Chris Platts

‘Money, money, money?’ The development of financial inequalities in English professional football

There has been, over the past two or three decades, a growing concern over the emergence of what has been described as a financial ‘crisis’ in English professional football. In the context of the growing commercialization of the game, this ‘crisis’ has typically been explained in terms of a series of economic developments that have occurred since the 1980s, and especially since the formation of the Premier League. In this article we argue that, contrary to popular belief, these processes have longer term historical roots that can be traced back to the early nineteenth century, and to the immediate post‐1945 period in particular. We also argue that while economic processes have made a central, though largely unplanned, contribution to the widening financial differentials in English football between the late nineteenth century and the 1970s, these processes cannot be explained adequately if considered in isolation from other, yet equally significant, social processes resulting from the changing power differentials that characterized the dynamic, increasingly complex, English football figuration.

The education, rights and welfare of young people in professional football in England: some implications of the White Paper on Sport

The central objectives of this paper are: i) to explore some of the implications of three issues that are to be found within the White Paper on Sport, namely, the protection of minors, free movement of players and the education and welfare of young athletes; and ii) to reflect upon the ways in which, and extent to which, the recommendations the European Commission makes in these areas may come to impact on the future welfare and employment and human rights of young people working in professional football Academies and Centres of Excellence (CoE) in England. In this regard, it is argued that, insofar as the Commission retains a commitment to ensuring the free movement of players and abolishing discrimination on the basis of nationality, this may do more to limit, than encourage, the willingness of professional football clubs to develop more young talented English players in their Academies and CoE. It is also suggested that while the White Paper places particular importance on implementing a range of strategies to tackle the abuse of young athletes and to protect the welfare of young people by, amongst other things, enhancing their education and training, in the context of professional football the efficacy of those strategies in bringing about desired change in young peoples lives may be significantly constrained by the prevailing subcultures and values that surround the sport.

The Independent European Sport Review: some policy issues and likely outcomes

Published in May 2006, the Independent European Sport Review was the result of an initiative launched by the then British Sports Minister, Richard Caborn, during the UK presidency of the European Union in 2005. The Review provides a range of recommendations for improving the governance and organization of professional sport, particularly football, in Europe. Although many of the proposed reforms have yet to be introduced, the central object of this essay is to offer some preliminary sociological comments on the policy issues associated with the assumptions informing the Review, as well as the likely outcomes that may come to limit the effectiveness of the proposed reforms if they are implemented in the future. In doing so, it is claimed that many of the claims underlying the Review tend to be driven largely by ideological concerns; many of its numerous objectives are unclear and non-specific; and the failure to identify how the proposed reforms may be monitored and evaluated means that the efficacy of future policy designed to tackle the proposed reforms will be difficult to determine. The essay concludes by examining how the failure to appreciate adequately the centrality of differential power relations and relational impediments to effective policy-making means that the Review may prove to be particularly limited in achieving the desired objectives.

‘We don’t need no education’? Exploring the educational experiences of young footballers

Abstract Drawing upon data generated by 303 young male footballers employed in 21 professional clubs in England and Wales, this article explores some key aspects of players’ masculinities, identities and engagement with education. Although many players described their educational experiences in largely negative terms, some aspired towards averageness, or middling, which is often central to working-class identifications with education. Other players found education ‘easy’, engaged in effortless achievement and had begun to internalize elements of the neoliberal achievement ideology. The propensity for players to engage in copying and pasting from the work of others, and to regard their courses as being almost impossible to fail, was consistent with neoliberal ideologies of credentialism and performativity. The findings suggest that a more nuanced understanding of young footballers’ education is warranted, and their aspirations and experiences can at least be partly understood as responses to the prevailing neoliberal learning environments which they inhabit.

Outsiders on the Inside: Focus Group Research with Elite Youth Footballers

Conducting research with participants in closed social worlds is notoriously difficult and many researchers refrain from even attempting to invest their time in such work. This is particularly the case in contexts such as professional football (soccer), which has for many years been characterized by a traditionally close-knit, male-dominated subculture characterized by rather unequal power relations between managers and coaches and players, and in which there is a deeply institutionalized suspicion of ‘outsiders’. Notwithstanding these difficulties, in this chapter we discuss our successful experience of undertaking focus groups on education and welfare with 303 young footballers (16–18 years old) who attended 21 professional football Academies and Centres of Excellence in England and Wales in 2009. We focus on the practical lessons we learnt, and the methodological difficulties we encountered, as a result of the diverse scenarios with which we had to deal once we had been granted permission to undertake research in clubs. Consideration will be given to the ways in which we negotiated access with key stakeholders, the ways in which we sought to reassure players of the anonymity of their responses, and the serious methodological challenges we experienced when conducting focus groups in diverse settings in clubs that were accessible by other club staff.