Lower League Football in Crisis: Issues of Organisation and Legitimacy in England and Germany 9783030537463

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy
‘At the Heart of Their Communities’
Research Objective and Relevance
State of Research
Scope and Method
Key Theoretical Concepts
Legitimisation and Isomorphism
Glocalisation: Local Responses to Global Effects
Structure
References
Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations
Structures: ‘The Great Divide’, or: Institutional Prefigurations and Their Long-Term Impact
Implications of the League Systems
Club Vs Verein—Concepts and Implications of Structural Differences in Germany and England
Implications of Structural Alignments
Football Clubs and Civil Society
Theoretical Framework and Concepts: Football Clubs as Social, Cultural and Political Actors
Communities, Collective Identities and Locality
Politicisation and Third-Party Interests
Communitisation and Societisation—The Sociocultural ‘Dual Function’ of Football Clubs
Societisation and Communitisation in Practice
References
A Threefold Dilemma of Legitimacy
Economic Crisis: Number Games
Wages, Revenues and Foreign Capital Investments
Foreign Investments
TV Money
Up and Away: The Widening of the Gap
Sword of Damocles: Administration and Liquidation
References
Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide
Historical Continuities in Clubs’ Community Relations
Disrupted Communities and New Football Politics
‘A Place for Thee’: The Community Value of Football Grounds
Topophilia and Genius Loci
Ground Moves, Relocations and the Question of Stadium Ownership
References
Social Crisis: Building Bridges
Politics Moving In
Public Opposition to Football Clubs
Community Schemes: Delivering Social Responsibility
Structural Setup and Agenda of Community Programmes
Interim Conclusion: Issues of Legitimisation and the Dual Function of Football Clubs
References
Ways Out of the Crises
Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany
Case Selection and Methodology
Club Profiles
Established and Traditional Football Clubs
Chesterfield Football Club
Mansfield Town Football Club
Rot-Weiss Essen
1. Fußballclub Lokomotive Leipzig
Political and Protest Football Clubs
Affordable Football Club Liverpool
Football Club United of Manchester
Hamburger Fußballclub Falke
Roter Stern Leipzig
Membership and Attendance
Media Mobilisation
References
Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures
Structural Professionalisation
Football Academies and Young Talent
Effects of ‘Big Players’ and Other Regional Impacts
References
Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities
Club Image, Identity and Agenda Setting
Stadiums and Assets
Admission Prices and Membership Fees
New and Old Identities
References
Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions
Structures of CPs at Football Clubs
Areas of CPs and Agenda-Setting at Clubs
Education, Social Work and Lifelong Learning
Community Activities at Clubs Without CP Structures
On the Inclusion of Women’s Teams
References
One Size Does Not Fit All: Comparison and Results
Differences in Adaptive Capabilities as a Result of Differences in Structure
Stadiums and Club’s Assets
Political and Protest Football Clubs: A Dream Come True for Football ‘Traditionalists’?
Hybrid Organisations and Sectoral Shifts
References
Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organisations and Supermodern Football
Supermodern Football
References
Postscript: The End of Football, or: Football in the Time of Corona
References
Index

Citation preview

FOOTBALL RESEARCH IN AN ENLARGED EUROPE MIGRATION, SERIES EDITORS: DIASPORAS AND· DAVID CITIZENSHIP ALBRECHT SONNTAG RANC

Lower League Football in Crisis Issues of Organisation and Legitimacy in England and Germany Daniel Ziesche

Football Research in an Enlarged Europe

Series Editors Albrecht Sonntag ESSCA School of Management EU-Asia Institute Angers, France Dàvid Ranc ESSCA School of Management EU-Asia Institute Angers, France

This series publishes monographs and edited collections in collaboration with a major EU-funded FP7 research project ‘FREE’: Football Research in an Enlarged Europe. The series aims to establish Football Studies as a worthwhile, intellectual and pedagogical activity of academic significance and will act as a home for the burgeoning area of contemporary Football scholarship. The themes covered by the series in relation to football include, European identity, memory, women, governance, history, the media, sports mega-events, business and management, culture, spectatorship and space and place. The series is highly interdisciplinary and transnational and the first of its kind to map state-of-the-art academic research on one of the world’s largest, most supported and most debated socio-cultural phenomenona. Editorial Board Richard Giulianotti (Loughborough University, UK) Kay Schiller (Durham University, UK) Geoff Pearson (Liverpool University, UK) Jürgen Mittag (German Sport University Cologne, Germany) Stacey Pope (Durham University, UK) Peter Millward (Liverpool John Moores University, UK) Geoff Hare (Newcastle University, UK) Arne Niemann (Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany) David Goldblatt (Sports writer and broadcaster, UK) Patrick Mignon (National Institute for Sports and Physical Education, France)

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14987

Daniel Ziesche

Lower League Football in Crisis Issues of Organisation and Legitimacy in England and Germany

Daniel Ziesche Chemnitz University of Technology Chemnitz, Sachsen, Germany

Football Research in an Enlarged Europe ISBN 978-3-030-53746-3 ISBN 978-3-030-53747-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Daniel Ziesche This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For my grandparents

Preface

This book is a substantially revised, shortened and amended version of my doctoral thesis, submitted in April 2017 to the German Sport University Cologne and defended on 14 July 2017. In the final days of finishing this manuscript (in March 2020), the Corona virus (Covid-19) hit Western Europe hard. Amidst everything that has been going on in these weeks, disturbingly enough, football still managed to make top headlines in all news formats. Empty stadiums, infections of players, the interruption of league play all over Europe and, finally, the postponement of the international European Championships to 2021. While, in the words of German coaching icon Hans Meyer, this is proof of the ‘undue significance’ of football as it is a vivid example of how football has managed to nest itself into the social fabric and be blown out of proportion as if it were system-relevant, these weeks have also shown how vulnerable the whole system is. The suspension of league play was merely a few days old when the first lower league clubs in both England and Germany made their severe financial issues public. They simply do not have any financial reserves to bridge gaps that halt their daily operations, let alone an outage on this scale. Clubs in England and Germany live from hand to mouth; the money streams need to keep flowing if the engine is not to sputter out in a matter of days. This is scary and the most vivid example of the disturbing melange of processes I have tried to illustrate in this volume. I am also aware that this crisis might make redundant some of the insights and conclusions I

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PREFACE

have drawn here—it is too early to tell. What is abundantly clear is that in many academic disciplines, football studies included, there will henceforth be a time before and a time after this global challenge. During the delayed production process of this book, the decision was made to add a postscript to the manuscript to reflect on the developments in these past momentous weeks. Perhaps this crisis will—finally—change the way in which this system operates sustainably, perhaps supporter-ownership will rise again in England. Perhaps people will make a stand and again be allowed to stand in England’s stadiums. Perhaps football will finally give back, will discover a different understanding of its societal purpose. Perhaps those effects will be visible in other areas of society, more important ones at that. Yet, there is much reason to be doubtful. But, as a football fan I know too well that in the last minutes of the game, whole outcomes have changed time and time again. Leipzig, Germany June 2020

Daniel Ziesche

Acknowledgments

In the course of the work on this book, I went through all the emotional phases and moods imaginable. It is a long way for an idea to eventually become a published book. Looking back now, there are a number of people I must thank for their encouragement, fruitful talks and the occasional distraction. I cannot name all of you here, but be assured that you mattered. Of the people I definitely have to name I would like first to thank all of my parents, for always supporting me along the path I have chosen. Very special thanks go to my dissertation supervisors, Jürgen Mittag in Cologne for his support and valuable feedback during various stages of the manuscript and Klaus Stolz in Chemnitz for his continuing counsel and enriching perspective on my work and his ability to put things in perspective. Also, many thanks to Borja García for his supervision during the time of my research stay at Loughborough University. Furthermore, I want to thank the FREE series editors David Ranc and especially Albrecht Sonntag for his encouraging feedback and all the motivating conversations. At Palgrave I owe much thanks to Sharla Plant and Poppy Hull, the latter of whom has been especially patient with me. Special thanks go to Andreas Hemming for his valuable and thorough proofreading.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues who have enriched daily work routines, were good company at conferences and will always be inextricably linked to this project, most notably Till and Ninja, Jörg-Uwe and Holger in Cologne and Tracy and Danny in Chemnitz. At the center of everything, Alva, thank you for joining us, keeping me company during long nights, for always putting a smile on my face and for reminding me of what actually matters. And for your impeccable taste in music! Finally, Silke, my accomplice, this was tough and you supported me in the best way possible. I could not have done it without you. Thank you for everything; your bright mind, your endurance and courage, your understanding, your humour, your love. It kept me in one piece.

Contents

Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy ‘At the Heart of Their Communities’ Research Objective and Relevance State of Research Scope and Method Key Theoretical Concepts Legitimisation and Isomorphism Glocalisation: Local Responses to Global Effects Structure References Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations Structures: ‘The Great Divide’, or: Institutional Prefigurations and Their Long-Term Impact Implications of the League Systems Club Vs Verein—Concepts and Implications of Structural Differences in Germany and England Implications of Structural Alignments Football Clubs and Civil Society Theoretical Framework and Concepts: Football Clubs as Social, Cultural and Political Actors Communities, Collective Identities and Locality

1 1 4 5 9 10 11 13 16 20

25 26 27 34 42 46 47 51 xi

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CONTENTS

Politicisation and Third-Party Interests Communitisation and Societisation—The Sociocultural ‘Dual Function’ of Football Clubs Societisation and Communitisation in Practice References

57 61 63 67

A Threefold Dilemma of Legitimacy Economic Crisis: Number Games Wages, Revenues and Foreign Capital Investments Foreign Investments TV Money Up and Away: The Widening of the Gap Sword of Damocles: Administration and Liquidation References

81 82 85 88 95 98 111

Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide Historical Continuities in Clubs’ Community Relations Disrupted Communities and New Football Politics ‘A Place for Thee’: The Community Value of Football Grounds Topophilia and Genius Loci Ground Moves, Relocations and the Question of Stadium Ownership References

117 118 123 131 132

Social Crisis: Building Bridges Politics Moving In Public Opposition to Football Clubs Community Schemes: Delivering Social Responsibility Structural Setup and Agenda of Community Programmes Interim Conclusion: Issues of Legitimisation and the Dual Function of Football Clubs References

153 154 156 160 164

137 147

170 172

CONTENTS

xiii

Ways Out of the Crises Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany Case Selection and Methodology Club Profiles Established and Traditional Football Clubs Political and Protest Football Clubs Membership and Attendance Media Mobilisation References

179 179 182 182 187 190 192 196

Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures Structural Professionalisation Football Academies and Young Talent Effects of ‘Big Players’ and Other Regional Impacts References

199 201 207 213 216

Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities Club Image, Identity and Agenda Setting Stadiums and Assets Admission Prices and Membership Fees New and Old Identities References

219 220 226 235 238 245

Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions Structures of CPs at Football Clubs Areas of CPs and Agenda-Setting at Clubs Education, Social Work and Lifelong Learning Community Activities at Clubs Without CP Structures On the Inclusion of Women’s Teams References

249 250 253 253 256 257 259

One Size Does Not Fit All: Comparison and Results Differences in Adaptive Capabilities as a Result of Differences in Structure

261 261

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CONTENTS

Stadiums and Club’s Assets Political and Protest Football Clubs: A Dream Come True for Football ‘Traditionalists’? Hybrid Organisations and Sectoral Shifts References

267 268 273 275

Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organisations and Supermodern Football Supermodern Football References

277 281 287

Postscript: The End of Football, or: Football in the Time of Corona

289

References

296

Index

299

Abbreviations

AFA AFCL AGM AMF APPFG BBC BL BSG CBS CCBSA CCTV CEO CES CFCDS CFFC CIC CL CLG CLS CMSC COFC CP CSR DFB DFL DIY

Amateur Football Alliance Affordable Football Club Liverpool Annual General Meeting Against Modern Football (movement) All-Party Parliamentary Football Group British Broadcasting Company Bundesliga Betriebssportgruppe (factory-based sport club in the GDR) Community Benefit Society Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act Closed Circuit Television Chief Executive Officer Community Engagement Strategy Chesterfield FC Development School Chesterfield FC Community Interest Company Champions League Company Limited by Guarantee Company Limited by Shares Culture, Media and Sports Committee Community (aka Supporter) Owned Football Club Community Programmes Corporate Social Responsibility Deutscher Fußball Bund (German Football Association) Deutsche Fußball Liga (German League Association) Do It Yourself xv

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ABBREVIATIONS

DOSB EFL ETFC EU FA FC FCUM FIFA FITC FLT FMB FPO FPPT FTF GDR GMS HEPA HFC HoC IPS ITV LFC LOK MBSC MTFC NGB NIMBY NLT NLZ NPO PASC PE PFA PL PPFC PPG PPP RL RSL RWE SBSC SD

Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (German Olympic Sports Federation) English Football League Established and Traditional Football Club European Union Football Association (England) Football Club/Fußballclub FC United of Manchester Federation Internationale de Football Association Football in the Community Football League Trust Funding Members Branch For Profit Organisation Fit and Proper Person Test Football Task Force German Democratic Republic Gemeinsam Mehr Schaffen (Initiative) Health Enhancing Physical Activity Hamburger Fußball-Club Falke e.V. House of Commons Industrial and Provident Society Independent Television Ladies Football Club 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig e.V. Multi-Branch Sports Club (Mehrspartenverein) Mansfield Town FC National Governing Body Not In My Backyard National League Trust Nachwuchsleistungszentrum (Youth Academy) Non-Profit Organisation Public Administration Select Committee Physical Education Professional Footballers Association (English) Premier League Political and Protest Football Club Points-Per-Game Public-Private Partnership Regionalliga Roter Stern Leipzig e.V. Rot-Weiss Essen e.V. Single-Branch Sport Club (Einspartenverein) Supporters Direct

ABBREVIATIONS

SGSA SID SNCCFR ST UEFA UK UNESCO

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Sports Grounds Safety Authority (formerly Football Licensing Authority) Sportinformationsdienst (Sport information service) Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research Supporters Trust Union des Associations Européennes de Football United Kingdom United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

List of Figures

Economic Crisis: Number Games Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7

Development of the value of domestic broadcasting rights per Premier League live match, 1992–2022 Development of the value of domestic broadcasting rights per season in £ million for first and second BL, 1996–2021 Domestic broadcasting revenue in £m per season for PL and BL rights, 1992–2019 Aggregate revenues of clubs in English and German tiers (2016/2017) Cases of English football clubs in administration, 1984–2019 Cases of German football clubs in administration, 1992–2019 Cases of administration, Germany and England, 1984–2019

89 92 92 95 100 102 104

Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

Number of supporter-owned football clubs (SOFCs) in England 1993–2018 Number of German football clubs with separated structures, 1999–2019 Distribution of separations between top leagues and lower leagues Average attendance development, PL & BL, 1990–2019

126 129 130 139

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List of Tables

Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations Table 1 Table 2

League structures in England and Germany (2019) Typology of structural types of football clubs in England and Germany

30 43

Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide Table 1

Percentage of public stadium ownership in respective league levels (2017)

141

Social Crisis: Building Bridges Table 1

Community programme activities

167

Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

Case study overview Membership development 2013–2019 Attendance during home league games 2013–2019

181 190 192

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Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy

‘At the Heart of Their Communities’ ‘Community’ is a late-modern buzzword. It pops up with remarkable regularity in party political agenda settings and manifestos, in urban developmental concepts, workplace improvement strategies, architectural design and a vast number of advertisements. One reason for this deluge is that community has normatively always been thought of as something inherently good. This normative approach to community is, in fact, even manifest linguistically—as Zygmunt Bauman aptly explained, one can only be in bad company but not in bad community (2001: 1).1 Viewed as inherently good, community is marked by noble qualities and something precious. The popularity of the community concept in recent years, it can be argued, stems from its promise of an alternative to the perceived loss, detachment and experience of placelessness and not-belonging which is widespread among late-modern individuals. It could also be argued that the over-emphasis of community is symptomatic of the poor state it is in: community as an idea, as a concept, maybe even as a utopia, is en vogue because it is, de facto, in crisis. Community is also popular when it comes to football. Football is all about community: the community of the players as a team, the fans on the terraces, of football followers worldwide, but, first and foremost, the community that is the club itself. When players or managers explain in a press conference why they signed a contract at a new club, they cite © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_1

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the great opportunities and the sporting perspective. But they invariably talk about the specific quality of the club’s ‘community’. Football clubs often refer to themselves as ‘family’,2 which has always stood for community. Community involvement pops up in every football club’s long-term strategy. This applies to the big clubs in the top leagues as much as it does to any lower league small-town club. Football has a reputation for bridging ethnic, religious, cultural and language differences—sport, in general, is often referred to as the ‘glue’ that can repair societal cleavages and ruptures. Sport functionaries and politicians never grow tired of repeating these extraordinary claims on the social functions of sport and, especially, of football. However, reliable data to support their claim is lacking. The equation that community is good for society and that football clubs are, in turn, extraordinarily good at community-creating and therefore beneficial to society as such has become a well-established myth. As Tony Blackshaw argues, ‘[…] community has become virtually co-extensive with the study of football. You might say that of all the key concepts used to develop some reliable insights into contemporary developments of the game it is the only one that now seems necessary’ (2008: 325). The problem with the concept of community is that it is hard to measure and remains rather opaque, community signifying holistic qualities which are more felt or experienced than structurally graspable. Community has a quality that is evoked by the accumulation of different aspects. But as much as the term ‘community’ is liquid, to employ Bauman’s (2001) term, it is just as much conceptually solidified: community is either there or it is not. While society can be formed and created, community has to evolve. The normatively laden conception of communitarianism has stressed the importance of the difference between community and society and, moreover, the importance of the former for the individual in late-modern society as a source of morale, values, and social integration (Etzioni 2001, 1996 and 1993; MacIntyre 2007 [1981]; Klein and Meuser 2008). Football clubs exist neither in an autonomous and isolated sphere nor in a vacuum but are under the constant influence of all kinds of societal processes. These processes resonate within the clubs. Similarly, clubs, as societal institutions, co-create their immediate surroundings. Football clubs can offer anchor points for the construction of identity, they form a hub for communities, and they ‘can themselves be regarded as symbols around which the rituals of community and belonging are played out’ (Brown et al. 2006: 55). While this function might be especially valid

INTRODUCTION: FOOTBALL CLUBS, COMMUNITY AND LEGITIMACY

3

for fans and ‘football folk’ in general, the ubiquity of football in society indeed extends to all public spheres of late-modern society and, consequently, affects everyone—whether they like it or not. Football and its symbols prove to be efficacious in shaping the day-to-day systems of meaning in society. This does not imply that this process automatically builds strong fan-affiliations and -identifications, but that the symbols of football still appear in daily life—even if only peripherally. One possible explanation for the special status of football in its organised form is that its clubs create a sense of belonging and, often being quite traditional institutions, offer something perceived to have been lost in the course of modernity and the development of late-modern society: community. This functionalist perspective, as Tim Crabbe argues, has become a paradigm in sport: In recent times the notion of the ‘power of sport’ to do social good has increasingly come to prominence on both social policy agendas and sports management and marketing strategies as […] without necessarily seeking to do so, social considerations of sport have tended to be framed by such functionalist perspectives which emphasise what sport does to people and for ‘society’. (Crabbe 2008: 22)

Besides community, football also offers something else for the latemodern individual: structure. While in the ‘fluid, perpetually changing social environment, […] the rules of the game change in the middle of the game without warning or legible pattern’ (Bauman 2001: 48), the rules of a football game do not. Even in a temporal dimension, football structures the week for those who follow it. The quasi-religious character of football has been pointed out repeatedly (Gebauer 2006): stadiums are comparable to cathedrals or churches; the rituals of the match show significant similarities to a holy liturgy; the chants on the terraces are the spiritual songs of the football folk. Football also offers a deeply anachronistic promise, namely the very real prospect that the underdog wins, something that has been rare—if it ever really existed—in the competitive rationalism of modern times. A football match creates a place for what I would call ‘social escapism’, as it provides a setting apart from socially imposed self-control. Elias and Dunning argued that in such leisure events of the ‘mimetic class […,] society provides for the need to experience the upsurge of strong emotions in public’ (1986: 71), albeit in an orderly fashion.

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All these elements have become increasingly fluid over the past three decades or so. The Saturday afternoon match day has been stretched from Friday to Monday, and matches themselves have reached the scale of spectacle—with all the trappings that such events entail. The commodification and commercialisation of the sport and the consumerisation of its fans have been described in a number of studies (King 1998; Giulianotti 1999; Morrow 2003). I argued some years ago that these current transformations have brought forth a politicised fan scene which tries to ‘reclaim the game’ from below (Ziesche 2011). Signs of these processes are supporter-owned football clubs (SOFCs3 ) such as the well-researched FC United of Manchester (FCUM), or so-called phoenix clubs, like Lokomotive Leipzig (LOK), which were re-founded by fans after the club went bankrupt since ‘clubs cannot die’ (Kuper and Szymanski 2009: 97–98). Furthermore, Supporters Trusts (STs), independent supporter movements and associations, and in continental Europe the Ultras movement, are all symptoms of a highly diverse and politicised fan culture (Cleland et al. 2018; Numerato 2015; Kennedy and Kennedy 2014). Community, even when in crisis, is at the core and the leitmotif of these developments. Its great potential permeates through all societal layers. Community—at a time when it is allegedly less and less felt—is moving more and more into focus.

Research Objective and Relevance This study focuses on lower league football clubs and examines what I frame as the ‘broader social role’ of football clubs, that is, the interactions of a club with its local surroundings. Thus, I focus on football clubs and their roles as social, cultural, and political actors and analyse which strategies clubs employ in order to co-create their environment and to position themselves within their respective communities. The hypothesis is that clubs have to take a certain path towards a specific club-identity as they need to position themselves between either market or community orientation. In approaching these aspects, lower league football clubs in England and Germany, that is, clubs at and below level three of the respective country’s league pyramid will be investigated.4 This follows the presupposition that upper league clubs are already predominantly driven by market interests. As a result of this market orientation, the economic and competitive constraints are already too tight to effectively pursue an

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‘oppositional agenda’ inherent in community orientation. In the lower leagues, however, these two forces can be seen as more balanced. Limited resources limit the clubs in their options and decision-making. These limitations, so I will argue, lead to a constant renegotiation and readjustment of a club’s agenda and strategy to focus primarily on the question where scarce resources should be invested. Despite different structural alignments in England and Germany, increasing sociocultural and political efforts can be observed in the agendas of football clubs in both countries since the late 1990s. Community clearly appears to be at the core of these strategies; community is what these clubs intend to create via these efforts. Developments of the past thirty years have had a heavy toll on club-community relations. As Taylor pointed out, ‘the days when a football club could convincingly claim to be at the heart of ‘its’ community are over; the issue is far more complex and muddled nowadays. The challenge for clubs and their owners is to find ways to overcome distrust, rather than simply to assume that loyalty comes naturally’ (2004: 58). Whereas so-called Football in the Community (FITC)-schemes were launched for England’s Premier League Clubs in the 1990s to provide a framework for clubs to ‘give something back’ to the communities in which they were located, Germany’s clubs engage voluntarily in such projects. In the meantime, these project structures have trickled down the English league pyramid. Generally, clubs in the lower leagues tend to mimic the behaviour of top clubs, including processes of professionalisation and structural adaptation. As lower league clubs have a crucial disadvantage in regard to resource allocation when compared to their top league rivals, the question is, quite literally, how these clubs manage to stand their ground.

State of Research Several decades have passed since the field of football studies first emerged in Anglo-American scholarship. Today there is a vast amount of academic literature available on football as a social and cultural phenomenon, not to mention publications with an economic perspective. In Germany, this academic discipline took a little longer to evolve but, over the last decade, studying football has become an increasingly established field of research bearing rich fruits.

