Football in Neo-liberal Times ─ A Marxist Perspective on the European Football Industry

This book offers an original Marxist critique of the football business. It argues that the Marxist account of the difference between profits and surplus value is crucial to an understanding of the fluid and contradictory nature of the commodification of football. Section one analyses the nature of modern professional football and section two highlights attempts, via government agency and football clubs, to corral fans into ever greater identification with business logic aimed at breaking traditional social relations. Section three draws on a number of cases studies across Europe, to analyse how some fans are attempting to mount a counter ideological response to the assault of neo-liberalism on the game.

Dr Peter Kennedy lectures in the Sociology of sport and health at Glasgow Caledonian University. His most recent published work is in applying sociological theories to understanding health and medicine and football supporter responses to commercialisation.

Dr David Kennedy is Visiting Lecturer and Researcher at Glasgow Caledonian University. His most recent published work is in the area of football supporters and governance of professional football clubs.