Sean Hamil – författare

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.

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.

The commercialization of sport since the 1990s has had a number of consequences. The market forces that have defined commercialization, notably pay-per-view television, whilst initially welcomed as important new sources of revenue, have also had the unanticipated consequences of de-stabilizing many sporting competitions and institutions, undermining the financial future of clubs in their traditional role as key social and cultural institutions. This has been manifested in the paradox of chronic financial loss-making amongst professional sports’ clubs in an era of exponential revenue growth, a trend exemplified by the experience of Italy’s Series A and the English Premier League – both cases examined in detail in this book.

But, at the same time, some traditional sporting organizations have sought with some success, to chart a middle way, retaining traditional sporting movement objectives whilst also embracing a form of commercialism. The Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland, the supporter-owned FC Barcelona football club, and New Zealand rugby union, offer illustrative examples of such strategies examined in detail. This book explores the background to this clash of commercial and traditional sporting objectives, and debates the consequences for wider sports governance.

This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.