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Since their first emergence in the early 2000s, the study of SOFCs, mainly FCUM, have inevitably dealt with lower league football. While a few larger, comparably recent studies encompassing lower league football are usually seated in the rich field of fan studies and supporter movements (Cleland et al. 2018; García and Zheng 2017; Brandt et al. 2017), studies of the Against Modern Football (AMF) movement or issues of democratic participation in football are rarer, among them Porter’s (2019) study on the structural features of supporter ownership in England. In 2015, the volume Sport Clubs in Europe by Breuer et al. promised a ‘cross-national comparative perspective’ on the situation and characteristics of sport clubs in twenty European countries. While it certainly added to the understanding of the structures of sport clubs in different national contexts, it did little in terms of comparison, limiting itself to presenting consecutive case studies without developing a framework for cross-national comparison. Breuer et al. (2015) provided the chapter on Germany; Nichols and Taylor (2015) on England. It is thanks to the work of Richard Giulianotti and Roland Robertson that the interconnection between globalisation and football has gained increasing scholarly attention in recent years (Giulianotti and Robertson 2007, 2009). Several collections of essays that attempted to broaden the scope of football studies and provide more case studies have been published since the turn of the millennium (e.g. Tiesler and Coelho 2008). Studies on globalisation and football have two predominant aspects: Firstly, the economic aspects of the process and the worldwide flow of capital (Morrow 2003; Szymanski 2010a, 2010b) and secondly, how the game has been shaped by the globalisation of transfer markets, international football governance, and the growing meaning of national teams (Back et al. 2001). The issue of social exclusion that has emerged with the transformation of English top league football has been dealt with by John Williams and his colleagues from what is today known as the ‘Leicester School’ and the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research (SNCCFR) (Williams 1999; Wagg 2004). Changes and transitions within the leagues below the top tier of the Premier League, processes of change within the structure of football clubs, transformations within the fan culture including the possible shift of fan identities as a reaction to a cultural globalisation of English football culture, however, have only been considered sporadically. One of the very few earlier case studies on fan culture in lower league football has been presented by

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Mainwaring and Clarke (2012). Cleland et al. (2018) also include nonleague football and mid-league clubs in their study on collective action and football. English language studies of football in Germany are still few, even though there was a stark increase prior and around the World Cup in 2006 (Gethard 2006; Tomlinson and Young 2006) and in past years with the increasing importance of football crowd management in stadiums and the discussion about safe standing areas in English stadiums. While German football is dealt with in broader accounts on football and its history (Goldblatt 2007), Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger presented the first comprehensive English language history of German football in 2003; McDougall’s study (2014) is the only comprehensive English language account of East German football and adds a whole new dimension to the ‘people’s game’ paradigm. As opposed to English language studies, research in Germany has not produced much output with a focus on hooliganism; even though it has not disappeared the phenomenon lost its topicality too quickly for German academia to follow. Nevertheless, the study of extreme phenomena in football culture is still quite popular in German football studies and so the focus soon shifted from hooligans to a close and meanwhile quite in-depth investigation of Ultras culture (e.g. Ruf 2013; Gabler 2011; Pilz and Wölki-Schumacher 2010). Today, Ultras make up one of the most intensively studied and, in general, most popular parts of fan culture in Germany—and in continental Europe.5 Research teams including cultural anthropologists, sociologists among others have contributed to the topic, while the number of papers is increasing constantly. Around the turn of the millennium, when the devastating effects of the transformation of English top football on football communities was becoming increasingly apparent, topics such as social exclusion in the new football world were on the rise in academia. Numerous works in the ‘whose-game-is-it-anyway?’ paradigm were published and have contributed to a broader understanding of economic forms of exclusion (Redhead 1997; King 1998; Wagg 2004; Williams 2006). The ‘classical’ forms of exclusion remained popular in studies that dealt with sexism, homophobia, gender inequalities and racism in football clubs as well as in fan and supporter culture. From an organisation’s sociological perspective, club ownership and structural alignments came into focus towards the late 2000s, especially with regard to matters of sport organisation governance (Ward 2013).

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The global-local interplay and its cultural dimension have also frequently been addressed (Armstrong and Mitchell 2008). In Germany, too, several studies have focused on the global and local interrelations at play in football culture (Jütting 2004; Klein 2008; Naglo 2014). Studies which look at lower league clubs, however, are rare. Research on lower league football clubs employing a transnational approach is nearly nonexistent while a modest increase in the number of studies comparing different organisational structures can be identified. Sara Ward (2013) undertook research on governance structures within supporter-owned football clubs and included a German top club (Hamburger SV) to contrast it with English cases. Naglo’s (2014) chapter on professional and non-professional football and football culture in Germany and England is one of the very few comparative contributions that specifically examine lower level football. The edited volume by Waine and Naglo (2014), in which the chapter appeared, provides a comparative perspective between these two football nations, even though not all the authors in the bilingual volume follow a binational comparative approach. The community and social value of football clubs has been part of several studies of Supporters Direct and their partner Substance, in which different structures are contrasted and the clubs’ community impact is measured using economic evaluation models with the purpose to promote mutual ownership models (Barlow 2008; Spratt 2008). Qualitative approaches to clubs at different levels were also included, but focused largely on fan-related issues (Brown 2008; Supporters Direct 2010). Brown and his colleagues could well be regarded as the ‘Manchester School’, fuelling research on the supporter ownership model, beginning with studies on FCUM and later expanding to further case studies and reports for Supporters Direct. A desideratum can be identified in the lack of systematic, cross-national comparative approaches that deal with the social and cultural impact of football clubs, even more so where lower league clubs are concerned. Studies on the structural setup as it influences club development are likewise under-represented. That said, this study can draw upon several studies from different disciplines, including political and social sciences, cultural studies, regional studies and sport studies. This interdisciplinary approach consequently opens a wide range of available sources.

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Scope and Method The qualitative study is based on a mix of research methods. The data presented in Part I (chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”) was collected from all top five tiers of football in both countries and mainly serves to underpin the argument and contrast developments at the top with those at lower levels. For the qualitative case study part of the research in Part II (chapters “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany”, “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”, “Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”, and “Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institution”) a model of methodological triangulation to collect data on the case studies was employed. This included: (1) an analysis of the club’s structure in terms of staff, membership numbers, etc.; (2) a content analysis of club statutes—or comparable polity—and publications; and (3) semi-structured guided expert interviews with actors in the clubs studied. Via means of analytic induction (Johnson 1998), the case studies will serve to formulate explanations for the situation found in the qualitative research. The comparative nature of the study requires a mixed approach. Having conducted interviews at each club in April 2014 in Germany and in October 2014 in England the comparison could be synchronic. However, having followed the course of events at the clubs closely over a three and a half year period from mid-2013 to the end of 2016 makes it possible to include developments over time into the research. Events since then up to the beginning of 2020 have been included as well insofar as they are relevant to the argument. Data collection on a larger scale included at least the past twenty-five years, a period that is particularly interesting because of the ‘hard’ commercialisation and commodification processes which have dominated the transformation of football culture in both countries. In total, eight clubs were selected for in-depth case studies in a fourand-four method. These clubs fall into two categories: established clubs and newly formed clubs. Specifics on the clubs and their selection will be explicated in chapter four. In England, the established traditional football clubs included in this study are Mansfield Town FC (MTFC) and Chesterfield FC (CFFC); while in Germany, Lokomotive Leipzig (LOK) and

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Rot-Weiss Essen (RWE) were chosen. The initial case selection was based on pragmatic and research logical considerations: (1) the clubs should not play above level four in the respective league pyramid; (2) they should be based in a region with a high density of football clubs or in a metropolitan or urban region; (3) membership numbers (Germany)/average attendance (England) should range between 1000 and 6000. Obviously, the number of cases that meet these criteria are quite numerous. Considering my intention to employ a phenomenological approach, the explanatory potential of the case was prioritised over strict comparability. The cases finally selected had all encountered financial troubles in the past, which either forced them to close or go into administration and, in one case, liquidation and refoundation. Four further clubs from league levels seven to nine with a comparable history of founding were then selected for purposes of comparison. In the initial outset, only one club (AFC Liverpool [AFCL]) was included in the research design. However, the founding of Hamburger FC Falke (HFC) in 2013 marked the birth of Germany’s first protest club that defined itself as such. It was founded in response to events around the Hamburger SV and thus proved to be of great interest for this study. The development is in some respects comparable to FC United of Manchester (FCUM), which led to the decision to include both clubs in the study. Then, to complete the quartet in this group of clubs as well as allow for even more comparison, Roter Stern Leipzig (RSL) as a young, lower league club in German football that is committed to a decidedly left-wing political agenda is included. These last four clubs are direct reactions to various aspects of the crises of football that will be described in Part I of this study. In Part II they will serve to illustrate alternative approaches that have expanded the scope of present football club culture. These clubs are what I call political and protest football clubs (PPFCs). All clubs will be described in more detail in chapter “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany”.

Key Theoretical Concepts The research question and the outlined points of departure demand a wider, multilevel and multidimensional conceptual approach to do justice to the complexity of specific processes and differentiate between them. Accordingly, the meta-theories and conceptual frames central to

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the considerations that follow will be briefly discussed, specifically the concepts of legitimisation and glocalisation. Legitimisation and Isomorphism Issues of organisational legitimisation play a central role in neoinstitutionalist thought, legitimacy being a significant factor for any organisation in any environment (Hellmann 2006: 75). As legitimisation as such is primarily concerned with power relations, it is a highly political concept. Max Weber, who dealt with the concept mainly in terms of authority, defined three ‘pure’ types of the legitimisation of such authority: legal, traditional and charismatic (Smith 1970: 17). Without elaborating on Weber’s concept at greater length here, suffice it to say that his notion of a double mechanism, that is, that rule can only be legitimate if is legitimised, is of relevance here. As Berger and Luckmann aptly put it ‘legitimation is the process of “explaining” and justifying. […] Legitimation “explains” the institutional order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated meanings. Legitimation justifies the institutional order by giving a normative dignity to its practical imperatives’ (1966: 93). Hellmann (2006) emphasises that Berger and Luckmann’s distinction between normative and cognitive dimensions of legitimacy was central to its role in neo-institutionalist thought (76–77). The neo-institutionalist approach moved issues of legitimisation away from power relations in the sense of enacted authority to situate it instead in a discussion about the stability or resilience of organisations. The approaches relevant here draw largely on Meyer and Rowan (1977) and DiMaggio and Powell (1983), who examined issues of legitimisation and the ability of organisations to meet expectations and, respectively, the tendency to institutional isomorphism. While both processes can, in fact, be linked, each of these approaches will be briefly explained. In short, the argument made by Meyer and Rowan is that institutions do not just survive because they are particularly efficient—which football clubs, by all means, are not, as this study will show—but that their survival is also related to their ability to meet certain expectations made towards the institution as such. These expectations arise in part from within the institution, but primarily derive from other institutions in their environment. As long as the expectations are met, an institution can count on being legitimised (Meyer and Rowan 1977: 352). Organisations that ‘omit environmentally legitimated elements of structure’ on

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the other hand, ‘lack acceptable legitimated accounts of their activities. Such organisations are more vulnerable to claims that they are negligent, irrational or unnecessary’ (ibid.: 349–350). Hellmann (2006) points out that Meyer and Rowan also employ the term ‘legitimated vocabularies’ first coined by Berger and Luckmann to describe the institutional usage of words which are per se legitimate (p. 78). This vocabulary and behaviour do not have to be aligned but can be decoupled (Meyer and Rowan 1977: 357). An example with regard to football clubs: as long as a club’s community-building potential is verbalised by the right institutions—and in this case, by literally any institution considering the legitimisation of the word ‘community’— the club’s actual activity can even be contradictory to that claim without it being noticed. Also, due to the fulfilment of environmental expectations—even if expressed only in the legitimised language which surrounds the club—its institutional legitimacy will not be questioned, even if the club is neither efficient nor effective—or, even because it is not. Therefore, organisations need legitimised structures to gain environmental legitimisation, which will inevitably lead to similar structures for gaining legitimisation in other organisations in the same field. This ‘institutional isomorphism’ is seen as the result of three alignment incentives: coercive, mimetic, or normative incentives (DiMaggio and Powell 1983: 150). The first refers to giving into pressure from outside, for example, from superordinate organisations such as lawmakers; the second incentive is the mimicking of successful attempts by other institutions due to uncertainty; and the third refers to processes of professionalisation that are used to meet competitive demands. While for the present study all three processes play a role, the term ‘institutional mimicry’ will be used to refer to isomorphic effects in general. This term also encompasses DiMaggio and Powell’s statement that ‘organizations tend to model themselves after similar organizations in their field that they perceive to be more legitimate or successful’ (ibid.: 152). The institutionalist approach also requires some explanation as one of the main lines of critique against institutionalist approaches in general is that they are far better at explaining continuity than change, which these approaches mostly accredit to exogenous shocks (Schmidt 2010). I follow Schmidt in her attempt to break this paradigm and shift attention to the ‘inner’ processes of institutions, that is, the norms and values and the debates and discourses which shape them. However, contrary to

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Schmidt, I consider this focus on dynamics an integral part of the sociological institutionalist concept, which has always been perfectly suited for a process-oriented, dynamic analysis and understanding of change within institutions (ibid.: 13). As I perceive football clubs as learning organisations which—depending on their structural setup—are subject to constant change and adaptation, sociological institutionalism serves as a further theoretical anchor point for this study. Glocalisation: Local Responses to Global Effects While numerous works have dealt extensively with the effects of economic globalisation in football, this work will discuss the effects of an ongoing cultural globalisation on lower league football clubs. Football is without doubt a sphere of contact and agglomeration of globalisation processes (Giulianotti 1999), a space where these processes can be found and studied in a compressed form—which is why it is particularly suited for this kind of research. This fact equally leads to processes of dissolution of boundaries and spatial reconfiguration, or what Giddens called ‘disembedding’ (1990: 21). Thus, in the wake of this transformation, reference points for collective identity formation have shifted massively since they no longer have a local or regional character but rather seem to be defined globally. How local and regional identities constitute and maintain, question and reinvent themselves within this process are questions which relate directly to the spatial dimension of football clubs. Globalisation has been used as a universal tool for explaining change processes, often at the expense of the effects that it causes on multiple levels. Yet globalisation is not a process shaped by binary antagonisms—in which the global either subsumes the local or the local is in a permanent struggle against the global, that is, that one is either superior or inferior to the other— nor should it be approached on the basis of normative absolutes in which globalisation is either entirely ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (Gaonkar 2007: 11). Rather, it has to be considered as an interdependent and intertwined process that can be better understood with the concept of ‘glocalisation’. Glocalisation was first introduced by Roland Robertson into the globalisation debate and is meant to ‘make explicit the ‘heterogenising’ aspects of globalisation’ (1994: 1). Robertson argued ‘that glocalisation has some definite conceptual advantages in the general theorisation of globalisation’ (ibid.). The term initially referred to reactions and interactions of the local towards and

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with the process of globalisation, but underwent further development and differentiation over the years, most prominently in the works of Zygmunt Bauman (2001) and George Ritzer (2004a). Glocalisation has been discussed extensively with regard to sport in general and football in particular—by Robertson himself in his collaborations with Giulianotti (Giulianotti and Robertson 2004, 2007 and 2009). Certain notions within the globalisation debate—‘Western cultural imperialism’, ‘Americanization’6 , ‘McDonaldisation’ (Ritzer 2004b), and ‘grobalisation’7 (Ritzer 2003; Ritzer and Ryan 2002; also Appadurai 1996)—must not be perceived as singular or dogmatic matters of fact but, following Giulianotti and Robertson (2009), should instead be seen as embedded into a system of simultaneous and nonexclusive interrelations—global–local, partial–universal, homogenisation–heterogenisation. The interrelations between localisation and globalisation processes are central to the theoretical conception of this study. At the top level of football, which is the most globalised, the processes are crucial for understanding those in the leagues below. Lower league football clubs, while rarely represented in international competitions and on the surface far away from the topflight, are also affected directly and indirectly by these processes which first appear at the top. This is especially true in the face of the enormous financial dominance of the leagues at the top as in the case of TV revenues for example, but also with regard to the popularity and attention the big clubs and competitions accumulate. Top level football is culturally hegemonic. This makes competition harder for smaller, lower league clubs and the processes of homogenisation ultimately result in the absorption of the local by the global. However, Ritzer (2003) suggests that especially under the threat of globalising processes, the local gains in particularity and specialty as a contrast to a global ‘other’; the local can be expressed more easily. Thus, the relationship to the upper clubs also determines the strategic agenda for lower league clubs, which might decide to focus on the training of new player potential, human resources or ‘human capital’, establish a sustainable and efficient youth training centre and gain the status of a talent pool which is then able to sell their players to bigger clubs. In doing so the small club might play out its strategic advantage of being closer to the local community, as will be illustrated further in the course of this study. Lower league clubs might also profit from advances made at the top level in terms of new training methods and thus can use existing knowledge without having to invest in it.

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As will be shown in Part I, the role top level football in its various manifestations plays in the emergence of football culture at lower levels cannot be overestimated. Various authors have pointed out the influence that the topflight game has on playing practices even at the lowest level of the football pyramid (Naglo 2014; Giulianotti and Robertson 2004). From diving to the intimidation of the referee—even in youth teams—to playing on artificial turf for the alleged benefit of more attractive football, the list of mimicking processes in the leagues below is long—as is the process of interrelations between the global and the local football sphere. But also in a cultural understanding, lower league football—in its semi-professional and professional form, as well as in the non-professional leagues—is always connected to the global sphere of top class football and exists in close connection to its discourses and practices. These ‘discourse interconnections’ (Naglo 2014: 239) between upper and lower league football become apparent on a structural as well as on a cultural level—e.g. when the nicknames within an amateur team refer to football heroes—but they do not end there. In fact, on a structural level these interconnections will eventually lead to institutional mimicry, that is, the structural adaptation of top league ‘role-model’ concepts by lower league clubs. By copying training methods used by professional teams, lower league clubs train to play like their role models in the Champions League (CL) and consequently play the global interpretation of the game. For example, artificial turf is becoming ever more popular, not only for financial reasons and a lack of skilled groundkeepers but also in order to practise a fast-paced, modern style of play (ibid.: 258). Beside the sport-relevant sphere, institutional mimicry also comes into play in other processes, for example, when corporate identities are conceptualised and professional branding agencies become involved; when full-time positions are created to provide for a more consistent running of a club; when public relations strategies used by bigger clubs are adopted; or when ties to bigger clubs are established factually—e.g. via transfers—or ideally— e.g. via naming role models when talking about the atmosphere in the club or the stadium. In short, the sum of professionalisation processes can lead to a gradual institutional homogenisation between top level and lower league level clubs.

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Structure The next chapter identifies differences and similarities in the club and league structures of both systems and explains the theoretical foundation of the study in more detail. Then follow two analytical parts: the first, entailing chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”, examines the empirical material collected during the research period, while the second, comprising chapters “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany”, “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”, “Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”, and “Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions”, discusses the qualitative case studies conducted in lower league clubs in England and Germany. Chapter “One Size Does Not Fit All: Comparison and Results” then relates the insights from both parts to one another and compares the findings from both national contexts. Chapter “Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organizations and Supermodern Football” concludes the study and presents an outlook for further research. The focus thus shifts gradually from the macro level in terms of theoretical considerations as well as the broader institutional frame, functions and pressures (chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”), to the meso level and the context in which lower league football and the tri-part crisis will be discussed (chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”), to the ‘meso-micro’ level in chapters “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany”, “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”, “Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”, and “Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions” where the individual clubs and their adaptive strategies to meet the crisis will become the focus. The following lays out the structure in more detail. Following the general overview on the topic and key concepts as well as my presuppositions provided in this introduction, chapter two will lay out the basic institutional and historical framework and introduce my approach to clubs as cultural, social and political actors. First, the different types of institutional prefigurations found in Germany and

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England, both at a league and club level will be discussed, followed by the factors that propel club transformation and development, as well as the clubs’ potential functions in society. Following analysis of these processes, I postulate a dual function of football clubs, as I lay out the concepts of communitisation and societisation. In chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”, the specifics of lower league football in relation to the game at the top level will be investigated. In pointing out the three states of crisis in which clubs find themselves I present the results of the data collection on lower league clubs. First, I will deal with the economic crisis (chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games”), which is marked by the tense financial situation in lower league football and is the result of meagre league revenues and competitive pressure, leading to a constant threat of liquidation. The cultural crisis (chapter “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”) is characterised by the rupture between clubs and their communities. I show that this crisis is not a recent phenomenon and point out how the crisis materialised in the lower leagues, mainly by drawing on stadium-related notions of ‘loss of place’. The third specific crisis is the social crisis (chapter “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”), which is marked by the wider public pressure encountered by football clubs and the spread of community programmes in lower league football as a means to meet this pressure. Each of these crises is understood as symptomatic and contributes to issues in the legitimisation of the football club as a societal institution. The second analytical part discusses the findings from the case studies in lower league football and describes the strategies by which clubs seek to confront the crises explicated in the previous part. After introducing the studied clubs (chapter “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany”), the strategies taken by clubs in both countries in three crisis areas will be described. The first of these chapters (chapter “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”) is concerned with the creation of sustainable structures in terms of professionalisation processes, the creation of academies and the ways in which clubs react to the presence of larger clubs in their vicinity. I then shift to strategies which can be regarded as part of the community-building function of football clubs (chapter “Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”), that is, strategies to engage the cultural crisis, for example, by creating new anchor points for collective

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identities. The closing chapter of this part of the analysis discusses strategies which can be seen as part of an agenda to improve a club’s status as a societal actor, namely the community programmes launched by the clubs (chapter “Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions”). Bringing together both empirical parts of the analysis, chapter “One Size Does Not Fit All: Comparison and Results” compares the findings on domestic, cross-national, cross-structural and cross-cultural levels and contrasts the findings on the PPFCs to outline the impact these clubs might have on the institutional discourse on lower league football clubs. Finally, chapter “Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organizations and Supermodern Football” concludes the study, wrapping up the results of the individual chapters into an overall argument and assessing the consequences for the academic debate and open questions that will require further research. The general argument is the following: Three crises are derived heuristically from the data to illustrate the situation of lower league football clubs in both national contexts. The project draws on Berger and Luckman’s (1966) and Meyer and Rowan’s (1977) neo-institutionalist conceptualisation of organisational legitimacy, arguing that those organisations which are unable to fulfil expectations made by their environment are left vulnerable to claims of redundancy. The study argues that lower league football clubs find themselves in a legitimacy dilemma— i.e. inability to fulfil expectations of their environment, either culturally, economically or politically/socially. The data to support this argument is fielded in three ideal–typical areas, reflected by the three crises. Consequently, clubs seek to resolve the issues of legitimacy—or at least limit their negative effects—by following paths for organisational development and employing modes of institutional isomorphism in combination with glocalisation processes (Ritzer 2003; Robertson 1994). These ideal– typical paths follow a strategy of either a professionalised market orientation—e.g. full-time professional CEO—or a networking community orientation—e.g. community programmes—with a third way in between being the obvious middle ground. This results in a tendency towards an incremental institutional alignment between club models in England and Germany with examples of counter pressure in both national cases.

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Notes 1. In German, the semantic touch is equally manifest as here, one can only be in schlechter Gesellschaft (bad company). 2. Exemplarily see https://fcbayern.com/de/club/werte/familie; http:// www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170113/-i-m-happy-part-of-thearsenal-family-. 3. The terms Fan-owned Football Club (FOFC) or Community-owned Football Club (COFC) are used as equivalents throughout the literature and bear no difference in meaning. I will use SOFC since the term is better established within academic literature and is also used by SD. 4. In line with other authors—e.g. Mainwaring and Clarke 2012—in using ‘lower league’ I refer to everything below the top two levels of the football pyramid of each country. While later in the study I will further differentiate between mid-league—levels three to five—and low-league—level six and downwards—levels, lower league serves as the encompassing umbrella term. 5. Ultra culture has not gained a significant foothold in British clubs or any significant influence. This might change in the foreseeable future as some notable exceptions, such as has been indicated by Charlton Athletic or Celtic Glasgow and at some lower league clubs like Whitehawk FC. 6. In terms of ‘Americanisation’, developments in this direction can be seen, especially when it comes to the presentation of live matches in the media. American media culture tropes—particularly as manifested in American Football—are enormous and have been adopted not only by football. Animated portraits who turn their heads to the camera during the presentations of the squads was first introduced in American Football, as was continuing to show the game in a smaller window during advertising breaks as first practised during the World Cup of 1994. Further developments which represent a TV-Americanisation go as far back as names on jerseys or jersey and stadium sponsors. Mascots are added to this arsenal, as are cheerleaders. Goal-line technology and video assistants can be seen in this tradition. In English football, the influence of American capital on the game itself could also be regarded as a form of Americanisation. 7. “Grobalisation” is a neologism introduced by George Ritzer (consisting of the words ‘grow’ and ‘globalisation’), who proposed it to be the counterfeit to glocalisation, meaning the all-consuming growth of transnational enterprises or companies that then subsume the local (Ritzer 2003).

