic...
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Celebrating goals and surrounding the referee – adapting interaction on the pitch in times of social distancing in the English Premier League Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-08-31 Catherine Diederich, Aline Bieri
There is a growing research interest in the effects of social distancing measures introduced to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on social interaction, interpersonal relationships, and personal wellb...
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‘Football as opportunity!’ the potential of inter- and transdisciplinary research to explore and transform gender inequalities: a special focus on qualitative linguistic discourse analysis Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-08-28 Eva-Maria Graf, Melanie Fleischhacker
Football is of global socio-cultural and economic significance. Though it has changed considerably regarding the participation and representation of women, it is (still) built on condensed traits o...
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‘We’re sweeping the floors’: life as an EFL Championship youth academy Player Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Nicola Hague, Graeme Law
This study sought to explore life “off the pitch” at one English Championship Youth Academy. Using concepts from Elias’ figurational sociology to explore data from 12 semi-structured interviews, tr...
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Impossible is nothing even in times of COVID-19. Effective strategy lessons from the Real Madrid F.C Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Verónica Baena
The Real Madrid F.C. was one of the few major European football teams that avoided financial losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the team improved its performance on social media and ...
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English and Dutch terms in Belgian Dutch soccer reporting: a mixed-methods approach Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Quinten Hiel, Eline Zenner
English is no doubt the language of soccer. At the same time, many countries have over the past century introduced heritage alternatives for English soccer terminology. This paper aims to better un...
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Soccer and society in Dublin: a history of association football in Ireland’s capital Soccer & Society Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Conor Heffernan
Published in Soccer & Society (Vol. 25, No. 1, 2024)