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References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Armstrong, G., & Mitchell J. P. (2008). Global and Local Football: Politics and Europeanization on the Fringes of the EU . Oxon and New York: Routledge. Back, L., Crabbe, T., & Solomos, J. (2001). The Changing Face of Football: Racism, Identity and Multiculture in the English Game. Oxford: Berg. Barlow, A. (2008). Do we Know the Value of Football? A Review of Methodologies to Value Public Goods. Manchester: Substance. Baumann, Z. (2001). Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Blackshaw, T. (2008). Contemporary Community Theory and Football. Soccer & Society, 9(3), 325–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970802008959. Brandt, C., Hertel, F., & Huddleston, S. (Eds.). (2017). Football Fans, Rivalry and Coopoeration. London and New York: Routledge. Breuer, C., Feiler, S., & Wicker, P. (2015). Sport Clubs in Germany. In C. Breuer, R. Hoekman, S. Nagel & H. van der Werff (Eds.), Sport Clubs in Europe. A Cross-National Comparative Perspective (pp. 187–208). Cham et al.: Springer International. Breuer, C., Hoekman, R., Nagel, S., & van der Werff, H. (Eds.). (2015). Sport Clubs in Europe: A Cross-National Comparative Perspective. Cham et al.: Springer International Publishing. Brown, A. (2008). How Can We Value the Social Impact of Football Clubs? Qualitative Approaches. The Social Value of Football Research Project for Supporters Direct. Manchester: Substance. Brown, A., Crabbe, T., Mellor, G., Blackshaw, T., & Stone, C. (2006). Football and its Communities: Final Report for the Football Foundation. Manchester: Substance. Cleland, J., Doidge, M., Millward, P., & Widdop, P. (2018). Collective Action and Football Fandom: A Relational Sociological Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Crabbe, T. (2008). Avoiding the Numbers Game: Social Theory, Policy and Sport’s Role in the Art of Relationship Building. In M. Nicholson & R. Hoye (Eds.), Sport and Social Capital (pp. 22–37). London: ButterworthHeinemann. DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. J. (1983). The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160. Elias, N., & Dunning, E. (1986). Quest for Excitement. London: Basil Blackwell.

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Etzioni, A. (1993). The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda. New York: Crown Publishers. Etzioni, A. (1996). The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society. New York: Basic Books. Etzioni, A. (2001). The Monochrome Society. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Gabler, J. (2011). Die Ultras. Fußballfans und Fußballkulturen in Deutschland. Köln: Papyrossa. Gaonkar, D. P. (2007). On Cultures of Democracy. Public Culture, 19(1), 1–23. García, B., & Jinming, Z. (Eds.). (2017). Football and Supporter Activism in Europe: Whose Game Is it?. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gebauer, G. (2006): Poetik des Fußballs. Frankfurt and New York: Campus. Gethard, G. (2006). How Soccer Explains Post-War Germany. Soccer & Society, 7 (1), 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970500355587. Giddens, A. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giulianotti, R. (1999). Football: A Sociology of the Global Game. Oxford: Polity Press. Giulianotti, R., & Robertson, R. (2004). The Globalization of Football: A Study in the Glocalization of the ‘Serious Life’. The British Journal of Sociology, 55(4), 545–568. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2004.00037.x. Giulianotti, R., & Robertson, R. (2007). ‘Recovering the Social: Globalization, Football and Transnationalism. Global Networks, 7 (2), 144–186. Giulianotti, R., & Robertson, R. (2009). Globalization & Football. London: Sage. Goldblatt, D. (2007). The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football. London: Penguin. Hellmann, K.-U. (2006). Organisationslegitimität im Neo-Institutionalismus. In K. Senge & K.-U. Hellmann (Eds.), Einführung in den Neo-Institutionalismus (pp. 75–88). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Hesse-Lichtenberger, U. (2003). Tor! The Story of German Football. London: WSC Books Ltd. Johnson, P. (1998). Analytical Induction. In C. Cassell & G. Symon (Eds.), Qualitative Methods and Analysis in Organizational Research (pp. 28–50). London: Sage. Jütting, D. H. (Ed.). (2004). Die lokal-globale Fußballkultur––wissenschaftlich beobachtet. Münster: Waxmann. Kennedy, P., & Kennedy, D. (Eds.). (2014). Football Supporters and the Commercialisation of Football: Comparative Responses across Europe. Oxon: Routledge. King, A. (1998). The End of the Terraces: The Transformation of English Football in the 1990s. London: Leicester University Press.

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Klein, G. (2008). Globalisierung, Lokalisierung, (Re-)Nationalisierung. Fußball als lokales Ereignis, globalisierte Ware und Bilderwelt. In G. Klein & M. Meuser (Eds.), Ernste Spiele: Zur politischen Soziologie des Fußballs (pp. 31– 42). Bielefeld: Transcript. Klein, G., & Meuser M. (2008). Fußball, Politik, Vergemeinschaftung. Zur Einführung. In G. Klein & M. Meuser (Eds.), Ernste Spiele. Zur politischen Soziologie des Fußballs (pp. 7–16). Bielefeld: Transcript. Kuper, S., & Szymanski, S. (2009). Why England Lose & Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained. London: Harper Collins Publishers. MacIntyre, A. (2007 [1981]). After Virtue. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Mainwaring, E., & Clark, T. (2012). ‘We’re Shit and We Know We Are’: Identity, Place and Ontological Security in Lower League Football in England. Soccer & Society, 13(1), 107–123. McDougall, A. (2014). The People’s Game: Football, State and Society in East Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363. Morrow, S. (2003). The People’s Game? Football, Finance and Society. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Nichols, G., & Taylor, P. (2015). Sport Clubs in England. In C. Breuer, R. Hoekman, S. Nagel & H. van der Werff (Eds.), Sport Clubs in Europe. A Cross-National Comparative Perspective (pp. 111–130). Cham et al.: Springer International Publishing. Naglo, K. (2014). Professioneller und Amateurfußball in Deutschland und England. Diskursverschränkungen, Praktiken und implizite Kollektivität. In A. Waine & K. Naglo (Eds.), On and Off the Field: Fußballkultur in England und Deutschland (pp. 239–263). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Numerato, D. (2015). Who Says ‘No to Modern Football?’ Italian Supporters, Reflexivity, and Neo-Liberalism. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 39(2), 120– 138. Pilz, G. A., & Wölki-Schumacher, F. (2010). Overview of the Ultra culture phenomenon in the Council of Europe member states in 2009. Expertise for the European Council. https://www.sportwiss.uni-hannover.de/fileadmin/ sport/pdf/onlinepublikationen/pilz/T-RV_2010_03_EN_background_doc_ Prof_PILZ.pdf. Porter, C. (2019). Supporter Ownership in English Football: Class, Culture and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Redhead, S. (1997). Post-Fandom and the Millenial Blues: The Transformation of Soccer Culture. London and New York: Routledge.

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Ritzer, G. (2003). Rethinking Globalization: Glocalization/Grobalization and Something/Nothing. Sociological Theory, 21(3), 193–209. Ritzer, G. (2004a). The Globalization of Nothing. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Ritzer, G. (2004b). The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. Ritzer, G., & Ryan, M. (2002). The Globalization of Nothing. Social Thought & Research, 25(1/2), 51–81. Robertson, R. (1994). Globalisation or Glocalisation? Journal of International Communication, 1(1), 33–52. Ruf, C. (2013). Kurvenrebellen: Die Ultras. Einblicke in eine widersprüchliche Szene. Göttingen: Verlag Die Werkstatt. Schmidt, V. A. (2010). Taking Ideas and Discourse Seriously: Explaining Change Through Discursive Institutionalism as the Fourth ‘New Institutionalism’. European Political Science Review, 2(1), 1–25. Smith, R. W. (1970). The Concept of Legitimacy. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 35, 17–29. Spratt, S. (2008). Football, Ownership and Social Value. The Social Value of Football Research Project for Supporters Direct. Manchester: Substance. Supporters Direct. (2010, June). The Social and Community Value of Football. Final Report. Manchester: Substance. https://www.efdn.org/wp-content/ uploads/2016/08/The-Social-Value-of-Football-Final-Report.pdf. Szymanski, S. (2010a). Football Economics and Policy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Szymanski, S. (2010b). The Political Economy of Sport. In S. Szymanski (Ed.), The Comparative Economics of Sport (pp. 79–86). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, N. (2004). ‘Giving Something Back’: Can Football Clubs and their Communities Coexist? In S. Wagg (Ed.), British Football and Social Exclusion (pp. 47–66). Oxon and New York: Routledge. Tiesler, N. C., & Coelho, J. N. (Eds.). (2008). Globalised Football: Nations and Migration, the City and the Dream. Oxon: Routledge. Tomlinson, A., & Young, C. (Eds.). (2006). German Football: History, Culture Society. Routledge: Oxon and New York. Wagg, S. (Ed.). (2004). British Football and Social Exclusion. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Waine, A., & Naglo, K. (Eds.). (2014). On and Off the Field: Fußballkultur in England und Deutschland. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Ward, S. (2013). A Critical Analysis of Governance Structures within Supporter Owned Football Clubs. PhD thesis. Manchester Metropolitan University. espace.mmu.ac.uk.

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Williams, J. (1999). Is it All Over? Can Football Survive the Premier League? Reading: South Street Press. Williams, J. (2006). Protect Me from What I Want’: Football Fandom, Celebrity Cultures and ‘New’ Football in England. Soccer & Society, 7 (1), 96–114. Ziesche, D. (2011). Reclaiming the Game? Soziale Differenzierung, Exklusion und transformative Prozesse in der Fußballkultur Englands. Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin.

Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations

Football clubs are ostensibly uncomplicated organisations: they exist to facilitate participation in, and the spectating of, organised football. But beyond this plain statement there is a complex and contested debate about the objectives and purpose of these clubs. (Hamil and Morrow 2008: 1)

While Hamil and Morrow’s ‘plain’ statement about the ostensible functions of football clubs seems well crafted and condensed, it can be reduced even further: football clubs exist to facilitate participation in organised football. It has been questioned whether the spectating part belongs to the core of a club’s functions or whether this is not already part of the ‘debate’ mentioned by the authors. Surely, with regard to the semi and full professional leagues, it is fair to say that the clubs primarily seek to provide attractive spectator sport. But even in the lower leagues and the clubs encompassed in this study, the presence of spectators and the presentation of football to an audience are an integral part of the club though, presumably, of differing importance. Today, football clubs come in all colours, shapes and sizes. Moreover, their role in and for society has changed dramatically since their—first—founding period in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus, as so often happens with issues being taken into academic foci, the matter is of course not as simple as it might seem at first glance.

© The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_2

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As this thesis will show, although their role within and for society has changed, football clubs—of the German and English kind—are astonishingly stable institutions with regard to their structural alignments; in the wake of the proclaimed multidimensional crisis of this kind of ‘intermediary organisation’ (Zimmer 1996: 186), one might even be tempted to call football clubs astonishingly resilient organisations. The following chapter will serve to shed light on my mixed conceptual and theoretical approach to football clubs. It will also outline the different structural alignments which exist both within the league system and in club structures. Consequently, the chapter is split into two larger parts. The first delivers the structural differences at club and league levels between the two national football systems, while the second is devoted to the conceptual and theoretical framework of the study. The chapter is thus focused on institutional structures as well as on the functions and processes of and within football clubs and the features which make them cultural and social institutions. I chose this perhaps unusual order because the theoretical and conceptual part builds upon and addresses many of the institutional prefigurations, so these need to be introduced first.

Structures: ‘The Great Divide’, or: Institutional Prefigurations and Their Long-Term Impact One of the first issues in the conceptualisation of this study was the different points of departure when looking at the institutional prefiguration of football clubs in England and Germany. In this chapter, the implications of these differences for a comparative, contemporary analysis will be discussed. As sport organisations and sport systems in both countries developed quite differently and during different periods, flagging out these structural differences is of central importance to the further comparative analysis in this thesis. The structural differences also affect the underlying question of this thesis, which is: do institutions matter? How does the structural difference of an institution affect the societal roles and functions of that institution? What effect do structural differences have with regard to strategies of adaptation of said institution? Do these strategies again result in new structures? I have split this first part of the chapter into three main sections. First, the systemic and institutional differences between the German Verein and the English club are investigated in terms of their natural setup and its immanent impact on the role both organisations play in the framework

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of wider society. Second, issues of organisation typology and classification as well as terminology are discussed. Finally, the systemic and institutional differences between the German Verein and the English club are investigated in terms of their position within the framework of civil society. Clearly, the impact of the form of the organisation on the working of the organisation cannot be overestimated. The structural setup of an organisation is key to understanding the processes within it. Moreover, the structural setup also predetermines the functions the organisation can fulfil and the ways in which it will carry them out. Ward (2013) has pointed to the effects of mutual ownership setups on the governance qualities of football clubs. Several authors have examined the general links between structural setup and the adaptability of organisations as well as their ability to ‘learn’ and acquire knowledge (Argyris 1992; Clegg 1990; Choo 1998; also Gowler et al. 1993). Implications of the League Systems The following section highlights the structural differences and implied conceptual difficulties with regard to the football system in Germany and England. Both league systems generally follow a pyramid-shaped structure with relegation and promotion mechanisms between the leagues so that, theoretically, a club could start at the very bottom and—in a number of years—reach the top of the system. For the focus of this study—lower league football clubs—it is especially important to note at which respective level of the pyramid the single-division structure ends and where leagues are multiplied on a horizontal level into regional divisions, that is, where the structure begins to widen to form the ‘pyramid structure’. While in principle both league structures can be described as pyramids with a single column on top, the question is how many levels this column encompasses. The English football league system is structured as follows: The Premier League (PL), administrated and marketed by the FA itself, stands at the top and is followed by three leagues under the supervision of the Football League (FL) and therefore referred to as ‘league football’. The seven levels which follow are managed under the aegis of the National League (NL) which is subordinated to the FA. Beginning with the fifth level the term ‘non-league football’ is used, whereby

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the fifth to seventh levels are called ‘conference football’. Both professional and semi-professional teams compete within the leagues of the Football Conference. From the eighth level downwards clubs are, at most, semi-professional. A regional division exists from the sixth level downwards. In the German system, the first and second Bundesliga (BL) are administrated and marketed by the Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH (DFL), a subsidiary company founded by the league association Die Liga—Fußballverband (Ligaverband), which is the association of German professional clubs—that is, the member clubs of the first and second BL—and represents their interests (DFL 2013: 1). The Ligaverband is a member of the DFB, and the terms and details of operation and cooperation were agreed upon in a basic, cancellable agreement by both parties in 2012 (DFB and DFL 2012) which has been extended until 2023. The 3. Liga is governed and marketed by the DFB itself. All leagues below it are governed and marketed by regional football associations, all of which are subordinated to the DFB. From the fourth level downwards, teams could technically be semi-professional or even non-professional; however, in the fourth league teams are usually still operated fully professionally. In level five, semiprofessional teams are more common; however, even at this level some clubs operate fully professionally. Below the fifth level, teams can either be semi-professional or non-professional. While Germany’s lower league system has been repeatedly restructured in recent years, the topflight has remained unchanged since the introduction of the second BL in 1974. England’s Football League structure has also remained essentially unchanged since 1958 (Mainwaring and Clarke 2012: 113), notwithstanding the introduction of the PL in 1992 on top of the FL system which was, of course, a crucial change at the very top of the structure. The most recent major change was implemented at the lower league level with the introduction of the extended Football Conference in 2004. Thus, changes within the league system are generally common practice but have occurred most often at the lower league levels in recent years as new leagues were introduced in both countries. Reasons for these adjustments are usually to improve the competitive balance, or to make room for more teams, or to ‘ease’ the drop in case of relegation a well as to better prepare teams for promotion. As will be shown in chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, it is these adjustments in the league structures below the top which can have severe consequences for the football clubs in both systems.

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The changes at lower levels in England did not have any effect on where leagues divide horizontally, as the PL in 1992 simply replaced the former first level of the FL. Already prior to this and the change in 2004, the sixth league was the first regionally divided league in the English league pyramid (Conference North and South). In Germany on the other hand, the introduction of the 3. Liga in 2008/2009 added an all-national, single-division league to the pyramid and moved the first regionally divided league down to the fourth level. The league at this level, the Regionalliga (RL), though having always been divided into regions—hence the name—is, since the 2012/2013 restructuring, divided into five regions. The reasons for the different makeup between England and Germany are manifold. For one, the German league system with its decentralised character bears the mark of the political system as a federal republic. The regional federations, which do not strictly follow federal state boundaries, are represented quite strongly and evenly throughout the system—at least until the sixth level. By contrast, England’s system is quite centralised in character. Another issue is the presence of reserve teams in the German system, the so-called Zweite Mannschaften. In England, these reserve squads play in their own league system all among themselves whereas in Germany they can be promoted to as high as level three of the pyramid structure, which heavily influences the field of competition and attractiveness of matches for lower league clubs. Further, as an effect of the early division into parallel leagues in Germany, the pyramid only reaches down to the eleventh level, whereas around twenty-four levels exist in England. Table 1 provides an overview of the respective league systems and the number of clubs involved at each level. For the study at hand, the structural differences of the respective league systems pose several problems. The first lies in what I would call the competitive dimension of the English league system. The fact that teams compete in a single-division, nationwide competition down to level five decreases the number of clubs which are in direct competition with one another in order to reach the next higher level. While, of course, in parallel divisions at one level, a club does not directly play against all the teams on the same level, the ‘imagined’ competition is still far higher in number than if there were just a single league. Moreover, the perceived status of an English league club at level five of the pyramid might be higher than the status of a German club playing at the same level. After all, the English club at this level can still count itself among the NL system’s

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Table 1

League structures in England and Germany (2019) England

Teams Admin

Level 1 Premier 20 in League (20) Pyramid 2 Football 24 Championship 3 Football 24 League 1 4 Football 24 League 2

5 Conference National

24

Germany

Teams

Admin

FA

1. Bundesliga

18

DFL

FL

2. Bundesliga

18

DFL

FL

3. Liga

20

DFB

FL

Regionalliga Bayern Regionalliga Nord Regionalliga Nordost Regionalliga Südwest Regionalliga West (Total)

18 18 18

DFB (regional subsidiaries)

NL (FA Bayernliga Nord subsidiary) Bayernliga Süd Bremen-Liga Hessenliga Mittelrheinliga Oberliga Baden-Württemberg Oberliga Hamburg Oberliga Niederrhein Oberliga Niedersachsen Oberliga NOFV Nord Oberliga NOFV Süd Oberliga RheinlandPfalz/Saar Oberliga Schleswig-Holstein

18–19 18 (90– 91) 18

DFB (regional subsidiaries)

17 16 17 16 18 18 18 16 16 16 18 16

(continued)

SETTING THE SCENE: STRUCTURAL DIFFERENCES …

Table 1

31

(continued) England

6 Conference North Conference South (Total) 7 Northern Premier League Southern Football League C Southern Football League S Isthmian League (Total) 8 Northern Premier League N Northern Premier League S Southern Football League C Southern Football League SW Isthmian League N Isthmian League SC Isthmian League SE (Total)

Teams Admin

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Germany

Teams

Oberliga Westfalen (Total) NL (FA 37 federal leagues subsidiary) (Landesliga)

18 (238) ~570

NL (FA 103 district leagues subsidiary) (Bezirksliga)

n/a

DFB (regional subsidiaries)

NL (FA 258 communal subsidiary) leagues (Kreisliga)

n/a

DFB (regional subsidiaries)

22 (44) 22

Admin

DFB (regional subsidiaries)

22

22

22 (88) 20

20

20

20

20 20 20 (140)

(Source Own table based on own data collection)

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best 116 teams, whereas a German club would only be one among a field as large as 384 teams. Furthermore, the English leagues allow for a greater permeability between the leagues, that is, fluctuation—or at least the chance for it—is far higher by comparison. Usually, two teams promote directly from each league; however, as many as the next five league positions—i.e. third to seventh place—also qualify for the promotional playoffs. Thus, despite the larger number of clubs in each league, the chance to climb the ladder might eventually be considered higher than in the German system. At the fourth level in the German system, for example, in four of the five divisions only the first—and in one the first and second—placed teams qualified for the play-off round. The teams then competed against the champions of the other divisions in a playoff round and, in the end, three clubs from a total of five leagues and a total competitive field of ninety-one teams were promoted. To overcome this barrier has proven to be extremely difficult for the clubs, and it is the only league level in German football where a league champion does not get promoted directly to the next level. The regulation is currently being overhauled and in 2018/2019 four teams were promoted: two in direct promotion, one by drawing lots, and one determined in a playoff between the remaining two teams. As of the 2020/2021 season, four teams out of five divisions will be promoted, with direct promotions for the RL West and Südwest, an alternating direct promotion for one of the three remaining leagues and two teams will take part in a play-off match. At the same time, due to the complex rules with regard to the play-off round and whether a club promotes to the third tier, up to five teams might relegate directly. Thus, already from this perspective, English clubs might ‘behave’ differently than their German counterparts when it comes to adaptive strategies and agenda-setting as the league setting itself might offer better incentives concerning a faster return on investment for financial contributions by benefactors. Apart from the origins of the different ‘shapes’ of the respective league systems, another rather terminological issue arises with regard to the question of the use of ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ and the league systems: the line could just be drawn by looking at which teams are allowed to compete in each level. As the German system allows non-professional teams up to level four, this would be the end of the amateur system. In England, this level is already reached at level five, as all leagues under the aegis of the EFL are fully professional.

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Thus, in Germany, until recently, this line of demarcation could theoretically have been drawn quite easily by the division of the league system in the two BLs—professional—and everything below—amateur. Since the implementation of the 3. Liga as a professional league in the 2008/2009 season, this division has moved down one level. At the same time, the third league has not asserted the same status of exclusivity that the two fully professional BLs enjoy, such as the exclusion of reserve teams and marketing and organisation by the DFL. In addition, as previously mentioned, fully professional teams operate below the 3. Liga as well. In England, similar issues exist. It seems at first glance that the line could be drawn more easily, with the first four leagues being professional. However, due to the system of relegation, teams in the fifth level are still fully professional. Nevertheless, even if this mingling and displacement were to be disregarded, a problem of a completely different matter would become apparent when looked at from different angles. From a historical perspective, the terminology of amateur and professional is problematic: beside the professional league system of the PL, EFL, and NL, England used to have a completely amateur football system which regarded itself as committed to the ideals of amateur sport, with its own clubs and thus its own leagues, championships and cups and which existed until the amateur paragraph was dropped in 1974. This division emerged in the course of conflict about the professionalisation of the sport in the early twentieth century,1 and even though the importance of amateur sport in the UK has been decreasing continuously since then (Porter and Wagg 2008), the Amateur Football Alliance (AFA) founded in 1907 still exists today. In Germany, the DFB founded an amateur championship after the introduction of contract player status in 1950. The championship was last played out in 1998. There are, however, plans to reinstate the title. A further issue with regard to the term ‘amateur’ appears again on a semantic level and its second attribution with reference to football in German language: the word ‘amateur’ in German is applied to the aforementioned second squads of—professional—clubs—for example, Bayern Amateure meaning the second squad of FC Bayern Munich. As has been mentioned before, within the English system, these reserve teams play in their own league system, whereas in Germany, the Zweite Mannschaften, as they are more commonly known, can be found within the ordinary league system up to the 3. Liga.

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Thus, using the word ‘amateur’ might cause confusion and I would therefore deem it unfit. As professional contracts might exist down to the fifth level and below and amateur players might be part of a squad up to the fourth level, amateur and professional football can hardly be clearly separated in either system. Instead, it is much more reasonable to follow a gradation into fully professional sport, semi-professional sport and nonprofessional sport—i.e. football—and use the term ‘amateur’ only where it is applied to the actual sphere of amateur sports. This gradation is still not perfect when considering the different use and connotation of the term ‘professional’ in both countries, but while keeping this limitation in mind, it is still suitable for the work at hand. Club Vs Verein—Concepts and Implications of Structural Differences in Germany and England The differences between the clubs themselves are of far greater importance than the structure of the leagues. In both countries, clubs constitute the smallest unit of organised sport. However, within football, this is where the similarities end. Football clubs in England and Germany are characterised by a fundamentally different understanding about the role, function and character of the institution of football clubs or football Vereine, respectively. While the German model is based on a charitable approach which involves volunteerism and democratic structures, a common public interest as well as a not-for-profit clause, at their basis English football clubs are structured as ordinary companies. Thus, the difference lies in a charitable vs an entrepreneurial conception of the institution football Verein or football club, respectively. While in both countries sports are organised by different structural setups, there are certain prototypical models for the clubs which compete in the competitions organised by sport associations. The rules for licensing, for example, are usually quite clear about which organisations are allowed to compete and which structural alterations are allowed. Thus, especially with regard to football, the variety of organisational setups in England and Germany is limited but still of crucial difference. For the clubs examined in this study four main structural setups have been identified—two in each country and in each case a standard model and a derivation from this standard—on which I will now elaborate.2 For Germany, the standard model is the Verein (A), the derivation of which I call the Verein+ X model (C). In England, the standard model is the

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aforementioned company club (B). The derivation of this form is not so much a derivation as it is a counter-principle—the co-operative or Industrial and Provident Society (IPS) which I call the society club (D). In the following section these models will be depicted, starting with the standard models of each country and then moving on to the derivations. A. German standard model: The Verein The Vereinswesen (association culture) is itself a social institution in Germany, and the organisational basis of a Verein (a member association) is the preferred choice for all sorts of interest groups.3 Its history lies in the first political associations—among them also sport clubs— founded during the Napoleonic wars in the early nineteenth century and later during the revolution of 1848.4 Even if professional football clubs in Germany have sought to find ways to commercially circumvent the strict boundaries of the Vereinswesen in recent years, as will be discussed later in this chapter, the majority of football clubs, especially in lower leagues, are still set up as a classic Verein. The specific organisational setup allows exemptions from taxation but also has certain requirements, such as an association statute, at least seven members, and an annual general meeting (AGM). Membership is open on application and includes a right to vote during AGMs and extracurricular general meetings. During these meetings, democratic voting following a one-member-one-vote system on structured propositions guide the fate of the Verein. What has been termed the ‘internally oriented consumerist ethos’ (Schimank 2005b: 26) of sport clubs in the form of member associations merely describes the fact that the club invests any profits back into the club—i.e. the club community—and that these are not used for the benefit of investors or shareholders (ibid.). Since the regulations of the German league and football authorities demand that German clubs who want to partake in the league competition must be structured as a Verein, there are comparably strict rules to deviations from this organisational setup, for example, via the aforementioned separation of capital companies. The main and most prominent rule is called the 50 + 1 rule which, at its core, demands that the association (the Verein) holds the majority of votes—50% plus one extra vote—in the shareholders’ assembly of the capital company, that is, the Verein cannot be overruled. By this

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regulation, authorities have sought to limit the influence of private benefactors and sponsors at clubs but at the same time made German clubs comparably unattractive to private investments. Critics continuously argue instead that the rule violates EU competition law (Lopatta et al. 2016). Still, this organisational setup is widely estimated to have saved German football from the same financial excess that has caught on in the PL (Lammert et al. 2009). However, the rule is not as watertight as it may seem. From the very beginning, exceptions to that rule had to be allowed, and recent years have seen an increased watering down of the essence of the 50 + 1 rule. Apart from the 50 + 1 rule, it is noteworthy that German football clubs can be structured as Multi-Branch Sport Clubs (MBSCs) which means that football is not the only sport organised within the club (Petry and Schulze 2010). However, most football clubs from the mid-league level upwards are formed as Single Branch Sport Clubs (SBSCs). Despite all swansongs which have been sung in recent decades in the wake of increasing individualisation and ‘sport-hoppers’ (Baur and Burrmann 2005), pluralisation, urbanisation, globalisation and the like (Gugutzer 2008), Vereine remain the most common form of organised sport. Sport clubs belong to those civic organisations with the highest degree of mobilisation within the German population, with about 27.5 million people being members of the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB 2016: 1). Volunteerism has proven to be an issue in today’s Western ‘touch-and-go’ societies in which people seem increasingly reluctant to take on responsibility—a fact that puts Vereine and similar volunteer-based sport organisations under pressure (Nichols et al. 2005; Wicker and Breuer 2013). However, in contrast to many other societal institutions, sport clubs are doing comparably well. Neither are their numbers diminishing significantly nor are their members running away.5 Additionally, and different to usual sport clubs, far more people than the actual number of club members or stadium visitors are interested in and follow football clubs on a daily and weekly basis—an additional resource football clubs can potentially rely on in times of financial crisis. It is important to note—especially in the context of this thesis—that democratically structured Vereine were factually non-existent in the GDR. This elementary part of civil society was—as in all authoritarian or totalitarian regimes—abolished. During the 40 years of its existence, sport and football clubs existed in the form of Betriebssportgruppen (BSG), that is, as sport branches within larger people’s enterprises. These groups

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were organised top-down and did not include democratic members’ participation. Thus, in the territory of the former GDR, Vereine were reestablished only after reunification after 40 years of absence—the results of which can still be seen in East German society today (Rohrberg 1996; Gensicke et al. 2009; Olivio 2011). B. English standard model: The company club In England, much in contrast to Germany, many of the clubs competing in the league system today became company-like entities shortly after they were founded as a result of the split between amateurs and professionals in the late nineteenth century (Hill 2002: 27; Giulianotti 1999: 5).6 Apart from those clubs with church and pub origins, a large proportion were factory clubs. Especially in northern England, where the ‘professional movement’ originated, clubs were founded by local entrepreneurs within their respective factory or production structures and served initially as an—active and passive—leisure-time activity for their employees. In the course of history, these clubs also functioned as a way to create an additional source of income for their owners. Soon, the stadiums became quasi-religious objects of pilgrimage after the shift ended on Saturday afternoons and—paying tribute to the nature of the crowds—the ‘football grounds of England were the Labour Party at prayer’ (Fishwick 1989: 150). Without presenting the differentiation of English football in the wake of its early professionalisation in close detail here, it is noteworthy that professionalisation tendencies entered the game quite early around the fin de siècle, and the consequent split between amateurs and professionals was initially a split between the northern and southern England. This break has sustainably shaped the further development of football in England and the understanding of sport in the UK until today (Holt 1989; Armstrong and Giulianotti 1999; Porter 2008). Upon a closer look, the ideal type presented here as the ‘company club’ varies since there are several forms in which a company can be structured. The main shared characteristic and main distinguishing feature from the German standard model is the For-Profit Organisation (FPO) purpose, be it a CLS which is the most common form in professional and semi-professional football (Supporters Direct 2013: 9), a CLG, a PLC or another company form. While technicalities of the profit withdrawal processes might differ for each company form—i.e. with regard to the

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dividend paid to shareholders, the necessary investment capital, etc.—the overarching goal of profit maximisation remains the same. This is why it seems fair to summarise them under the ideal-typical company club structure. According to Ward, twenty-six of the ninety-two professional football clubs—i.e. PL and EFL clubs—were PLCs in 2012 and thus had shares traded on various exchange markets (2013: 20). By reasons specific to their history, English FCs, as in many other European countries, are exclusively structured as SBSCs which means that football is the only sport the club organises and in which it competes. Both concepts—company club and Verein—have proven to be astonishingly resilient to societal changes and challenges and remain quite unchanged in their respective structure’s core. While a case-to-case differentiation is necessary to shed light on the specifics of the organisational setups of both German and English clubs, it is fair to say that the entrepreneurial model as opposed to the charitable model mark the main difference. Still, in both football systems there is significant room to expand beyond the respective standard model and some alterations have occurred, largely in the past thirty years or so. In both countries these transformations have affected the football landscape to a certain extent. The entrepreneurial club approach existent in English—and British— football excludes members from active participation in their clubs, despite the fact that the term ‘club’ implies membership (Hill 2002: 24). However, there are voluntary member associations comparable to German Vereine in English team sports other than football, for example, British cricket clubs are often still set up as member associations (ibid.: 33). In almost all professional team sports, though, clubs follow an entrepreneurial setup. In order to tackle the ownership situation in English football, several initiatives have been launched by fans. In some cases, fans have bought clubs or shares in a club and having thereby gained voting rights have restructured it according to alternative company models, most famously in the form of an IPS. These are still not fully comparable to the German Verein but provide for members to be active participants in decision-making processes. In addition, as will be elaborated later, regulatory aspirations by the government to guarantee fans a say in their club have emerged in recent years. In the following, the two variations found in both respective football systems will be introduced.

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C. The Verein+ X model in Germany As discussed previously, German clubs have continually and successfully practised the right to separate branches into capital companies. In the 2016/2017 season, only four clubs playing in the first Bundesliga were still pure member associations. In the second Bundesliga the trend for separation is equally visible, as one-third of the clubs—six out of 18—had separated branches (Ziesche 2017; Streit 2014). Even in the 3. Liga, there were seven capital companies among a field of twenty teams. This development is perceivable down the leagues. Lokomotive Leipzig, one of the case studies dealt with later in much greater detail, was playing in fifth league level when the decision to separate the first squad into a capital company was made in 2014. Another example is Fortuna Köln who were also playing fifth level in 2008 when the separation was made. Sportfreunde Siegen—in 2008—and ETSV Weiche Flensburg—in 2015—are examples of then fourth-league clubs which have separated their football teams into capital companies. In 2018, KFC Uerdingen, then playing at fourth league level and reaching promotion to the third tier, announced not only that they would separate their first team into a capital company but that it would be a tradable joint stock company, an Aktiengesellschaft. Until that time, only two teams had taken this step: Borussia Dortmund—in 1999—and Bayern München. Technically, all these companies are able to operate independently despite being attached to the Verein. Still, the convergence of top-down—company— and bottom-up—Verein—structures suits the clubs in overcoming ‘the dilemma of having to balance members’ interests with achieving the aims of the organisation’ (Wilkesmann and Blutner 2002: 19). As to the form into which the ‘+X’-segment of a Verein is to take, multiple options exist, the most common being a GmbH, the German equivalent of a CLS, a rare alternative being the Aktiengesellschaft (AG), the equivalent of a PLC. D. The society club: The IPS and CBS models in England In stark contrast, several English clubs have changed their organisational make-up and have been transformed into community- or Supporter-owned Football Clubs (SOFCs), usually with the help of Supporters Direct (SD), an organisation which advocates community

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ownership of clubs and specialises in providing assistance to fans in gaining influence in their club’s structures. A passage from a 2013 report that adopts the internally oriented consumerist principle mentioned above with a clear reference to the German 50 + 1 rule model, SD offers a working definition of what ‘community ownership’ means: • A minimum of 50% + 1 of the voting rights of the Club is controlled collectively by a democratic entity which has an open and inclusive membership. • Any profits within the majority controlling entity are reinvested back into the Club as opposed to being distributed to shareholders/members. • The Club is committed to running as a sustainable business. (Supporters Direct 2013: 5) These ‘counter culture’ club structures came into existence in the early 2000s and have grown since. Initiated by fans, the club structures seek the incorporation of members into the decision-making process, that is, a democratic participation on a one-member-one-vote basis. Oftentimes either the German Verein or FC Barcelona and the structures practised there serve as a reference point (Hamil et al. 2010; Conn 2012; Doidge 2014, 2017). If these clubs are founded as SOFCs, they are usually set up as Industrial and Provident Societies, specifically as Community Benefit Societies (CBS), hence the naming of the type as society club in the following. These organisational forms fall under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act (CCBSA) and can be registered as one of two possible basic setups: as a co-operative society or as a community benefit society (CCBSA 2014: Sect. 2 Subsect. (1)). In this regard, this type is indeed almost identical with the German Verein model. Further specified rules include the number of minimum members—three—and a non-profit clause which also applies to the co-operative society (ibid.: Subsect. (3)). Another way of reaching supporter or community ownership is to buy out a majority of shares or the full shares from the previous club owners. This is achieved through Supporters Trusts (STs) which are also set up as an IPS (CBS). In addition to the CBS, the UK government introduced the Community Interest Company in 2005 in the Companies Act of 2004 and this company form has been growing in numbers ever since (Mulkerrin 2013).

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Theoretically, this type introduces another type of community-focused structure, though only two of the 42 SOFCs existing in 2017 were set up as such. While it would also be a suitable structure for an ST, only one ST is currently set up as a CIC. In their report, SD lists the pros and cons of both a CBS and a CIC. While the CBS is definitely closer to the German Verein, a CIC has the advantage of being accepted as a formal setup by the EFL and the PL due to the different insolvency handling in companies and societies. Under the current rules, a club set up as a CBS would have to restructure if it were to play above level five, that is, enter the professional sphere of the EFL. Thus, clubs that are community-owned and progress up the leagues would need to convert into CICs or other company structures in which the ST owns the majority of shares. The ST, which is usually set up as a CBS, then owns the company licensed to compete in the EFL. Still, SD sees democratic flaws in the CIC model. Since one-share-one-vote still allows for complete ownership, and since dividends of up to 20% can still be extracted from the club after community objectives have been met—i.e. the club can still be used for financial enrichment of the shareholders—SD concludes that this model differs little from the company club structure other than being a ‘regulated form of company’ (Supporters Direct 2013: 7). As the disadvantage for choosing the CBS structure is quite crucial should a club progress in the league pyramid, SD also issued a recommendation to allow CBS in the EFL and PL. The fact that the CBS model is more common in English SOFCs is of course also due to the low level in which these clubs play. When speaking about SOFCs, I thus refer to clubs which are either structured in the CBS model—which poses a structural counter principle to the company club—or set up as a CIC, CLS or LGB—or another company form—but with an ST holding the majority of shares. As the CIC does not differ much—in principle—from the standard company club, in the following, the CBS will be considered the ‘alternative model’ to the standard type and arguments made in this regard will be related to CBS-structured or effectively CBS-controlled clubs—via ST ownership. The findings suggest that a CBS structure is more likely to be chosen as a club’s legal setup if a club has been newly founded, whereas the club retains its company form when an ST acquires a majority in share ownership. Community benefit societies are automatically fully supporterowned, as no member can acquire more than one vote or a majority in ownership.

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In sum, these developments indicate the difficulties at hand when trying to systematise football clubs in England and Germany with regard to their respective position and status within society. Implications of Structural Alignments Another main distinguishing feature between German and English football clubs is the status members can acquire within both organisational types—or, in other words, the status an individual actor can acquire within the institution. At first glance, the division seems to run along an active/passive distinction: active membership in the German case and passive supporter status in the English case. On second glance, however, German clubs also divide their members into active and passive members. Active members are persons actively engaging in the sport within the club, that is, players, coaches, members of team staff, etc. Passive membership comprises the vast majority of the club’s members: fans, followers, supporters, board members, etc. They—in contrast to the English club model—are accredited a right to vote during the general assembly— on a one-member-one-vote basis. This right to vote is guaranteed by the statutes upon which members associations are required to be built, although the right to vote extends only to passive members and not to any active members. Thus, and quite counter-intuitively, it is passive membership that allows for democratic participation. Membership is voluntary, non-exclusionary and acquired via an annual membership fee. The situation is quite different in the English case: top English clubs with a large number of followers usually offer what I will call a ‘sham membership’. These ‘official memberships’—website of Manchester United, 2016— need to be purchased and offer little more than a voucher in terms of the right to belong to the first group able to buy tickets for matches. Depending on the number of matches attended by an individual over the years, members can also rise in status and become silver or gold members. However, calling it a ‘membership’ is already at odds with what this term usually implies. Moreover, it does not include democratic participation. Theoretically, English clubs only have active members—in the sense that German clubs employ this term, that is, players/staff—who, however, are not usually addressed as such but are simply employees or volunteers. Table 2 provides an overview on the four identified club types. When compared systematically, there is certainly an alignment in terms of most similar or most dissimilar cases. When compared cross-nationally, the most

Democratic Participation

Capital Company

Members Association + Capital Company (CC) 50+ 1 ruling (DFB)

No

FPO Individual/limited (up to 100%)

NPO + FPO Collective, unlimited (no shares) in Verein Individual/limited (up to 100%) in CC Yes, can be restricted

NPO Collective, unlimited (no shares)

Yes

LLC, PLC

AG, GmbH & Co. KG

Company Act (Financial Conduct Authority)

Company Club

Verein+ X

England

e.V. (registered association)

Members Associations Act (Financial Services Authority)

Legal Basis (Regulator)

Registration w/Financial Service Authority as Profit Orientation Ownership Model/Shares

Members Association

Verein

Germany

Typology of structural types of football clubs in England and Germany

Type

Table 2

(continued)

Yes

NPO Collective/limited (1)

Co-operative and Community Benefits Societies Act (Charity Commission) IPS, CBS

Co-operative model

(Company Club owned by) Society Club

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(continued)

(Source Own table)

Membership status Example

Vote acquisition

Table 2

Full Membership Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e.V

1

Verein

Germany

1 (Verein)/no. of votes in CC’s shareholders assembly is limited to 49% for third parties and not linked to shares Full Membership Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e.V. Dortmund + Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA

Verein+ X

Sham Membership The Arsenal Football Club PLC

According to shares

Company Club

England

Full Membership FC United Ltd (AFCW plc is owned by) Wimbledon Football Club Supporters’ Society Ltd

1

(Company Club owned by) Society Club

44 D. ZIESCHE

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similar match would be Verein/Society Club and Verein+ X/Company Club. Most dissimilar cases would align accordingly if matched oppositely, that is, Verein/Company Club and Verein+ X/Society Club. In the transitions visible in the founding of new structural types in the given timeframe—see chapter “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”—a trend and, thus, a basic assertion that will be made in more detail in the following can already be stated: there is a visible institutional transition in terms of the English model shifting towards more community orientation whereas the German model is shifting more towards profit orientation. Furthermore, within both systemic realms—English and German— sport enjoys a certain status of autonomy. This is not surprising, as the autonomy of sport is a frequently invoked and quoted phrase and of constitutive nature of many sport-governing bodies. Still, this autonomy has come under heavy fire in various sporting fields (Schimank 2005a). The implications of an autonomous status are far-reaching and affect not only the sporting dimension itself with regard to the definition of rules of the game by its NGBs, but also the economic, judiciary and political dimensions of sport (Heinemann 1996; Chappelet 2010). Again, within the realm of sports, football enjoys a special status largely due to its global status. In Germany, the DFB forms the largest association within the DOSB, comprising around a quarter of the overall members. The multi-level organisation of sport in Germany also adopts the principle of subsidiarity from its political role model. Since the DFB is the wealthiest umbrella organisation within the DOSB, it is financially independent and can provide for its members on its own terms and out of its own funds. Thus, financial independence from the resources distributed by the DOSB, at first glance, enables football to enjoy even greater autonomy than other sporting disciplines (Strünck 2013, 2007). Despite this status which is similar in other continental associations as well as the world-governing body FIFA, football’s autonomy has been increasingly questioned and threatened by direct political regulation. For example, the involvement of the European Union in the regulatory business of football in the wake of the Bosman ruling has been addressed academically and discussed in regard to the question of an ongoing Europeanisation of football (Mittag 2007; also Niemann et al. 2011). Regardless of the structural and ‘philosophical’ differences laid out in this chapter, I will still refer to the entities of organised sport in Germany and England dealt with in the framework of this thesis as ‘clubs’ and mark out their specific setup only at points where a further differentiation

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proves indispensable. The use of ‘club’ seems to be the most practical and applicable term to use in the following, especially since the underlying philosophies in the different contexts and cases have now been clarified. Football Clubs and Civil Society Sport clubs in Germany are institutions of civil society or, alternatively, institutions of the voluntary, non-profit third sector (Baur and Braun 2003; Schimank 2008; Zimmer 2005; Jütting 2008). This includes those football clubs with separated structural setups described previously. While similar voluntary, charitable, non-profit organisations exist in England, most professional team sport clubs—and especially football clubs—are part of the private commercial sector (Nichols and Taylor 2015: 115– 117). Jütting (2008) points to this different positioning of sport clubs in the sectoral triangle in different European countries. Regardless of this affiliation, both in Germany and England these clubs are, as societal institutions, affected by societal developments. Demographic change, urbanisation, globalisation—just to name a few—have a huge impact on the social composition and structure of sport and football clubs. In addition, as Nichols and Taylor point out, sectoral differences overlap significantly and clubs, especially in lower leagues, are expected to draw on resources from the public and voluntary sector (2015: 112). With the increasing orientation of sport clubs on the service sector and an increasing withdrawal from their historical role as solidarity organisations, the question has been raised whether sport clubs are still non-commercial civil society institutions at all or whether they instead belong to the commercial third sector organisations (exemplarily Zimmer 2005; van Bentem 2006) On the demand side, today’s consumerist society (Baudrillard 1998) consolidates this general development even further. It appears, also in reaction to pressure from private sport providers such as fitness clubs, soccer arenas, etc. that sport clubs are moving towards more service-oriented, commercial forms of organisation. They are changing increasingly from SBSCs to multiple branch sport clubs, offering fee-based courses for members and non-members, shifting increasingly towards regenerative, non-competitive sports which have traditionally not been affiliated with sport clubs—and which are not ‘sport’ in the traditional meaning of the word—such as yoga and Tai Chi. However, as sport clubs are taxed differently from private companies, a competitive imbalance emerges. This aspect on the positioning of football

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clubs between state, market and civil society and possible sectoral shifts will be delved into further in the course of this volume. German Vereine and English society clubs are in a constant struggle to gain and especially keep their members. Managing the growing divide between member interests and economic imperatives is one of the great challenges such sport clubs face today. Clubs in Germany need to decide whether the idea of a mutually supportive group based on volunteer resources and mutual benefit should continue to be emphasised or whether they should pave the way for a more consumer-oriented, professionalised club philosophy. Which of the two alternatives weighs more in decision-making processes will determine whether they must be seen as market institutions in the private commercial sector or if they will instead retain their non-profit, third sector civil society character in the future. In England, should the society clubs gain any momentum within the English league, they could also shift the institutional frame in league football from the market towards civil society. All clubs—both the company as well as the society clubs in England and the German Vereine—compete for another resource: volunteers, which in effect means they are competing for the ‘time, expenditure and enthusiasm’ (Nichols et al. 2005: 36) of individuals within their direct sphere of influence. While, certainly, society clubs and Vereine depend on these resources on a larger scale as the means to pay for additional staff is always limited, club companies also rely on the help of volunteers, for example, during match days as supporting staff. Further pressure comes from the national governing bodies (NGBs), which in recent years have introduced measurement tools to ascertain the quality of the volunteer work delivered, making volunteering itself more competitive (Nichols et al. 2005). Eventually, the question has to be asked what kind of organisations football clubs are, not only in terms of their structural setup but in terms of their social and cultural impact. The following chapter will deal with these aspects.

Theoretical Framework and Concepts: Football Clubs as Social, Cultural and Political Actors [O]ne cannot directly understand what sporting phenomena are at a given moment in a given social environment by relating them directly to the

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economic and social conditions of the corresponding societies: the history of sport is a relatively autonomous history which, even when marked by the major events of economic and social history, has its own tempo, its own evolutionary laws, its own crises, in short: its specific chronology. (Bourdieu 1978: 821)

While generally agreeing with Bourdieu and his assessment of an autonomous history of sport insofar as sport is ambivalent in its simultaneous mediation of anachronistic and contemporary elements (Gebauer et al. 2004), I would still argue that there remain a number of developments in sport—and football in particular—which are often directly linked to what Bourdieu describes as ‘economic and social conditions of the corresponding societies’. For example, it seems quite logical that English society would bring forth football clubs which are entrepreneurial in character, given the period in which the sport gained popularity as a spectator sport and how it developed along a Weberian path of modernisation. Although the circumstances in Germany were quite different, the result is the same: it is by far the most popular spectator sport in both countries. At first glance then, and despite their different structures, football clubs in England and Germany seem to fulfil basically the same functions for their respective communities, providing both the means for playing football as well as the infrastructure to follow football as a spectator sport. And yet, there are differences in the structural setup which almost by definition have to lead to different organisational functions. The evaluation of a club’s social and cultural value is based on its functions, as value is only generated if the function is fulfilled. Thus, investigating the social value of a club already suggests that this club has a social function of generating a social value of some sort, that is, that football has a social purpose. Here an oddity comes into play: football does not have to have a purpose; football is a game and the unifying quality of games is their purposelessness. Games do not have to be productive. There does not have to be a practical purpose for playing them. Still, in its long history, football has contributed to and benefited society in two major ways: community building and identity formation. With regard to narratives about football and its relationship to community and identity, it often becomes quite difficult to tell historical fact from romanticised myth. The core of football culture is spun around a vast repository of myths. This is especially true when it comes to telling the story of times when football was still a working-class sport: a people’s

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game, where the football match marked the end of the working week on Saturday, where the football match offered relief from the ordeals of manual labour and delivered a source of civic pride, where the cities would ‘eat and breathe’ football, in high spirits after glorious victories and in collective despair after a crushing defeat. Today it seems commonplace to consider football clubs and their local communities as intertwined, that there is an ‘“umbilical” relationship’ (Supporters Direct 2010: 5) between the two. Given the state some clubs find themselves in today, one can only hope that this is not the case. If the two are intertwined, then certainly more in the way that a club suffers from a dysfunctional community more than the community suffers from a dysfunctional club. But given that there is a connection between clubs and their local communities, two questions arise: first, what is the ‘local community’ of a club? And second, what would count as manifestations of this presumed bond? Both questions will be addressed here. The extent to which clubs are able to fulfil the functions of community and identity building, thereby creating social, emotional and cultural capital, might be decisive for their future well-being. Regardless of the academic debate surrounding the term since it gained popularity through the work of Putnam (2000) (e.g. Blackshaw and Long 2005; Braun 2003), policy strategies have eagerly embraced the concept and its implications of social capital—not least because of its strong public appeal. In fact, especially with regard to sport and sport clubs and, respectively, their social role, the concept of social capital has been employed and exploited excessively both by politicians and by officials from the sport sector and has likewise been accompanied by profound research activity (e.g. Nicholson and Hoye 2008; Baur and Braun 2003; Groeneveld et al. 2011). Putnam’s idea that social capital can be generated within civil society organisations and institutions sounds intriguing for attempts to reestablish trust in the democratic system as a whole, yet, empiric evidence for this reciprocity is difficult to find (Theeboom et al. 2012; Offe and Fuchs 2002; also Hall 2002). Due to their presumed close ties with their local communities, football clubs are often said to contribute tremendously to the formation of social capital. As will be discussed later, football clubs are often seen as one of the solutions fielded to confront the— alleged—erosion of local communities (see chapter “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”). Although efforts have increased since the 1990s to assign the football fan a passive customer role especially in the top flight of football

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(King 1998; Williams 2006), authors agree that football is different from other businesses insofar as the customer concept does not suffice for describing supporters (Hindley and Williamson 2013: 323). The reason for this difference lies in the emotional capital supporters invest. This ‘fan equity’ is the investment of ‘an irrationally loyal customer base’ (Salomon Brothers 1997: 9) centred on matters of identity with and loyal attachment to a club than a mere economic ‘return on investment’ thinking. Fans are willing to go to great lengths for their clubs, especially financially. As numerous occasions of club bankruptcy and administration have shown, fans are prepared to contribute impressive amounts of money in order to save—or prolong—the life of their clubs. Supporters Trusts, which first popped up around the turn of the millennium, exist for almost every English professional football club, making use of the emotional capital generated by the football club to which they are indirectly attached. Supporters Trusts try to direct funds made available by their members to gain access to the decision-making process in the club, for example, by buying shares in the club (Lomax 2000; Brown and Walsh 2000) as part of a ‘reclaim the game’ agenda. At some clubs in Germany, separate branches, so-called fan and members’ branches (FMBs), have been established whose—active—members focus solely on the funding, development and support of the youth teams by means of their own financial potential (Ziesche 2017). A club’s cultural capital is also connected to its community impact. The concept of cultural capital has not often been applied to football clubs or football in general. But I consider it an important analytical tool for understanding football and football clubs in particular. While its significance is easier to identify for top clubs and the global brands they incorporate (King 1998; Giulianotti 1999; Nash 2000),7 it is not as striking with regard to lower league football or even non-league football clubs. Following Bourdieu, cultural capital appears in diverse forms; the form most striking here is internalised cultural capital (1984: 225), although diverging from Bourdieu’s definition, the concept has to be de-individualised and transferred to the club as an embodiment of traditions and habits or symbols. The second form, objectified cultural capital (ibid.), also plays a significant role with regard to football clubs. Here, the club is a cultural good in itself, which—especially in the English case—can be bought or sold. Owning a cultural asset such as a football club might add to the individual cultural capital of the owner, just as owning an original piece of art might. But football clubs are cultural symbols or icons,

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embedded in a system of meaning. The cultural education of supporters within the club generates the cultural capital to appreciate, interact and identify with the cultural good.8 Communities, Collective Identities and Locality As mentioned before, community is en vogue, arguably because it is in crisis. The concept of community itself has always been an abstract one, and when it has become manifest in some way, it has usually had a problematic connotation, mostly in the form of exclusion to it. This confusion and elusiveness is equally present in the context of football. The question is which communities are addressed where football clubs and their communities are concerned. Community is said to be something the latemodern individual strives for. In a neo-functionalist tradition, football clubs are regarded as fulfilling such needs: [The] argument is that modern life tends to break up the community; industrialisation, urbanisation, rapid social and geographic mobility, and more complex divisions of labour, all erode the communitarianism and fixed social identities found in pre-industrial, traditional societies. Yet sport may repair much of this social damage by enhancing the cultural bonding and social integration of disparate individuals within modern societies. (Giulianotti 1999: 14)

Football clubs then fulfil the function of simplification within complex environments, providing particular identities instead of universal randomness. The communities they offer are just that: a clear positioning in a Durkheimian world of highly organised and specialised societies. They offer mechanic solidarity instead of organic solidarity and, via the creation of a shared identity, a specific and strong conscience collective (Durkheim 1988 [1898]: 182–183), despite being particularly modern organisations (Giulianotti 1999: 15). While focusing on the forms of solidarity within respective forms of community—traditional community vs modern society—Durkheim describes exactly those phenomena as ‘mechanic’ which Tönnies describes in his seminal work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1970 [1887]) as ‘organic’ and vice versa. This will be revisited at a later point. In the wake of the new supporter communities detached from spatial limitations which have increasingly evolved since the 1990s, a different

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concept of club community relations had to be developed (Brown et al. 2006, 2008; Millward 2011). Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’ (1983) and Anthony P. Cohen’s ‘symbolically constructed communities’ (1985) have been applied successfully to describe trans-national and global fan communities, freeing the supporter community from its historical geographical rootedness (Brown et al. 2006; Lechner 2007; Blackshaw 2008). However, as this study is predominantly concerned with lower league football clubs and their local, geographically more confined communities, it is necessary to take a step back from this dissolution of the spatial dimension while still allowing for some degree of geographical dislocation. Anderson and Cohen are thus of only limited value here. Nonetheless, applying Cohen’s concept and understanding clubs as symbols around which communities are formed due to a shared understanding of their cultural meanings is fruitful, especially considering its process-oriented, non-solidified conceptualisation (Brown et al. 2006: 55, 2008: 307). Furthermore, due to the central role the club takes in this conception of the process, it is well suited for the perspective followed in this study despite the critique it has received (Blackshaw 2008: 327– 328). In contrast to Durkheim’s, Parson’s and Kluckhohn’s concepts of culture and, thus, community as something integrative, Cohen abandons the idea of uniformity in the concept of community and considers the shared understanding of community to be form, not content: In this approach, then, the ‘commonality’ [sic] which is found in community need not be a uniformity. It does not clone behaviour or ideas. It is a commonality of forms (ways of behaving) whose content (meanings) may vary considerably among its members. The triumph of community is to so contain this variety that its inherent discordance does not subvert the apparent coherence which is expressed by its boundaries. If the members of a community come to feel that they have less in common with each other than they have with the members of some other community then, clearly, the boundaries have become anomalous and the integrity of the ‘community’ they enclose has been severely impugned. (Cohen 1985: 20)

Thus, the construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of the respective community and its specific identity is part of a continuous and contingent process within which the shared and mutual basis of the community is questioned, negotiated among members and permanently (re-)invented (Hobsbawm 1983), or (re-)imagined (Anderson 1983).

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This conceptualisation sees football clubs as encompassing a wide array of individuals, both local and imagined communities, as well as differing notions of fandom. Moreover, football clubs which are formed as political symbols or consider themselves to be a political community can be grasped from this vantage point. Following this argument, the club offers the form—or multiple forms, if we consider emblems, chants, but also a club’s infrastructure, etc. as forms—for community to develop around, that is, for a collective identity, multiple and diverse in its individual meaning, to crystallise. The task then for a club is to offer enough ‘form(s)’ to which the community attaches a shared identity despite its internal differences. Symbols are quite suitable for the communication of such anchors for identity formation, as Cohen points out: Symbols are effective because they are imprecise. Though obviously not contentless, part of their meaning is ‘subjective’. They are, therefore, ideal media through which people can speak a ‘common’ language, behave in apparently similar ways, participate in the ‘same’ rituals, pray to the ‘same’ gods, wear similar clothes and so forth, without subordinating themselves to a tyranny of orthodoxy. Individuality and commonality are thus reconcilable. Just as the ‘common form’ of the symbol aggregates the various meanings assigned to it, so the symbolic repertoire of a community aggregates the individualities and other differences found within the community and provides the means for their expression, interpretation and containment. (Cohen 1985: 21)

This differentiates symbols from codes, which work differently and are meant for smaller sub-communities. Codes do not leave as much room for individual interpretation, as handling them correctly serves as a signifier of either belonging or not belonging to a particular group. This belonging and not belonging is a crucial part of identity formation; the understanding within a group about what they are and what they are not, that is, the construction of the ‘other’, is intrinsically linked to community—and collective—identity formation (Hall 1997), even in symbolically constructed and imagined communities which are geographically disparate such as football clubs. The difference in community, as Blackshaw points out, constitutes ‘the difference between our club and theirs ’ (2008: 332, emphasis in orig.). Because of their historic rootedness, their traditions and symbolism, clubs generate identities. Or, as Bielefeld put it, clubs act as generators of affiliation (2008: 23). Clubs

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foster identities as much as they foster communities. The interrelations of identity politics and football are a widely studied phenomenon and, of course, collective identities are inextricably connected to community. Grant Jarvie (2009) points to the core issue of identity formation: recognising others and being recognised by others as belonging to a specific group, that is, community. However, Jarvie also points towards the negative effects which identification with groups can have: to be exclusionary and divisive rather than unifying (2009: 17). Matters of identity have found great appeal in the realm of football studies and especially studies of fan culture. The potential of football to foster and evoke identities is legendary: both nations in this study— England and Germany—are said to have rediscovered their national flags through football. In the German case this rediscovery was rather playful and light-hearted in what has been described as ‘enthusiastic patriotism’ in the four weeks of the World Cup ‘at home’ in 2006 (Schediwy 2012). In England the shift from the Union Jack as a symbol for English national identity to St George’s Cross in the course of the 1990s is said to have peaked during the Euro 2004 (King 2006; Kumar 2003; also Perryman 2006). At least as mythologised is the potential of football to affect or mirror transformations within the wider society: the effect of the World Cup in Argentina in 1978 on the military junta is legendary; the Wunder von Bern is an integral part of post-war German national mythology, collectively memorialised and culturally internalised (Gebauer 2006: 119; Groll 2007: 183; also Kasza 2004). The addressing and representation of anchors of identity-building—as well as the non-addressing and non-representation—is always a highly political process and also highly selective. Most importantly, it is a process which takes place on multiple levels and which is also never finished. Many claims have been made about the potential of sport and football teams to foster a national identity and to creating a sense of belonging to a national community—as Hobsbawm famously put it, ‘the imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people’ (1990: 143). Especially with regard to the alleged vanishing of national borders via processes of globalisation, football has been used as a vehicle for imagined communities to reinterpret their national identities on a highly mythologised and romanticised basis (Lechner 2007). Evidently, national identity is still one of the strongest identity markers created by football. In some cases, especially with regard to stateless nations, the national football team is the most important public representation of the ‘hindered’ national

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community, the case of Scotland being among the most prominent ones (Stolz 2002; Reicher et al. 2009). But national identities can be at play even on the club level, as is the case with FC Barcelona or Athletic Bilbao, each serving as a public beacon of their Catalan and Basque communities respectively (Giulianotti 1999: 12) while Cardiff City is considered to promote a Welsh national identity in the English league system (Rogers and Rookwood 2007). However, the everyday reality of collective identity construction in football runs not so much along national lines, as these are only addressed in national tournaments, but around football clubs and notions of social, cultural and local belonging. At this point it is important to note that as constructed and nostalgic as these communities and the collective identities they foster might be, they still bear meaning; they are both significant and relevant. As Revill (1993) argues, community also has to be perceived as a ‘morally charged concept’ (128), as [in] a so-called age of ‘mass society’ after the breakdown of the bonds of communality and shared purpose derived from religion and science, the morality that informs the individual in everyday life no longer has any foundations in certainty and we cease to view ourselves as bound within an ‘organic’ relationship with others and see ourselves as isolated islands of self-expression. […] Yet community still exists, if only because it is something people appear to want to believe—even if this is merely a post-industrial nostalgia for an industrial and pre-industrial past. (Revill 1993: 128–129)

Football clubs always address and are made up of more than one community, and communities differ in the way they are addressed and affected by a club. The first and most imminent is the direct club community or club-related community, including players, staff and officials but also, if permitted, members. This form of community might be described by Redfield as a ‘little community’ (1960: 4), as it features a quality of distinctiveness and a comparably small size as well as a homogenous structure and self-sufficiency (ibid.). With regard to the size of the community, in football in general we quickly reach the limits of what Redfield outlined. However, this might only pose a serious problem when dealing with upper league clubs. Redfield himself admits that such communities rarely exist (ibid. 113). More problematic is the locality,

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that is, while English company clubs have quite a closed club community, this community can reach considerable numbers in society clubs and Vereine. The alignment of decision-making with the interest of these community members is crucial in these organisations (Schimank 2005b). Another closely related community addressed by clubs is already more of an external community. It includes the fans and supporters, although the line between members and fans in terms of their community affiliation is extremely blurred to the point that it cannot be drawn at all. Both are part of the club’s football community. Discussions on the status of fans as essential stakeholders and their status as members of the community in the clubs and the game of football abound (Spiller 2012; KOS 2014; APPFG 2009; Doidge 2014). I will combine the club community and the fan community—including fans and supporters when referring to the club community—into the first of two communities relevant in the context of this volume. The second community addressed by clubs and which is of importance here is a neighbourhood conception of community; the people in their imminent local or regional environment. This, however, is the community that is usually addressed when the social value of football is mentioned. What is usually meant by this community is local civil society. And this is where the trouble begins because these urban communities are not of one mind when it comes to football. While this might not necessarily pose a problem, this urban community has a distinct feature which sets it apart from other communities: people who are not fond of football might still be directly affected in their daily lives and quality of living in the neighbourhood of a football club. While this might also be true for club communities and the football community if they actually live, for example, in hearing distance of their club grounds, this direct vicinity is identified in positive terms and not as a limitation on their perceived quality of life. This urban community is thus a crucial group for football clubs as it is local, directly affected and evidently not necessarily a supporter of or at least indifferent to the club. While clubs, depending on their size and popularity, might address further communities, such as the national or even global community, the clubs discussed in more detail in this study operate on a smaller level. Furthermore, the actual effect on those other, locally detached communities is mostly an indirect one in the end, even though some fans might feel differently. Consequently, as this study focuses on the club perspective and deals primarily with lower league clubs, and not least of all for the sake of

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simplification, only two more specific communities will be considered here: the club community and the local ‘urban community’ (Bale 2000: 91). Essentially, this study will deal with the question of how clubs address and relate to these two communities. It has to be kept in mind that with regard to the club community, two differences will be encountered when addressing German and English clubs. First, a difference in participation rights, as German clubs’ communities feature members with direct influence on the club while English clubs—usually—do not. Second, a difference in the quality of the relationship between the club and its club community, since it can be expected that more direct involvement of the club community in the decision-making at clubs shapes the way this community is perceived and addressed by the respective clubs. Politicisation and Third-Party Interests The assumption is often made that football clubs are intertwined with their local communities, and that clubs and communities have mutual and equal benefits for each other. The assumption is then often magnified, confused and perpetuated, not only by the clubs themselves, but by bodies such as local and central government agencies, and commercial organisations, all of which have wider political, corporate and social agendas to pursue. (Taylor 2004: 47)

If at all, German football has only been marginally political, at least in the narrative of the changes and transitions in the sport in the last thirty years. The untold process of the sport’s politicisation and its objective importance, however, can hardly be overestimated, as it is broad and affects all spheres of football equally: cultural, social, economic, medial, sporting and the political itself. Football has always been political, even if only by sport-political criteria. Sport politics as a discipline is comparably young, but has gained much interest in the past decade or so. As usual, Anglo-American academia was the first to dabble in this sub-discipline, German scholars followed about a decade later in adopting the field as their own (Taylor 1988; Lösche et al. 2002; Güldenpfennig 2003; Spitaler 2009). In the early 1980s, club football in Germany and England was still a comparably unpolitical affair, hardly regulated nationally or internationally. Racism, bigotry, sectarianism, and other exclusionary discriminatory

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behaviour were omnipresent on the terraces and in the clubs (King 1998). In England, this regulatory vacuum gave rise to violence, which spiralled and finally peaked in three stadium tragedies in Bradford and Heysel in 1985 and Hillsborough in 1989 which in total claimed the lives of 191 people. Club football lost its innocence; the situation could no longer be ignored by football authorities and governments. What followed was a time of increasing regulation and government interference in an attempt to get a grip on the violence that erupted weekly on the terraces (Johnes 2004: 142). Spearheaded by English football, the sport underwent a radical transformation as Thatcherite regulatory measures were implemented and football market self-regulation increased (King 1998).9 In Germany the introduction of increasingly market friendly or commercially exploitable measures emerged most notably with the DFB decision in 1999 to allow the separation of capital companies in what can be considered a smooth reform compared to the English situation. It set in motion developments of commodification and commercial exploitation common in England such as increased advertising and a stretching of the match day over the whole weekend. These developments have met increasing resistance from the German fan scenes since the mid2000s. Political pressure to increase security measures and crowd control followed in the wake of reforms at both European and international levels (Ziesche 2017). These years marked a massive change for football: in its quality, as political involvement first regulated the spectators and then regulated the market; in how it has been co-opted politically; and in the increasing number of actors involved in football. I have identified three processes of politicisation in today’s socially acceptable, ‘sanitised and gentrified’ (Cleland and Cashmore 2016: 138) football environment which have only intensified in the last ten years or so and have deeply affected football clubs at various levels: 1. Clubs are increasingly being co-opted as arbiters of social and cultural capital and pressured to ‘give back’ by political actors in exchange for public support; 2. clubs themselves have increasingly become political actors in their fulfilment of these public demands, especially in processes of ‘societisation’; and 3. football culture itself has been both internally and externally affected by processes of politicisation: fan culture has become increasingly

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politicised and clubs are being formed around political agendas, partly with the help of significant involvement by political actors. With regard to (1), the alleged function of football clubs as arbiters of all the forms of social and cultural capital has made clubs increasingly interesting for third parties. The status of the sport and football clubs has dramatically changed in politics since the 1980s. While The Sunday Times wrote in May 1985 of a ‘slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people’ (cited in King 1998: 93), a little more than a decade later, Tony Blair tried to gain political capital by identifying as a Newcastle United fan. The German Minister of the Interior, Hans-Peter Friedrich, legitimised his agenda to tighten stadium safety regulations in 2012 by citing his own experiences as a young man on the terraces at TSV 1860 München (Der Spiegel, 30/05/2012). The transformation of football in the years between Thatcher and Blair, its sanitisation and its—alleged—new classlessness made this shift possible. Football became a ‘whole new ball game’ (BskyB 1992); its societal status had changed completely. English football polished its image and became a family-friendly spectator sport. The soft politicisation of football as a forum for exploiting cultural—and maybe even political—capital has become more intense. Today, the British government even quarrels with international football associations over the display of poppy flowers on players’ jerseys during internationals leading up to Remembrance Day (Elgot 2016). More research has to be done on the issue but initial evidence suggests that at the local level, even in Germany and the UK, links between sport and commerce also extend into politics and investment in the cultural capital of a football club has direct influence on the political capital of individual politicians (Hill 2002: 24). However, the relationship also works the other way around. Football clubs are deployed as a first line of argument when it comes to social policy measures and the integration of minorities. This trend of making sports part of government policy initiatives extends to a variety of fields, the educational sector being among the most prominent. And indeed, since New Labour formed the British government in 1997, ‘football clubs have come under increasing external pressure to develop relationships with their communities’ as Taylor (2004: 51) explains. ‘[This] pressure has come from a range of agencies, [although] the main one has been central government’ (ibid.).

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This is where the politicisation processes mentioned under (2) come into play. Clubs are acting increasingly within what have become wellestablished networks of local and regional actors. Public-private partnerships bundle resources for the upkeep of sporting facilities; clubs provide space for health or adult education and take an active part in community development programmes and the implementation of local government policies. As Nichols and Taylor point out, there is indeed evidence of clubs ‘aligning some of their activity with government policy’ (2015: 124). These efforts are presumably made in order to strengthen the perceived position of the clubs as an integral and, ultimately, indispensable part of civil society and the respective local sociocultural landscape. Clubs are becoming hotspots of community interaction in fields far beyond the scope of just providing football both as an active and spectator pastime. The effects of politicisation in the third sense can be seen everywhere in football culture. These processes within fan culture might be best summed up in what has become the ‘Against Modern Football’ (AMF) movement (Numerato 2015; Webber 2015; Hill et al. 2016). This movement encapsulates the agenda of supporters who oppose the neo-liberal market economics of what they call ‘modern’ football. Yet clubs which considered themselves political or where supporters were political existed already before this movement crystallised around the turn of the century. Italian football is a prime example, as the Ultra scene has been highly ideological and political at least since the 1960s (Podaliri and Balestri 1998; Doidge 2013; Numerato 2015). The Ultra movement spread into other national leagues in the 1990s and has remained political even if it tended to be focused primarily on sport politics, as in the German case (Pilz and Wölki-Schumacher 2010). Political reactions to the growth of a political consciousness among football fans have been different in Germany and England. While British governments and parties, regardless of their ideological affiliation, have sought to support fan involvement in clubs in the past fifteen years, Germany’s political actors have rather sought to pressure clubs to better control their politicised fan scenes citing the myth that German football has always been and should thus remain apolitical. However, it is not the German government alone that would like to see a separation of sport and politics. While fans can be seen as the forefront of cultural politicisation processes in football, it is still especially fans who claim that football and politics should not be mixed, despite the political nature of fandom as such (Sandvoss 2003: 50–52). There are a number of reasons for this, one probably being the fact that the

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sport should develop its identification potential to the maximum, which cannot be realised when differences in political opinion are permitted. It stands to reason that fan scenes are internally highly differentiated and not all groups share the same politics, even if they are purely sport-political. Moreover, as football politics take place outside the realm of traditional political discourse, the political might not be identified as such and cannot be met using the means of these traditional political discourses. Communitisation and Societisation—The Sociocultural ‘Dual Function’ of Football Clubs In Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, (transl. Community and Society), Ferdinand Tönnies describes the bonds between individuals as ‘organic’ within communities and ‘mechanic’ within society and thus defines his criteria for a differentiation between both forms of collectives. Community is thus specified as a ‘real’ and organic bond, whereas society is an ‘ideal’ and mechanical bond: The relationship itself, and the social bond that stems from it, may be conceived either as having real organic life, and that is the essence of Community [Gemeinschaft ]; or else as a purely mechanical construction, existing in the mind, and that is what we think of as Society [Gesellschaft ]. (2001 [1887]: 17)

At the basis of his argument he defines community as a connection (Zusammenschluss ) of individuals which is characterised by personal bonds—e.g. families or small village communities. Society, on the other hand, is defined as the connection of individuals which have no or merely coincidental personal motivations. Thus, society is grounded on a mutual, abstract and ideal catalogue of the values of its members (Lichtblau 2000: 426–427). Tönnies’—and later Max Weber’s—prototypical differentiation has been developed further, the basic differentiation between community and society has remained—as has the revelation that most social connections are rooted in both spheres (Weber 1956 [1921/1922]: 29–30).10 In a wider conception of these terms, the learning and understanding of societal principles and paradigms by the individual, such as the achievement principle, the democratic principle or the gentlemen ideal, can also be grasped in them. Figuratively, the conveying of economic principles or

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societal stratification for example, class conceptions, could be subsumed under a process of societisation—which also takes place within sport clubs. Following Simmel, any contact between two or more individuals would have to be regarded as some form of societisation, the respective motives and interests of those interacting bear no relevance (Lichtblau 2000: 427– 428). I do not see ‘communitisation’ (Vergemeinschaftung ) in opposition or, alternately, subordinate to societisation. Rather, I would prefer to see them as complementary. The reason for this is that Tönnies’ differentiation puts the finger on a crucial and compelling point inherent in late modernity: a difference in the ‘quality of content’ of the two processes which I see to be a ‘particular vs universal’ differentiation.11 In the same vein as societisation, communitisation can be understood as both the creation of communities and the learning, or mediation of its shared communal relationships, symbols and codes. The question inevitably arises at what point—and how this point is measured— processes of societisation transition into processes of communitisation and vice versa. The defining factor should in my mind be the degree of universality of the mediated principle or the degree of its applicability in the framework of society as a whole. Thus, ‘communitisation’ is more compartmentalised and situated deeper in a cultural context while ‘societisation’ is grounded more in the political and social sciences. Communitising processes are therefore related to the creation of symbols, codes and particular anchors for identity and community whereas societising processes are related to the mediation of universal, everyday practices and forms of knowledge. These processes are of course idealtypical, analytical ones and not empirically distinct and thus, usually overlap and occur simultaneously with the dominance of one or the other. Differentiating between these two terms and their inherent processes is especially fruitful when examining the English case, where the term ‘community’ in its various levels of differentiation is omnipresent and central to club policies and development programmes. That said, a stringent distinction and application of these processes is prudent, especially since, as opposed to the English term ‘society’, which has its equivalent in the German term Gesellschaft, the meaning and use of the term ‘community’ is much more diffuse and has—to further complicate matters—experienced a renaissance and thus been hollowed out as a political catchall. The anglicism ‘community’ has even emerged in the German-speaking world, where the idea and use of Gemeinschaft is also en vogue. That community has become the term to identify this nebulous utopia is arguably due

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to its elusiveness and, hence, greater applicability. Zygmunt Bauman sees this renaissance in the loss of meaning of traditional connections—i.e. communities—in the late or late-modern era: In short, ‘community’ stands for the kind of world which is not, regrettably, available to us but which we would dearly wish to inhabit and which we hope to repossess. […] ‘Community’ is nowadays another name for paradise lost—but one to which we dearly hope to return and so we feverishly seek the roads that may bring us there. (Bauman 2001: 12)

Football clubs are said to serve this longing for community. They create community—this is their communitisation role, their traditional role. More recently, though, football clubs have also served as projection screens for a wide array of other societal values and norms, and are thus increasingly—and probably unwillingly—fulfilling more and more functions of societisation. Societisation and Communitisation in Practice While football clubs mainly served communitisation functions in the past, that is, as a capsule for the formation of particular social and cultural identities, widespread changes within football culture have led to football clubs taking up a second societal role in their functions as truly societyforming institutions. They have been prompted, largely by political or third-party actors, to engage in fields of social work, adult education and the like. This shift transforms the status of these clubs within the state, market and private life, changing the positioning of all of these institutions within their respective societal frameworks. Thus, while traditional anchor points have been lost—the coal mines have closed and heavy industry has made way for the service sector—football clubs have been gifted with new anchor points and a new function as social actors. The difference—and the problem—is, that while they previously had and continue to have a communitisation function, they are now expected additionally to take on what is more of a societisation role. They are, on the one hand, insufficiently equipped for this new role—the latter calls for inclusion while the former tended more to exclusion—and, especially in the English case, accept it only reluctantly.

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While the two functions might even be working in opposite directions, I argue that it is exactly this ambivalent—and sometimes contradictory— double role that football clubs in England and Germany play in society today. It is this ambivalence that makes football clubs unique among such social organisations and what contributes to their special quality. Taken together, the following working hypothesis can be formulated: the wide-ranging transformations within football culture since the beginning of the 1990s have affected clubs and their communities on all levels of the football pyramid and have left the institution of football clubs in a state of crisis which is expressed on three levels, namely, the economic, cultural and social. In order to react to these crises, clubs seek to find adaptive strategies which address the different levels of the crisis. However, the field of actors within football has changed dramatically within the past twenty-five years or so. The changed nature of football culture and its achieved appeal has led to an increasing third-party interest in the sport, mainly of economic and political origin. These influences emphasise the societisation function of football clubs over their communitisation function when, in fact, there cannot be one without the other as a strong interdependency between the two exists. The adaptive strategies of clubs in both countries are driven by this tendency. The impact of third-party influence is far more visible below the topflight of the respective league pyramids, as clubs are in a greater conflict of interest in the allocation of resources. In this process, clubs struggle to create alternative anchoring points for the creation of specific identities. Institutional mimicry and path dependency in turn lead to an increasing homogenisation of football club structures and culture. Alternatives to this ‘general rule’ can be found in the leagues even further below. Here, a return to the communitisation function is increasingly practised in the form of new, alternative and supporter/community-owned football clubs which themselves constitute a reaction to the crisis.

Notes 1. I will not address the conflicts and the eventual split between amateur and professional sports at any length here. Comprehensive studies and volumes on this issue have been published by Porter (2008), Porter and Wagg (2008) and Curry and Dunning (2015), among others. 2. Ward (2013) follows Franck’s (2010) differentiation between three types: members association, limited company and listed limited company—i.e.

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companies registered in stock exchange. While this makes sense from an economic point of view, the four-model differentiation presented here serves the purpose of this study much better as it places stronger emphasis on social and cultural organisational characteristics. Also, Franck’s (2010) typology disregards what I call the Verein+ X configuration completely. 3. In fact, the widespread presence of members associations in all fields has manifested itself in German language and culture. For example, the term Vereinsmeier is a derogatory term for a person who is overenthusiastic in their involvement in members associations while Vereinsmeierei refers to the dominance of bureaucracy and regulation over an organisation’s actual agenda. 4. Three periods in the gymnastics club movement can be identified: the first stretches from the Napoleonic Wars to the founding of the gymnastics movement under Friedrich Ludwig Jahn until what is known in German history as Vormärz—the years leading up to the revolution of 1848. During the Revolution of 1848, almost two-thirds of the founded clubs were dissolved as an anti-revolutionary measure as they often incorporated a political, national-liberal, and sometimes also bourgeois ethos. The second phase began in the 1860s and was fostered by a more liberal political climate which allowed the founding of Turnvereine (gymnastics clubs). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, English sports became increasingly popular in continental Europe, and the first so called Turnund Sportvereine (gymnastics and sport clubs) were founded and some gymnastics clubs introduced additional branches for sports. The increasing popularity of sports led to conflicts between the sport associations and the gymnastics movement, especially over the game of football—which was in conflict with the disciplined and body-enhancing ethos of gymnastics—and the concept of sports as being winner-oriented. Eventually the sport movement overtook the gymnastics movement, and the vast number of clubs founded around the turn of the century in a third phase were founded as sport clubs (Krüger 2013; Nagel 2006; Hesse-Lichtenberger 2003). Krüger (2004) sees a ‘gymnastisation’ (134) in the nationalisation process of the game during the Weimar Republic and a ‘Germanisation’ (ibid.) during the Third Reich shaped by an aggressive nationalist and Germanic ideology. While this ideology was abandoned after World War II, Krüger suggests that this transformation has not necessarily reached the deeper layers of the German habitus (ibid.). 5. The number of sport clubs in Germany is actually growing, presumably due to an increased differentiation of interests; and while the average number of members per club is sinking, overall membership numbers in the national umbrella organisation, DOSB, remain constant (DOSB 2016; Mihm 2013). For football clubs, the trend is slightly different: while

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6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

total membership numbers are increasing—from 6.8 million in 2012 to 7 million in 2016—the total number of clubs has decreased, from 25,641 in 2012 to 25,075 in 2016, albeit marginally (DFB 2012, 2016). This is probably due to the most part to the merging of two or more very small clubs into larger entities. I will not embark on a historic description of the coming to age of football as a popular game. The core dates are widely known: after a period of being played in public schools and increasingly catching on in wide parts of society, the FA codified the first football rules in 1863, making England the birthplace of modern football. This led to a split between the handling and the foot-only code, which eventually resulted in the differentiation between association football—and the coining of the American English term ‘soccer’—and rugby, whose name originates from the school in Rugby. At the time that the FA was founded only a small number of football clubs existed in the country. The founding of the FA, the organising of the sport, unifying of the rules and organising of competitions was a watershed for the founding of football clubs (Eisenberg 2004: 46; see also Wagg 1984; Fishwick 1989; Tranter 1998; Kelly 2005; Porter 2008). An analysis of Facebook ‘Likes’ and followers of English Premier League Clubs by FourFourTwo in season 2016/2017 revealed that the majority of the ‘fans’ of only two clubs were in the UK (MacGregor 2017). While it remains arguable what kind of fandom is represented by Facebook ‘Likes’, it does reveal the global impact and the global makeup of the audience of the top European clubs. Continuing this thought, football clubs might also count as providers of—or, in fact, be constituted themselves as—‘irreducibly social goods’ (Taylor 1990) insofar as their use is not merely reducible to the individual level but always remains linked to the social, that is, collective, beneficiary effect. For example: being a fan has no meaning if I am the only fan and cannot identify with others who place the same or at least a similar meaning to the status of being a fan and accrediting some significance and importance to it within a certain system of meaning. The same is true for club members. The main elements of this transformation were the conversion of stadiums to all-seater stadiums as well as the modernisation of the stadiums according to the recommendations of the Taylor Report and the consequent Football Spectators Act (1989), stricter controls of fans, a ban on alcohol as well as CCTV and stewarding measures, the foundation of the Premier League as the result of a contract with BskyB and, in turn, the commodification process and re-definition of fans as customers. As opposed to Tönnies and Weber, Georg Simmel considers the individual to be an antagonist to society and interrelations between society

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and the individual—and not one or the other—to being the real—or core—field of sociological research interest (Simmel 1983 [1908]: 8–9). Georg Simmel defines the interrelations and sub-processes between individuals and groups of individuals as Vergesellschaftung (sociation) (ibid. 7). 11. This qualitative—but by no means normative—graduation does not correspond to Simmel’s perception but was indeed continued by Max Weber (Weber 1956 [1921/1922]; Lichtblau 2000: 428–429). Again, as opposed to Weber, I do not intend to propose an action-centred differentiation between the universal—communitisation—and a specific—societisation—action-related conception of the term but rather a differentiation in terms of its characteristics.

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A Threefold Dilemma of Legitimacy

While nobody would seriously disagree that since it came into being, football has indeed changed over the course of time; most would also agree that it has transformed particularly rapidly in the past thirty years or so. While the differences in the core of the sport might seem only marginal—the rules of the game have remained almost unchanged since their codification in 1863—the sphere around the action on the pitch has certainly transformed a great deal. The following chapter is devoted to shedding light on some aspects of this latter thirty-year long process so as to illustrate the current state of the game. This transformation has had tremendous effects on various levels and has sustainably stressed relations between clubs and their communities to the point where, in some cases, the ‘umbilical cord’ (Wagg 2004: 5) between the two seems to be ruptured. In the following I will argue that while these transformations started at the top level, they have meanwhile reached the leagues below and have an even more devastating effect on the clubs in these leagues. In this chapter, the crisis of legitimacy discussed in the previous chapter is split into three sub-crises. These three states of crisis postulated and assessed in the following aspects—economical, cultural and socialpolitical—are perhaps not the only ones, and they are definitely not to be seen exclusive to one another. Quite the opposite: they are largely intersecting and highly interdependent processes. While as such they are empirically linked, their separation serves analytical purposes. Also, these

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are terms broad enough to encompass different dimensions of the overarching crisis of legitimacy the football club as such is facing. At the same time, in every respective dimension, issues of legitimacy are seen to be at the core, always in light of club-community relations. While different terms could have been chosen to describe similar issues, there are some arguments which speak for those which have been addressed here and for the manner in which they have been analytically separated, as I will clarify in the following. The first chapter deals with the economic crisis and the struggle for resources that clubs face. I deem it useful to start with this crisis as its effects can be traced and made visible quite easily. Also, the processes connected to it provide a quantifiable basis for further argumentation. The second crisis is termed the cultural crisis and, as the name suggests, expands the dilemma clubs find themselves on a cultural level. It is concerned with the often proclaimed ‘rupture’ between clubs and their direct communities as well as the cultural value bestowed on football clubs in general, and lower league clubs especially. This cultural crisis debate is also easily traceable. However, a certain degree of abstraction is needed as the discussion moves away from a mere facts-and-figures demonstration towards a discussion on systems of meaning and the value accredited to them. Third and finally the so called social crisis will be dealt with, which I address last because it is, as I will argue, a direct result of the former two. The issues regarding the economics and finances and the parallel ‘losing touch’ with communities has alerted an array of actors which have increasingly moved into the field in order to regulate and exploit the purported benefits that football clubs provide, that is, the ‘good’ that football clubs can do. It is this social dimension of football clubs which has been addressed increasingly in a discourse on the social value of sport. Within this discourse, though, the institution of the football club—and especially its alleged characteristic as a social institution—is questioned. It is the sum of these three crises and the results of the respective chapters from which I will eventually draw an interim conclusion regarding the issues of legitimisation and the areas of conflict in the fulfilment of their institutionalist purpose as football clubs. As a general remark, in the following I will have to recur to processes at the top in order to illustrate some causes for effects appearing on levels below. The empirical evidence for many of the arguments made in this chapter was collected during research on English and German lower league football clubs between October 2012 and December 2019. Due

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to the different levels of divisional break-up and thus the huge difference between the number of teams at the respective levels between both systems (see Chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”), data collection was not conducted equally for every aspect. For example, while cases of clubs going into administration structures were traced for all clubs which have played at least at level five of their respective league pyramid, data collection on stadium ownership could only be conducted partially at level four and five of the German system as the number of clubs vastly increases at these levels. The respective extent of the investigation and the matter of data collection and calculation are flagged where necessary. Data collection itself consisted of the analysis of media coverage and the websites of football clubs for historical records as well as the use of football databases. Surprisingly, especially in Germany, there is little to no systematic data available on cases of administration or the separation of club structures, especially below the professional level. Thus, data collection also included the analysis of those few available sources, blogs of football commentators and enthusiasts among them, and verifying this data with my own findings as well as official records. In some cases, remaining ambiguities were cleared up via email or telephone correspondence. Developments after December 2019 could not be considered systematically. While I have tried to achieve the highest degree of accuracy for the data collected, sources sometimes provided ambivalent numbers. In such cases I then decided based on best knowledge—e.g. quality of the source—or took the average between multiple sources. Currency conversions are put in brackets using the exchange ratio of the time of the respective publication.

Reference Wagg, S. (2004). Fat city? British football and the politics of social exclusion at the turn of the twenty-first century. In S. Wagg (Ed.), British Football and Social Exclusion (pp. 1–25). Oxon and New York: Routledge.

Economic Crisis: Number Games

The first crisis to be outlined is what I call the economic crisis and deals with the peculiar situation of lower league football clubs with regard to finances and resource allocation. Generally speaking, all football clubs find themselves in a constant struggle for adequate resources. These may be financial—to which, ultimately, they can usually be reduced—but clubs may also struggle for cultural or social resources. All of these resources are limited. Particularly for lower league clubs, the scarcity of these external resources is the greatest limiting factor for club development. Furthermore, it is not just vital to accumulate these resources but also to bind some of them on a long-term basis, as in the case of volunteers and members. The economic efficiency or the financial value of voluntary work is hard to calculate. However, Breuer and Feiler assumed that in German sports clubs, voluntary work at the board level alone generates an added value of £2.1 bn (e2.5 bn) annually (2013: 71). In England, the NGB Sport England calculated the time contributed by sports volunteers as a whole adding to about £14 bn (Sport England 2003: 7). In the following I will make the argument that lower league clubs are affected significantly by the processes happening at the top. Again, as mentioned in the chapters before, it is of paramount importance to be aware of the potential drainage factors from above, that is, the global football sphere and the respective effects on the lower leagues. The chapter starts with a depiction of the revenue and income stream situation and © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_3

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how the increase in financial means at the top shapes the game in the leagues below. The chapter then moves on to the negative effects of the framework outlined in the first section, namely the constant, quite realistic threat of insolvency with which clubs in lower leagues are confronted. At the same time, this section also points towards the emotional capital clubs are able to generate when it comes to the ordeals that followers and members are willing to take upon themselves in order to save their clubs from bankruptcy and liquidation.

Wages, Revenues and Foreign Capital Investments When Deloitte published their annual financial analysis of Europe’s top leagues in 2013, they proposed a new layout. The standard title ‘Annual Review of Football Finance’ was preceded by the words ‘Turn on, tune in, turnover’ (Deloitte 2013) which were arranged below a picture of a flat-screen TV—a little tongue-in-cheek reference to the enormous contribution of TV rights to the turnover of PL football. In 2014, the report’s title page read ‘A Premium Blend’ (Deloitte 2014) and was accompanied by a handful of coffee beans. This was again a reference to the top performance of the Premier League. In 2015, the word ‘Revolution’ (Deloitte 2015) raised expectations for something spectacular to have happened, yet this was accompanied by a picture of a turntable and thus seemed to simply deliver the message ‘and it goes on and on’. In 2016, however, something odd struck the eye. Again, the ‘theme’ of the report consisted of just a single word: ‘Reboot’ (Deloitte 2016). This time, the accompanying image was inconclusive, depicting a football behind the pixels of a TV screen. Irrespective of what the image’s message was intended to be, several interpretations are possible. The word implied that something seems to have changed within football: this year— or rather, last year, as the report analysed 2015—it is all different. The report announced that it was now in its twenty-fifth edition and had thus kept track of ‘a period of unprecedented change and development across the global game’ (ibid.: 2). The PL, which the report claims was perhaps most affected by these transitions, stood before its twenty-fifth anniversary season. The report continued about the incredible pace in revenue growth English football had achieved in its—almost—twenty-five years of existence and that in 2015, China had finally entered the list of international owners of a PL club (ibid.). However, it did not pick up the word ‘reboot’ again in the entire text. Thus it has to be assumed that ‘reboot’

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simply refers to the introduction of the PL almost twenty-five years ago and the reboot this implied for English—and meanwhile also European— football. The 2017 report stated that the—English—game was ‘ahead of the curve’ (Deloitte 2017), the 2018 edition of the Deloitte report was titled ‘Roar Power’ (Deloitte 2018) featuring a pictogram of a lion’s head, the emblem of the PL, thus heralding the continued, unrivalled financial dominance of the Premier League in European football. Indeed, every Deloitte report and the way it is presented also tells a particular story about the English top level. What the 2016 report did—despite raising unfulfilled expectations— was to include for the first time a more detailed account of the state of the EFL clubs in relation to the PL achievements. It became quite clear that at this level the financial imbalances between the leagues could only be kept in check because of so-called parachute payments handed down as compensation for relegation from the Premier League (Deloitte 2016: 17, 24). While the PL clubs need to keep their books in order so as not to violate the financial fair play regulations set by UEFA and adapted by the PL as well as the EFL for the 2013/2014 season, the situation in the lower leagues still seems to remain the same or has improved only slightly (ibid.: 26). Negative income calculations are still common practice and tolerated if guarantees for improvement are given. The largest post on the balance sheets of top league clubs is players’ wages. As becomes evidently clear from looking at the data provided by Deloitte, it is the wage costs that are pressuring lower league clubs the most too. While this is perhaps unsurprising, a closer look shows that lower league clubs suffer even more from the immense weight of players’ wages and have—in turn—fewer revenue streams at hand to compensate this burden. In the Championship—second tier—99% of revenue was swallowed up by wages in 2015. This was a decrease from the 106% in 2014, but wage costs were still increasing overall. Admittedly, at this level, the figure is skewed by parachute payments and the wage costs of the relegated clubs from the PL. Leaving the biggest spender in the 2016/2017 season, Newcastle United, aside, the combined wages/revenue ratio of the other twenty-three clubs was still 95% (Deloitte 2018: 25). In League 1—third tier—the wage-revenue ratio increased between 2013 and 2018 by 2%, from 84 to 86%, despite an overall decrease in wage costs. In League 2, conversely, it fell by 2%, from 74 to 72%, despite an overall increase in wage costs. A review of the Deloitte reports from 2013 to 2018 shows

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that the wage-revenue ratio in the three levels of the Football League remains rather constant, averaging to around 100% in the Championship, 85% in League 1 and 72% in League 2 with only marginal changes between the seasons. This is still above the 70% threshold suggested by UEFA for sustainability monitoring and a massive burden compared to the PL where the figure fell from 63% in 2015 to 55% in 2017. Even more so, if compared to German clubs, where in the first Bundesliga the ratio was 52% in 2015, rising slightly to 53% in 2017 (DFL 2018: 53). In the second Bundesliga the ratio remained quite constant at 44% in the 2016/17 season (ibid.: 41) and at the third level it was also quite constant at 37% (DFB 2017: 62). Despite this seemingly moderate figure, the situation in the 3. Liga is precarious. Club officials have stated repeatedly that being part of the 3. Liga for too long is an extreme financial burden, even calling it a ‘bust-league’ (Held 2018, orig. Pleiteliga), since revenues from league marketing are just too small compared to the high expenses for players and the strict licensing restrictions.1 For some time, the DFB claimed the numbers were in fact improving. And indeed, season reports showed a levelling of the costs in 2014/2015 (DFB 2016: 65). However, the financial overall performance of the league varies significantly depending on the DFB-Cup performance of individual teams, which influences the TV licensing rights income for the league as a whole. This also applies to the general financial turnover, which has been positively influenced by individual clubs. In the two seasons with positive results (2013/2014 and 2016/2017), some of the clubs gained substantial additional revenue only due to the waiving of debts by creditors (ibid.: 61). In the 2015/2016 season, an average positive turnover margin of roughly e230,000 (£195,000) per club (e8.86 m average revenue to e8.63 m average expenses, DFB 2016) can hardly be regarded as a solid basis. Indeed, in 2014/2015 only six out of seventeen clubs—reserve teams not included—had a positive balance sheet (Sponsors 16 November 2016). This alarming figure dropped even further with the report for the 2017/2018 season, which showed a positive balance sheet for only four out of nineteen regular clubs, again not considering the reserve team (DFB 2018: 80). In the same season, the league also had the second highest shortfall since its founding. It can only be regarded as bitter cynicism that the page in the report showing those numbers also featured the slogan ‘who can make it here can make it anywhere’ (ibid.).

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Since TV money is limited, gate revenues are far more important to lower league clubs than they are to the clubs at the top level. The average attendance for a German 3. Liga match in the 2015/2016 season was approximately 7000 equal to an average utilisation of stadium capacity of roughly 47% (Kicker 16 April 2016). While the league had made improvements to its overall financial performance, the financial gap to the second BL increased constantly since the 2009/2010 season (DFB 2016: 57). The English League 1 is on a comparable level with 7200 average visitors in the 2015/2016 season and a utilisation rate of 46% (Deloitte 2016: 30). Depending on the teams’ relegating and promoting, this number goes up and down a few per cent but remained relatively stable at around 48% in the timeframe of my study. In the German fourth tier, clubs are unable to operate a balanced budget over a longer period, or if they are, then only with the help of a patron who backs the club (Fritsch 2010). These investments also play a huge role in English lower league football, as will be discussed in the following.

Foreign Investments In the wake of the huge revenues from TV licensing rights in its top division, England’s football clubs have increasingly attracted foreign investors. Foreign ownership and the importance of foreign capital investments in the PL have been described as problematic for years (Bi 2015; Nauright and Ramfjord 2010; Hamil et al. 2010). In this regard, too, developments below the topflight are chronically under-studied. But as the big clubs have either already been bought, are not for sale or just too expensive, investors look at the leagues below in the hope of buying a smaller team, building it up and selling it later for a profit, as Chris Turner, then CEO at Chesterfield FC, points out: [I]f I buy a club in the Championship for 20 million pounds, knowing that it’s got a good possibility of getting promoted at some stage to the Premiership, my 20 million could be worth 100 million. So by me investing in that club, running it for three, four years, probably costing me 45 million pounds, I’m going to make 55-million-pound profit in four years. (Interview Turner 2014)

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The most recent example of such a scenario is Leicester City which, bought in 2010 by recently deceased Thai investor Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha as a bottom-end Championship—second tier—club, was promoted in 2013/2014 and went on to win the PL in 2016 and play in the CL in the 2016/2017 season (Williams 2016). Certainly, this line of thinking will continue down the leagues with investors searching for lucrative investments.2 While in the 2016/2017 season only six Premier League clubs were without a substantial foreign investor among their owners,3 half the Championship clubs were still in ‘British hands’.4 Down in League 1, seven of twenty-two clubs were foreign-owned, whereas in League 2 foreign investment is considerably lower, with the only ones being Italian-owned Leyton Orient and Blackpool FC, which had a Latvian owner holding 25% of the shares. Around a fifth of all third and fourth tier clubs are foreign-owned. With regard to the timeframe for capital investment in the lower league clubs, it has become apparent that these clubs might increasingly become targeted for capital investment in the years to come. This is due to the aforementioned fact that the PL is quite plainly sold out and the profits that promotion to the PL promises. This is one of the cultural capital effects mentioned in chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations” which turns the ownership of a club into something like owning a painting, a status-improving accessory. This effect, this status of ownership, is evidently quite intriguing to investors of different origins. It also attracts people who would pursue their dubious intentions not always by legal means (Williams 2016). This was expressed quite well by Judge John Burgess, who sentenced Darren Brown, former owner of Chesterfield FC, for fraud: You were attracted by the glamour of owning a football club but were prepared to use dishonest means to obtain that glamour. You are an ambitious, plausible and persuasive man. But you have flouted common sense in matters of good accounting and book-keeping. You knew you would have to resort to dishonesty, and that was a disaster for everyone at the club. (cited in Britten 2005)

There seems to be even more concern that foreign investments might not be made out of charitable reasons alone. While acknowledging that there is little protest among fans as long as foreign investment proves successful, Williams expresses concern that foreign ownership in the event

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of failure might have even more critical consequences when considering the ignorance fans feel they are being treated with if things do not go as smoothly as in the case of Leicester or Manchester City: Massimo Cellino at Leeds United, Fawaz al-Hasawi at Nottingham Forest and Roland Duchâtelet at Charlton Athletic have enraged their supporters with quixotic and sometimes downright ignorant decisions and have demonstrated little sense of responsibility towards the stewardship of historic and much cherished institutions. […] [I]n a wider and more profound sense the ownership of clubs rooted in their communities by foreign entities, whether as investment vehicles or trophy purchases, may be having the effect of disengaging the emotions of the domestic football fan base from the game as a whole. In the phrase currently fashionable in political debate, it is ‘hollowing out’ the feeling that fans have for their sport. (Williams 2016)

Indeed, foreign investment strategies sometimes seem to follow a larger agenda. In the West Midlands region, over a timespan of a few months in 2016, four clubs in and around Birmingham, no more than twelve miles apart from each other, became Chinese-owned.5 Again Williams: What is to be made of the situation in the West Midlands, a virtual petri dish for the ownership of English football clubs by Chinese businessmen, with Guochuan Lai at West Brom, Paul Suen Cho Hung at Birmingham City, Tony Xia at Aston Villa and Guo Guangchang at Wolves? If any of those owners were to bring real success to their clubs, they would receive the grateful adoration of their season-ticket holders. But the suspicion that they are not in it simply for the pleasure of owning a football club, or even for the local prestige that motivated the chairmen of earlier eras, is seeping like a slow-acting poison into the body of the league. (Williams 2016)

Still, the perceived distrust in foreign investors is quite surprising as, clearly, there are as many examples of successful and unsuccessful foreign ownership ventures as there are of domestic ownerships. To my knowledge, there is no data suggesting that home ownership is in any way more financially beneficial for these clubs. However, the evidence does show that foreign ownership certainly does not always bring the desired salvation. In order to meet the need to check potential owners for their suitability and following a number of fraud cases at English clubs, Chesterfield FC

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among the more prominent ones, the FL introduced the Fit and Proper Person Test (FPPT) in 2004, with the PL following the example shortly after. The test was initially designed to bar anybody with a criminal record from ownership. While the FA’s Financial Advisory Committee which included PL and FL representatives had already developed an FPPT in 2003, FL and PL decided to introduce their own versions leaving the FA version to be applied to the Football Conference (Walters and Hamil 2013: 136). In 2008, then chairman of the FA, Lord David Triesman called for a review and essentially a widening of the scope of the test in the wake of the huge indebtedness of English football clubs in an attempt to make ownership more transparent as the FPPT ‘does not do the job sufficiently robustly’ (qtd. in Hamil and Walters 2010: 355). The call for stronger financial scrutiny of potential club owners and stronger financial regulation was backed by Andy Burnham, then Secretary of State for Culture, Media &Sport (ibid.). The test needs to be taken by anybody who wants to take over a club, runs a football club or holds 30% or more of a club’s shares and has been rebranded as the Owner’s and Directors’ test in 2011. While some individuals have failed the test since its introduction—all of those cases which became public where related to takeovers or directors of lower league clubs—the practical effect of the test and its ability to safeguard clubs is still heavily debated.

TV Money As has been alluded to earlier in this chapter, the rise in foreign ownership is largely due to the additional money the PL has received for TV broadcasting rights, which was one of the reasons for founding it in the first place (King 1998). The financial value of domestic broadcasting rights per PL match has increased 16-fold within a time span of twenty years. The highest increase of around £4.6 m (55.4%) happened in the bidding round in 2016 at a time when commentators felt that the price margin had reached its peak and would not and could not increase much further.6 Commentators deemed this increase to be a ‘game changer’ and saw it giving the PL ‘added appeal for overseas investors’ (Cave and Miller 2016).7 Figure 1 shows the development in the domestic broadcasting value of a single PL live match through the eight bidding rounds since the PL’s inauguration in 1992. The deal for the contract period 2019–2022

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Fig. 1 Development of the value of domestic broadcasting rights per Premier League live match, 1992–2022 (Source Own figures compiled on the basis of own calculations from the data drawn from Gibson (2015) and Conn (2018). Varying match numbers included in the respective contracts as well as varying contract durations have been considered in the calculation)

sold for less than the previous package, thus putting an end to the continuous increase since 2007. In this latest bidding round, Amazon entered the competition and ended the duopoly of Sky and BT, perhaps altering the broadcasting landscape for years to come. With customers required to pay around £1000 for access to all PL match broadcasts in a season, questions of access to football come into play too. All seven match-packages sold for £4.64 bn, roughly £500 m less than the previous deal. With an increase in matches sold from 168 to 200 per season, marking the highest number ever sold, the value of individual live matches slumped even more than the overall figure would suggest. In Germany, by contrast, foreign ownership is technically nonexistent—due to the 50+1 rule. Foreign investment, on the other hand, has become increasingly interesting for clubs in search of equity (Merkel 2012), despite some officials being sceptical about foreign capital investments. Thus, the DFB and clubs are constantly seeking ways to increase

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the attractiveness of German club structures for investors, especially since pressure to abandon the 50+1 rule has been increasing. The aforementioned separation of teams into companies as one of these measures will be discussed in the following chapter. Concerning the rules of ownership, the DFB and DFL made further crucial concessions to licensing rules in 2011 by allowing investors with twenty years of ‘continued and considerable support’ (DFL 2013: 9) to buy the majority of voting shares in the separated companies (Ashelm 2011). This opened the clubs to future investor buyouts and further undermined the 50+1 rule, which some have considered the key mechanism providing for German football’s comparable stability (Lammert et al. 2009). Before 2011 this exemption was only possible if the investor in question had been supporting the club for twenty years and had started prior to 1 January 1999.8 At the first BL club Hoffenheim, investor Dietmar Hopp made use of this new rule in July 2015; Martin Kind at Hannover 96, who initiated the rule change by filing a lawsuit in the DFB/DFL Court of Arbitration, attempted to do the same in early 2018 but his bid was refuted by the DFL. The combination of these measures and constantly increasing TV revenue shifts the Bundesliga clubs increasingly into the focus of foreign investors. The example of TSV 1860 München shows that the difference between Germany and England in terms of foreign ownership might not be as explicit in reality as it should be in theory. Jordan businessman Hasan Ismaik solved the then second tier club’s financial troubles in 2011 when he acquired 60% of the shares in the separated company. Despite the fulfilment of the 50+1 rule, as Ismaik holds just 49% of the voting rights, he has significant power and has repeatedly threatened to withdraw his capital if decision making runs against his interests. This has led to constant quarrels with the club (Kellner 2013; Schäflein and Schneider 2016, 2017). Thus, in Germany, the classic, mutual-ownership-based Verein structure has been increasingly hollowed out in order to make way for better investment possibilities, and classic Vereine have been increasingly put under pressure by organisations with a strong entrepreneurial, profit-maximizing approach. This, of course, also has an effect on the competitive balance in lower leagues. The option to separate companies makes lower league clubs also more attractive for foreign investment, as the example of Carl-Zeiss Jena shows. The then second BL club separated its professional structures in 2007. In 2013, meanwhile playing in the fourth tier, Roland Duchâtalet, Belgian investor and interim owner of

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various clubs in Europe, bought—after members voted to permit it—49% of the capital company. As Ismaik at 1860 München, Duchâtalet seems to use his continued and life-sustaining financial investment as leverage to influence club politics in his favour (MDR, 24 August 2016). The issue of the effect of club separations will be discussed thoroughly in chapter “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”. While the Bundesliga has continuously achieved record revenues in recent years, the gap to the PL is still significant, leading the DFL and the top clubs to contemplate options for making the league more attractive via broadcasting-friendly measures. Especially after the record £5.14 bn (e6.9 bn) success for the PL in 2015, Christian Seifert, then CEO of the DFL, announced that ‘unpopular measures’ (cited in SID 2015) would be taken in order to achieve a better deal for the two Bundesliga leagues in the 2016 bidding round (Paul and Teevs 2015).9 Indeed, a record sum was paid here as well, with the winning bidder Sky paying 80% more than for the last deal, the league association achieving a total increase of 85% in revenue. Then again with a total £3.98 bn (e4.64 bn) from two bidders for a four-year deal including all first and second BL matches (Sweney 2016)10 the gap is still very wide and, contrary to the opinion of some commentators, far from being closed (Uersfeld 2016). At £2.96 m per match, the price for the broadcasting rights of a live match is indeed considerably lower—in fact, around two and a half times lower—than compared to the PL. Still, this development is a significant and notable increase compared to the previous contract period, when the DFL increased the net worth of their TV rights by 52% and broadcasting rights for a BL live match jumped from £1.05 m to £1.60 m. For the 2018/2019 season, German viewers would be required to pay around £550 to watch all BL matches on TV, around half the amount required to be paid by British TV viewers for access to full PL live match coverage. Figure 2 shows the development of German TV revenue since 1996. The first larger increase in 2000 is when the Kirch Media Group bought the rights for their Pay TV division, Premiere. Kirch Media went insolvent in 2002, which led to a slump in revenues when the e350 m per season for the period from 2000 to 2004 could not be paid in full. The increase in 2006 is due to yet another Pay TV provider, Arena. Sky acquired the exclusive rights beginning with the 2009/2010 season, and since then the value has increased vastly, as the figures show. Interestingly, the revenue curves for the PL and BL are remarkably similar to one another with slumps and increases appearing around

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1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

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Fig. 2 Development of the value of domestic broadcasting rights per season in £ million for first and second BL, 1996–2021 (Source Own figures compiled on the basis of own calculations from the data drawn from Kruse and Quizau [2003], SID [2008] and Wallrodt [2012], Die Welt 09 June 2016)

the same points. However, the actual difference in value is significantly lower in Germany throughout. Due to the different contract periods, a combined table is hard to realise. The table in Fig. 3 shows a curve 1800 1600

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Fig. 3 Domestic broadcasting revenue in £m per season for PL and BL rights, 1992–2019 (Source Own figures compiled on the basis of own calculations)

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clustered into PL contract periods with annual BL revenues recalculated accordingly with average figures for the respective timeframes. As a result of the clustering, the slump for the period between 2002 and 2004 in Germany disappears. It needs to be stressed that while this figure certainly visualises how differently the TV values have developed, the real difference expressed most vividly in the live match value vanishes. As the practices of TV broadcasting shifted with the appearance of Pay TV, this value is also hard to calculate due to the differences in the number of live matches sold. It has to be assumed that neither before the appearance of private TV—due to the limitation of the price by public broadcasters—nor after—due to a syndicate-like marketing which disregards normal behaviour of the market—has the price for TV rights reflected their ‘true’ value (Kruse and Quitzau 2003); that is, TV rights have always either been under or overrated in value, with the latter having obviously increased over the past decade. While the figures show how TV revenues have increased significantly over the years in both countries, these funds used to have only an indirect impact, if any at all, on lower league clubs. As marketing for the Premier League is handled by the FA and the two Bundesliga are marketed by the DFL, the money is distributed among the teams playing in the respective leagues; clubs in the leagues below receive little to nothing. In the PL, a debate emerged in the wake of the 2016 bidding round on the financial inequalities and grievances which dominate PL clubs. Generally, half of the cake is shared equally among all Premier League clubs and the other half is distributed among those clubs with the highest number of live broadcast matches. The revenue for overseas rights is shared equally among all twenty clubs. The clubs below do not profit from the wealth at the top. Getting there alone, that is, promotion into the PL, is worth a minimum of about £99 m (Conn 2015). This tremendous increase in income after the 2016 bidding round instantly made all twenty PL clubs part of Europe’s table of the forty wealthiest clubs (Der Standard, 10 February 2015). In Germany, both leagues profit from the funds, though the share handed to the second BL clubs is significantly lower. None of the funds reach the leagues below. This in turn puts clubs below this level under increased pressure, especially when the turnover from TV rights is as problematic as in the third and fourth tier of each country. Thus, if a club wants a piece of the pie, it has to progress up to the respective tier.

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Conversely, clubs are becoming increasingly focused on getting promoted and getting a piece of the pie, often at the risk of their financial stability. The other issue faced by lower league clubs with regard to the commercial excess at the top is that these processes dominate the narrative on football and create discourses which usually exclude the vast number of clubs below the peak. Alongside the measures to make the top leagues more attractive to sponsors, the game below is marginalised as the match day in the upper leagues is expanded from Friday to Monday, with international cup competitions dominating from Tuesday to Wednesday. In fact, the second BL has had the longest match days in English-German comparison as they regularly begin on Friday evening and end on Monday evening. This is unusual even for England’s PL which has the most expansive match days in England but still does not usually extend more than three days—i.e. Friday to Sunday or Saturday to Monday. For the 2018/2019 season, the DFL introduced Monday evening matches for the first BL too, but is set to abolish them in the 2021/2022 season. Match days in the EFL encompass no more than two days in the Championship—as in the 3. Liga—and only the Saturday in the third and fourth tiers. German fourth tier match days may stretch over three days—Friday to Sunday. What has been termed ‘Englische Woche’ (transl. English week) in Germany, that is, a match day in the middle of the week, had its origins in England—as the German term suggests—but has meanwhile become common practice in Germany too. In the globally shared imagery of football occupied by the top national leagues and their respective competitions, second league football is hard to find, let alone third league or below. Furthermore, and worth noting, it is the clubs playing in the top level that dominate the content of the discourse with players’ wages, debt figures or the funds they acquire via sponsorships and TV deals. It is this narrative of excess which has chipped away at the image of European football in recent decades. Being left out of the revenue streams benefitting the top leagues as well as not being able to create considerable revenue streams of their own, lower league clubs are especially dependent on gate revenues, voluntary work, local sponsors and membership fees to raise the resources needed to survive. For example, while match day revenue dropped from 18% in 2015 to only 13% of the total revenue of Premier League clubs in 2018, they made up around 38% for a Championship club in 2015 (Deloitte 2018). For German clubs, gate receipts even at the very top are equally

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important, mainly due to the smaller share in TV revenues, yet the attractiveness of matches is reduced in lower leagues by the number of reserve teams which are allowed to promote up to the 3. Liga. The total number of reserve teams allowed to play at this level is limited to five and while this limit has never been reached in the ten years of its existence with an average of 2.2 reserve teams in eleven seasons, the 2018/2019 season marked the first without any reserve teams. In levels below, the number of these teams can be as high as five as, for example, in the Regionalliga West —fourth tier—in the 2016/2017 season. The unattractiveness of these matches weighs down further on the already low gate revenues of clubs at this level upon which they are absolutely dependent.

Up and Away: The Widening of the Gap While more and more can be gained at the top, this has devastating effects on the leagues below. The excessive added value of TV rights in the top leagues has led to the financial gap between top league and lower league clubs constantly increasing in both England and Germany over the past two decades. As Fig. 4 shows, this gap is especially dramatic between 5,000 4,500 4,000 3,500

£m

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Fig. 4 Aggregate revenues of clubs in English and German tiers (2016/2017) (Source Own figures comprised of data drawn from Deloitte 2018; DFB 2017; DFL 2018)

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the first and second levels of each respective football pyramid, with the PL clubs generating over six times more revenue than the Championship clubs in 2016/2017. Again, parachute payments come into play; without them, the gap would be even wider. Furthermore, the gap between individual clubs in each of the respective leagues is also increasing, with parachute payments as a particularly divisive factor between those clubs who have them and those who do not. While observers have repeatedly pointed to this issue, little has been done to distribute revenues more equally in an attempt at solidarity between clubs and leagues. While such a course might in fact benefit all, as it potentially both increases fluctuation among the leagues as well as competitive balance on a larger scale, in reality the structure of the system in addition to the reluctant stance of clubs and league associations hinders such attempts. Even without parachute payments, the financial situation of clubs relegating from the upper tier is, of course, advantageous in comparison to those being promoted from further below or those who have long played at a respective level. A third gap that is widening is on the European level. Premier League clubs have been catapulted to the forefront of the richest clubs in Europe, mainly by the extravagant TV deals from which they are profiting. This has a tremendous effect not only on both the European competitions, where English clubs are over-represented, but also on the international player market and the attractiveness of European leagues other than the PL. Indeed, European players are increasingly drawn to England to play for Championship and League 1 clubs in order to participate in the most lucrative football market in the world. The financial impact a single PL season has on an individual club cannot be overestimated. In 2015, Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal referred to the title race in the PL as a ‘rat race’ (BBC, 04 March 2015). This ‘rat race’ is also on in the leagues below, as clubs muster all the resources they have—and more—in order to realise the prestigious jump to the top, often far in excess of sustainability. From the international level to the European level to the national level, football associations have come to realise that there is in fact something wrong with the game and have tried to implement regulations to stabilise its development, most notably the financial fair play rules to address the issue of the poor financial health of many football clubs (Storm and Nielsen 2012). Still, the economic excess of the English top league seems to be spiralling upwards, despite measures aimed at limiting a club’s expenses

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and efforts made to oblige clubs to concord to UEFA’s financial fair play rules. The figures show that it takes a long breath to sustainably alter the overall financial situation. In 2015, PL clubs still had a combined debt of £2.4 bn despite 2014/2015 being the second consecutive year of overall profitability. As these figures indicate, the new financial rules appeared to have some effect in the first season. Already in the second season, though, profitability decreased significantly by one-third compared to the year before because ‘while some clubs have improved their debt position, other clubs have offset the cash increase with further soft loans’ (Deloitte 2016: 21). The year after marked another plunge back into an overall deficit. The 2016/2017 season then saw profitability at PL clubs skyrocket to an aggregate record of £534 m. An astonishing seventeen out of twenty PL clubs listed a pre-tax profit in that season. At £92 m, Leicester City reported the highest pre-tax profit in PL history (Deloitte 2018: 20). This jump was, of course, mainly made possible by the vast increase in revenues from broadcasting rights discussed earlier. However, the 2019 Deloitte report stated that the net debt of all PL clubs increased by £1 bn within a year to almost £3 bn at the close of the 2017/2018 season with Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea alone accounting for more than £1 bn just in soft loans (Deloitte 2019: 21). In the leagues below, especially in the Championship, revenue numbers are significantly skewed by parachute payments. These payments, in turn, massively disturb the competitive balance in the second tier, the increase in these payments over recent years making matters even worse, as Deloitte points out: In the Championship, the average parachute payment for recipient clubs is greater than the average revenue of the other Championship clubs. The average revenue of Premier League clubs finishing in the relegation zone is over 5x that of these other Championship clubs, which is up from 4x just two years previously. This disparity in revenues demonstrates why the desire to reach the top division is so great, and goes some way to explaining the financial losses incurred in the Championship […]. (Deloitte 2016: 17)

As parachute payments are also general practice in the leagues below, this also skews figures and competitive balances there as well as raising the pressure—or the temptation—for non-recipient clubs in the tiers further down to be promoted, even if only temporarily. As was mentioned previously regarding the financial situation in the lower leagues in terms of

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the amount of revenue taken up by wages, the stricter financial sustainability rules either came too late for many lower league clubs or they can still be circumvented. As the following section will show, these are the leagues where stricter regulations are needed, as clubs below the topflight are considerably more affected by administration and liquidation.

Sword of Damocles: Administration and Liquidation Along with the process of the commercialisation of football, the number of clubs which have entered administration has increased. Again, exact figures on insolvencies are difficult to obtain since they are not tracked down to the very bottom of the league pyramid. However, insolvencies become more likely further up the league ladder as the financial burdens for the clubs increase and the need to acquire more sponsors in order to cover increased player wages at a higher league level grows. Then again, at the very top of the league ladder, administration is in fact extremely unlikely, notwithstanding a few prominent cases. The data that could be collected suggests that the percentage of clubs entering administration is significantly higher in the leagues from the third level downward than at the top. Presumably, this is due to the comparably high expenses for wages and the limited income coming from sources such as TV coverage in those leagues (Fritsch 2010; Muras 2012). TV deals, or rather the lack of them, can in fact have a devastating effect. Much of the desolate financial situation of members of the Football League has hitherto been accredited to the ITV deal collapse in 2002, which left the FL with just about £24 m annually in a four-year contract instead of £105 m annually in a three-year contract and put unparalleled financial pressure on lower league clubs (Shah and Lister 2002). While certainly a time lag of the direct consequences has to be considered, at least some of the fourteen cases between 2007 and 2009 are related to the lack of funds caused by the absence of a further significant competitor in the bidding process for TV rights for the 2002–2004 period. Generally, though, TV revenue for the leagues below the topflight is perceived to be too low by the clubs competing in the respective leagues—both in England and Germany. Thus, the financial redistribution of the enormous funds achieved by the top leagues to those below is a constant point of debate (Gibson 2015), leading to repeated rumours or outright threats by the big clubs to break away—again, both in England

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and Germany. Likewise, the bigger share of the pie that lures at the top of the pyramid sets a spiral of economic excess, the aforementioned ‘rat race’, in motion. Arguably, in England, the lure of the ‘big bucks’ in the top league have tempted many clubs to invest beyond their capabilities in recent years (Kuper 2010). Figure 5 shows the development of cases of clubs going into administration in the 35-year timeframe from 1984 to 2019 and indicates the tremendous increase of insolvencies. Clustered in three decades, the picture becomes increasingly dramatic, with the number of administration cases tripling between 1995 and 2005: thirty-six compared to twelve in the decade before. Even after the significant intervention of both football and government authorities in the decade after, the numbers between 2005 and 2015—twenty-five— remained more than twice as high as in the time between 1985 and 1995. Two points in time can be extracted as showing particularly significant increases in cases of administration: twelve cases in 2002 and seven cases in 2009 clearly stand out. Notably, no new cases of administration have appeared since 2013, making 2014 the first year since 1996, and 2014–2019 the longest timespan since 1991 in which no new cases have been recorded. While this might be seen as an indicator that the new financial rules introduced in 2013 have indeed had a stabilising effect, it is important to mention that several clubs from below the second tier were in severe financial trouble in those years, among them Chesterfield FC, Morecambe FC, Milwall FC and Oldham Athletic. In 2019 the cases of Bury FC and Bolton Wanderers, both League 1 clubs, put club administration—and liquidation—back on the list of hotly discussed topics in British football. While the case of Bolton Wanderers was one of the more typical ‘enter-administration-find-a-new-owner-and-go-on’ scenarios, Bury FC marks an especially extreme case as the club was expelled by the EFL and thus from professional FL levels altogether— a measure taken for the first time since 1992, when Maidstone United suffered the same fate. Of the cases of English clubs included in the graph, only one played Premier League level—Portsmouth FC—and only three were playing in the Football Championship—Derby County, Leeds United, Southampton—that is, the second tier of the league system, when entering administration. All other cases occurred in the leagues below. This is impressive proof of the difficult economic situation in which lower league clubs find themselves and further stresses the significance of the ITV collapse for the accelerated increase in the years after 2002.

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Fig. 5 Cases of English football clubs in administration, 1984–2019 (* Note Included are cases of clubs which at some point since 1980 have reached at least level five of the pyramid. The displayed timeframe starts with first case. Repeated cases in one club are included, as are direct insolvencies without administration. Not included are applications for administration which were withdrawn. Source Own figures based on own data collection)

1

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Annual

0

3

6

9

12

15

100 D. ZIESCHE

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In Germany, as expected, if we consider the regularly cited financial health of German clubs (Ward 2013), the figures look better, particularly bearing in mind the ratio of clubs that went into administration compared to the overall number (see Fig. 6). The actual number of this reference group is hard to pinpoint as league structures shift over time— as discussed in chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”—and clubs climb and fall within the league system. It can only be vaguely contrasted to the English case and considering the earlier divisional split in Germany, it seems fair to assume an overall population of clubs playing up to level five of the pyramid as being as much as three times larger than in England. The sixty-seven cases in which clubs went into administration are certainly a comparably small number given the number of clubs playing in the first to fifth leagues since 1980. Thus, the data is not an adequate indicator of the existence or the extent of a financial problem in German football. What the data does indicate, though, is that a problem occurred around the turn of the millennium that hitherto did not appear to exist. Furthermore, a steady rise in cases of administration can be seen in recent years, while in England, as mentioned above none have occurred until 2019. In Germany, two points in time can be identified at which the numbers rose significantly. These are 2000/2001 which had eight cases and 2010/2011 which saw eighteen cases, after which the number grew steadily at a rate of one to three cases per year. While clubs going into administration is an ever-present issue in Germany, as in England, discussions on the phenomenon have intensified just recently after five clubs filed for administration in 2018 and 2019, with the case of Rot-Weiß Erfurt escalating in early 2020 to a similar degree as the case of Bury FC: unable to find a potent investor to guarantee financial stability, the club had to withdraw its first squad from competition in league three and was thus practically expelled from professional football. At the time of writing it remains uncertain whether the club will be able to start anew in level five and avoid liquidation. Some months before, in October 2019, fourth tier club SG Wattenscheid 09 also had to withdraw its first team from league competition. The Chemnitzer FC, also a third league club, is currently facing a similar fate, the administration process having not yet brought forth a suitable creditor. It is noteworthy that in Germany, the number of clubs from the first two leagues in this table is even lower. Of the German cases in Fig. 6, none played in the first Bundesliga. Two clubs played in the second

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Fig. 6 Cases of German football clubs in administration, 1992–2019 (* Note Included are cases of clubs which at some point since 1980 have reached at least level five of the pyramid. The displayed timeframe starts with the first case. Repeated cases in one club are included as are direct insolvencies without administration. Not included are applications for administration which were withdrawn. Source Own figure based on own data collection)

1

1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

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6

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12

14

102 D. ZIESCHE

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Bundesliga when filing for administration and all other cases came from the leagues below. The constant threat of administration, point deductions, forced relegation as a result of licensing violations, and eventually liquidation, lingers over the heads of lower league clubs like the mythical sword of Damocles. Usually, the clubs cannot make ends meet financially due to the demands of keeping up a competitive squad and the comparably low income streams via gate revenue—due to comparably smaller crowds—and limited commercial opportunities. Given the development of the past twenty years visualised in Fig. 6, the consistent claim that German clubs are financially stable organisations and that few clubs go bankrupt has to be refuted. While it might hold true for the upper two leagues, it loses much of its validity when looking at the leagues below. As mentioned, the figure does not include cases where clubs filed for administration but withdrew the application later or the application was revoked by the court because the situation had changed. This procedure is not unusual in either country. Another factor not reflected in the figure is when clubs have merged in an attempt to save themselves from financial ruin, a strategy not uncommon in German football. What becomes clear in the comparison between Germany and England is the only slight difference in the number of cases in which teams went into administration between the two countries, with England ‘leading’ at seventy-five to sixty-seven. What has to be kept in mind when looking at these numbers is the fact that the respective reference group in England is considerably smaller than the one in Germany. Furthermore, bankruptcy rates increase quite some time later in Germany. Figure 7 blends both previous figures together to illustrate these differences. While the English rate climbs dramatically after the introduction of the PL, in Germany the trigger causing the rise in the years after 2008 is clearly the introduction of the 3. Liga with the 2008/2009 season. In both cases, pressure ‘from above’ and a growing demand to take financial risks in an attempt to access a lucrative piece of the marketing led clubs into increasing financial difficulties.11 It remains noteworthy that it is hard to collect data for each respective league system because insolvencies are not tracked down to the end. However, insolvencies clearly become more likely further up the league pyramid as the financial burdens increase, that is, with the need to acquire more and more generous sponsors to cover increasing wages. Still, there seems to be a tipping point in each league system, that is, a point where

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80 England Annual

England Total

Germany Annual

Germany Total

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

0

Fig. 7 Cases of administration, Germany and England, 1984–2019 (Source Own figures based on own data collection)

the ‘automated’ income—e.g. via TV deals—eases the financial situation significantly. Generally, it can be stated that structural changes in the leagues in which the clubs find themselves are, literally, dramatic game changers. Both in England and Germany, transformational processes in the league system have led to a traceable increase in the number of administration cases. In England, this shock occurred in the 1992 season with the inauguration of the Premier League and, more significantly, the ITV collapse in 2002. In Germany, two incidents have shocked the league system over the last roughly thirty years: the first was the integration of the East German football system into the existing West German institutions, which certainly had a long-term effect on clubs in both systems and which first and foremost resulted in a horizontal stretch, that is, an increase in the

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number of parallel divisions as the league refused to overhaul its vertical structure. The second shock occurred in 2000 and 2001 after the reform of the Regionalliga following the 1999/2000 season, which reduced the formerly four divisions to two and forced half the clubs to relegate to the then fourth level. In the same way, the increase in 2010 must be traced back to the inauguration of the 3. Liga in 2008/2009 and the enormous economic challenges the clubs faced in order to compete at this level. The competition in the league is extreme, and clubs can easily drop from a promotion race to fight against relegation within one season. In an attempt to translate this competition in a given league in numbers and thus make it comparable, I have measured the point span between the highest and the lowest league position with no immediate sporting consequences: :he average gap between the first non-promotion place— fourth—and the last non-relegation place—seventeenth—in the 3. Liga has been on average a mere 21.5 points since its inaugural season. By comparison, in the PL, which is also said to be extremely competitive and consists of twenty teams too, the average difference in the same timeframe and between the same rank positions is 34.7 points. Delivering further proof of the close race, in 2015/2016 two teams with more than forty points—widely regarded as a threshold for avoiding relegation— had to relegate from the 3. Liga. The pressure on the clubs in the third tier of German football is thus comparably high and, given its competitiveness, a positive outcome on investment—i.e. sporting success—can hardly be planned. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the slump in TV rights monies after the collapse of the Kirch Media Group in 2002 did not affect administration numbers; on the contrary, in the following period they remained few and far between. It seems that—and I would argue this is due to their different structural setups—English clubs were more apt to take administration measures, whereas German clubs are—or at least were—eager to avoid this situation at all costs. In Germany, clubs are often hesitant to file for administration or, if they do, the application for administration, which has to be approved by a court first, is revoked before actually coming into effect. Filing an application for administration might thus be used strategically as a means of negotiation with creditors to convince them to waive debts—an aspect which will be dealt with later in this chapter to a larger extent—or to trigger the support of backers who remain hesitant. Still, the German member association’s greatest fear is clearly insolvency, also because of the drastic sporting consequences in terms of forced relegation, which

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was part of the administration process in the German football system until 2014. The 9-point deduction which replaced forced relegation that year presumably eases the decision to file for administration as it presents a more calculable risk in exchange for financial renewal and thus raised fears of malpractice (Ahrens 2018), a fear which seems to be underpinned by the latest rise in annual numbers of clubs filing for administration. The English clubs, possibly due to their nature as company clubs, seem to consider insolvency a ‘natural occurrence’ in the business world and thus appear to react quite differently to this threat. This is not to say that any of the English clubs would consider going into administration deliberately or without any second thoughts, and English clubs are also able to reach legal agreements after filing for administration. As in Germany, this then allows them to withdraw their application, for example, in the case of Northampton Town in late 2015. However, the process of going into administration seems to be accepted as being more of an everyday occurrence within the entrepreneurial structural default setup of the system. Generally, though, clubs in both countries enter administration as a last resort to survive and create a basis for a new beginning. This is especially true since the considerable point deductions—twelve in England—still weigh heavily on the sporting future. The data on insolvencies appears to support this idea, at least from a certain point of view: it shows that even after liquidation, clubs do not simply cease to exist. They are founded anew and rise like the mythical phoenix from the ashes. Usually, clubs are born again with slightly different names and, in England, often in a different legal form. From this standpoint, Kuper and Szymanski (2009) argue that clubs should not hesitate to accumulate debt as the club itself will survive even in the case of financial bankruptcy due to their emotional capital (83–84; also: Kuper 2010; Szymanski 2010a). It is striking that every single club in England or Germany identified in this study that faced liquidation and was dissolved survived in one form or the other. More strikingly even, in England all of these so called ‘Phoenix-clubs’ were reanimated by their fans as SOFCs, mostly in the form of an IPS, thus also breaking with the traditional structural setup. This is a strong indicator of the cultural capital the clubs incorporate and the emotional capital they generate. The hesitation with regard to filing for administration—or the lack of it—might also be a result of the different social status of club ownership in England in comparison to that of an elected presidency or board membership in a German Verein. One could argue that the elected members to

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a board feel a different responsibility towards their club, not wanting to harm the ‘dignity’ of the position they hold (in German: Würde des Amtes ). They are also held accountable by the other members of the association. The owner of a club can, on the contrary, do as he pleases in most cases and could, in theory—and especially in cases of foreign ownership with no local attachment—just sell and walk away. In the English case, administration is considered the failure of a comparably small group of people, in extreme cases a single person. In Germany, the Verein structure itself would have to be questioned as insolvency could be traced back to missing or dysfunctional checks and balances within the structure of the Verein itself. As NPOs, the German clubs are—theoretically—not permitted to hold large financial reserves that they could draw back on if need be. This fact combined with the fear of bankruptcy leads to quite interesting security measures: especially in lower leagues, clubs tend to isolate their football branch into a new members’ association—not a capital company—in order to keep the other sporting branches safe from a failing football division, which is often the cause of a club’s financial troubles. The MBSC setup of German clubs allows for the detachment of the football branch into a solitary SBSC setup in order to protect other branches from the financial excess and comparatively high risk business of the football branch. Often, such a detachment is indeed demanded by the remaining branches which fear for their financial security and the stability of the association as a whole in what Klenk (2011) has described as target interest divergences between the members of any association. Examples are SSV Ulm 1846 in 2009—then fourth level—or the SSV Reutlingen in 2011—then fifth level. Both football branches are legally separate member associations with the suffix ‘Fußball ’ attached to their name. Thus, a safety net is installed via the outsourcing of the ‘problematic’ branch into a separate club. In the same vein, separating the football division into a capital company might be seen as a protective measure. In the event of bankruptcy, the member association can take over the playing licence for the team in administration and is then usually able to remain in the same league, especially when threatened by liquidation. In this way, the member association can survive the financial troubles of its first football team relatively unharmed. This principle was successfully implemented by the then fifth league club TuS Koblenz in 2015. After the separated company went into administration, the member association, the Verein,

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was able to continue playing in its stead in the fifth league without any point deductions or further punishments. Fans and other actors are often prepared to go to great lengths to save clubs from administration and liquidation. In fact, saving measures are often launched even before the aforementioned refounding of clubs after their liquidation, sometimes in desperate attempts to postpone the inevitable. The story about how many clubs would have disappeared in recent years were it not for last-minute measures taken to save them is untold—and is, indeed, hard to tell. This is another example of how emotional capital is generated by football clubs and how the non-monetary forms of capital make football clubs different from other businesses. The clubs examined in detail in chapter “Social Crisis: Building Bridges” all faced some form of economic crisis. Mark Stevenson, head of communications at Mansfield Town points out how the pressure to compete with other clubs in a system of increasing players’ wages leads to massive losses which are then compensated by the owner: I think overall, in my experience of over ten years in football, normal business practice and football don’t mix. And I know that that sounds odd. But the reason I say this is: no other organisation that I know would continually keep losing money year after year and be kept afloat […]. But, that is purely down to wages. But if you don’t pay the wages of players you get left behind. And then you are in danger that you start falling through to relegation because you simply do not have the quality of players in order to compete. So, wages are fairly going up and gate net attendances don’t necessarily match that so, like I said, we’re losing about maybe a million pounds a year. A million pounds a year. That wouldn’t happen with any other business. (Interview Stevenson 2014)

Several authors have termed what Stevenson described the inapplicability of normal business practices in football, as the ‘peculiar economics’ of football (Hill 2002: 25; Gratton 2000). If this is the case, profit maximisation is clearly not the key to understanding the financial dilemma of the extreme dependence on generous benefactors.

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Notes 1. In an interview in 2014, then DFB general secretary Helmut Sandrock explained that financial problems in the 3. Liga were a problem among clubs which had relegated from the second Bundesliga and had coped badly with this transition (Pistorius 2014). The data I have collected does not support this argument. Even if it did, one of the arguments for introducing the new league in the first place was to ease the fall for clubs relegated from the second Bundesliga. Instead, the gap between the two leagues is increasing. However, the DFB clearly wants to tell a success story. To exemplify how the numbers are presented in a positive light: after a positive outlier year in 2013/2014, which marked the first season to make a profit with clubs earning on average around e227,000, the numbers crashed again in 2014/2015 by roughly e600,000, with clubs losing e376,000 on average (DFB 2016: 71). Notwithstanding, the report in which these numbers were published was titled ‘3. Liga continues its record course’ (DFB, 01 September 2015). 2. Just to give an impression of the scale of dividends and how shares in a club may increase in a comparably short timespan: in 2016, a 60% stake in Swansea City was bought for £110 m by an American consortium (PA 2016), 110 times more than the £1 m for which the whole club was bought by a local group of nine shareholders, including an ST in 2002 (Conn 2016). 3. ‘Substantial’ here refers to owners who hold at least 10% of a club’s shares. 4. I do not consider Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish ownership as ‘foreign’ ownership. The two cases of double citizenship—UK/non-UK—of the owners of Hull City and Everton FC were defined as being domestic ownership because the owners had spent most of their lives in the UK. 5. The takeovers started at Aston Villa in May, then Wolverhampton Wanderers in July, West Bromwich Albion in September and, finally, Birmingham City in October 2016. All except PL side West Bromwich Albion were second league clubs. 6. The slump in the period from 2004–2007 is the result of ITV’s withdrawal from the bidding process. BskyB remained the only bidder and, thus, only had to meet minimum demands. Note that the chart only covers domestic revenue. International revenue increases this number even further. In November 2016 the PL closed a deal with China’s digital broadcaster PPTV for the TV rights from 2019 to 2022 for the sum of £564 m. Together with the most recent US deal, also signed in late 2016, the PL will generate £1,2 bn through the sale of international broadcasting rights to the China and US markets alone for the period 2019–2022 (Gibson 2016). The number of included matches varies for each season, as is shown in the chart.

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7. The massive increase also led to quite some investor movement at Swansea—PL, US takeover—West Bromwich Albion—PL, Chinese takeover—Bristol Rovers—League 1, Jordan takeover—and talks in Southampton, as well as League One clubs Peterborough and Reading— all three with Chinese investors. Considering the aggregate efforts made by Chinese investors as well as the increase in Mandarin advertising and Mandarin language versions of PL club websites, a process of ‘Chineseisation’ might be attested to English football. At this point it might be worth mentioning that a summary of the 2016 Deloitte report on football financing is also available in Chinese. German top clubs are also increasingly being invited to play friendlies against other European clubs—mostly from the PL—in Asia. For the general shift in attention towards Asia by FIFA see, for example, Weinberg (2015) and Manzenreiter and Horne (2007). 8. This exemption is known as the Lex Leverkusen, allowing clubs which had existed as company clubs prior to 1 January 1999 to remain in the competition without having to change their structural makeup (Ashelm 2011). The loosening of rules was presumably a reaction to the 1999 amendment of the German Antitrust act—officially: Act Against Restraints of Competition, German orig.: Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen (GWB). This was made on request of the DFB to harmonise the TV rights ruling with EU competition law (Szymanski 2010b: 83–84). 9. This included plans for a further spread of the match day and further advertising revenue. The DFL was indeed in a problematic position as pressure from the top clubs increased and some threatened to break away from the DFL or sell their TV rights independently in order to be able to compete at the European level. Both fans and smaller clubs opposed such revenue-increasing measures (SID 2015). 10. Eurosport bought the rights to 40 first BL matches. Sky airs 93% of first BL matches and all second BL matches, paying e3.5 bn (£2.74 bn) for the privilege (Sweney 2016). 11. I would add that possible cross-national effects can be almost entirely disregarded here. The reasons for the increase must firstly be sought in the respective national contexts. While the Premier League might have increased its participation in competition on an international level, thus affecting negatively the financial stability of clubs elsewhere in Europe, these effects do not—at least not directly—influence lower league clubs elsewhere. To stress the point again, the vast majority of administration cases in both countries occurs in the lower league levels. Still, there might be an indirect effect of international competition on lower league clubs in the sense that when a country’s top league does not perform well in international competitions, the overall funds available for redistribution to the leagues below are reduced.

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References Ahrens, T. (2018, August 8). Auf schmalem Grat. 11 Freunde. https://11freu nde.de/artikel/auf-schmalem-grat/537581. Ashelm, M. (2011, August 30). Profifußball geht auf Investoren zu. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. http://www.faz.net/-gtm-6mim6. Bi, Y. (2015). Integration or Resistance: The Influx of Foreign Capital in British Football in the Transnational Age. Soccer & Society, 16(1), 17–41. Breuer, C., & Feiler, S. (2013). Sportentwicklungsbericht 2011/12. Köln: Sportverlag Strauß. Britten, N. (2005, September 23). Chairman Jailed for ‘Milking Football Club Dry’. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1499006/ Chairman-jailed-for-milking-football-club-dry.html. Cave, A., & Miller, A. (2016, August 10). Why Football’s TV Deal Is a Game Changer. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/business-ofsport/premier-league-investors/. Conn, D. (2015, February 15). Premier League Can’t Be Relied on to Alter Inequality That Defines Our Age. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/blog/2015/feb/11/premier-league-richard-scudamore-sky-tvdeal. Conn, D. (2016, April 19). Swansea City’s Owners to Make Huge Profit with Sale to US Investors. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ football/2016/apr/19/swansea-city-owners-sale-takeover-us-investors. Conn, D. (2018, February 13). Sky and BT Sport Retain Grip on Premier League Rights but TV Frenzy Cools. The Guardian. https://www.thegua rdian.com/football/2018/feb/13/sky-bt-sport-premier-league-tv-rights. Deloitte. (2013). Turn on, Tune in, Turnover. Annual Review of Football Finance. Sports Business Group. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/ Deloitte/uk/Documents/sports-business-group/deloitte-uk-sbg-arff-2013highlights-download.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. Deloitte. (2014). A Premium Blend. Annual Review of Football Finance. Sports Business Group. https://www2.deloitte.com/de/de/pages/consumer-bus iness/articles/Annual-Review-of-Football-Finance.html. Accessed 5 March 2019. Deloitte. (2015). Revolution. Annual Review of Football Finance. Sports Business Group. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Doc uments/sports-business-group/deloitte-uk-arff-2015-highlights.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. Deloitte. (2016). Reboot. Annual Review of Football Finance 2016. Sports Business Group. https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-businessgroup/articles/annual-review-of-football-finance.html. Accessed 5 March 2019.

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Deloitte. (2017). Ahead of the Curve. Annual Review of Football Finance. Sports Business Group. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/glo bal/Documents/About-Deloitte/gx-deloitte-annual-review-of-football-fin ance-2017.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. Deloitte. (2018). Roar Power. Annual Review of Football Finance 2018. Sports Business Group. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/ Documents/sports-business-group/deloitte-uk-sbg-annual-review-of-foo tball-finance-2018.PDF. Accessed 5 March 2019. Deloitte. (2019). World in Motion. Annual Review of Football Finance. Sports Business Group. https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-businessgroup/articles/annual-review-of-football-finance.html. DFB. (2016). Saisonreport 3. Liga 2015/16. https://www.dfb.de/fileadmin/_ dfbdam/121130-Saisonreport_3.Liga_2015_2016.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. DFB. (2017). Saisonreport 3. Liga 2016/17 . https://www.dfb.de/fileadmin/_ dfbdam/150102-Saisonreport_3Liga_2016-17_web.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. DFB. (2018). Saisonreport 3. Liga 2017/18. https://www.dfb.de/fileadmin/_ dfbdam/186179-Saisonreport_3Liga_RZ_Final_Lay.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. DFL. (2013). Satzung Ligaverband. http://s.bundesliga.de/assets/doc/111 0000/1107131_original.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. DFL. (2018). Report 2018. https://www.dfl.de/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/ 2018/11/DFL_Report_2018_M.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. Fritsch, O. (2010, December 7). Wenn Traditionsvereine sterben. Zeit Online. http://www.zeit.de/sport/2010-12/insolvenz-amateurfussball-dfbweiden-sandrock. Garland, J., Malcolm, D., & Rowe, M. (Eds.). (2000). The Future of Football. Challenges for the Twenty-First Century. Frank Cass: London and Portland. Gibson, O. (2015, February 10). Sky and BT Retain Premier League TV Rights for Record £5.14bn. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/ 2015/feb/10/premier-league-tv-rights-sky-bt. Gibson, O. (2016, November 18). English Premier League Sells China TV Rights for £564m. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/ 2016/nov/18/english-premier-league-sells-china-tv-rights-for-564m-reportclaims. Gratton, C. (2000). The Peculiar Economics of English Professional Football. In J. Garland, D. Malcolm, & M. Rowe (Eds.), The Future of Football. Challenges for the Twenty-First Century (pp. 11–28). London and Portland: Frank Cass. Hamil, S., & Walters, G. (2010). Financial Performance in English Professional Football: ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Soccer & Society, 11(4), 354–372.

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Hamil, S., Walters, G., & Watson, L. (2010). The Model of Governance at FC Barcelona: Balancing Member Democracy, Commercial Strategy, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sporting Performance. Soccer & Society, 11(4), 475– 504. Held, F. (2018, February 22). Profispieler, Amateurverdiener. Der Spiegel. https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/3-bundesliga-mit-welchen-strategiendie-klubs-ihr-ueberleben-sichern-a-1194612.html. Hill, J. (2002). Sport, Leisure & Culture in Twentieth-Century Britain. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. Kellner, U. (2013, January 4). So wurde das 1001-Nacht-Märchen zum Albtraum. Münchner Merkur. https://www.merkur.de/sport/tsv-1860/ hasan-ismaik-loewen-1860-streit-2687502.html. King, A. (1998). The End of the Terraces. The Transformation of English Football in the 1990s. London: Leicester University Press. Klenk, C. (2011). Ziel-Interessen-Divergenzen in freiwilligen Sportorganisationen. Eine Akteurtheoretische Analyse der Ursachen und Auswirkungen. Hamburg: Feldhaus. Kruse, J., & Quitzau, J. (2003). Fußball-Fernsehrechte: Aspekte der Zentralvermarktung. In Unversität der Bundeswehr Hamburg (Ed.), Diskussionspapiere, 18, 1–26. Kuper, S. (2010, February 28). Football Is Not About Corporations. It’s About Clubs and Communities. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/com mentisfree/2010/feb/28/football-money-portsmouth-simon-kuper. Kuper, S., & Szymanski, S. (2009). Why England Lose & Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained. London: HarperCollins. Lammert, J., Hovemann, G., Wieschemann, C., & Richter, F. (2009). The Tension Between Financial Interests and Prevention of a Controlling Influence in German Professional Football—Needs and Recommendations for a Modification of the Existing Regulation. Sport und Gesellschaft—Sport and Society, 6(3), 203–233. Manzenreiter, W., & Horne, J. (2007). Gefangen zwischen Kommerz und nationaler Politik? Der Aufstieg des Fußballs in Ostasien als Resultat globaler, nationaler und lokaler Prozesse. In J. Mittag & J.-U. Nieland (Eds.), Das Spiel mit dem Fußball. Interessen, Projektionen und Vereinnahmungen (pp. 263–279). Essen: Klartext. Merkel, U. (2012). Football Fans and Clubs in Germany: Conflicts, Crises and Compromises. Soccer & Society, 13(3), 359–376. Mittag, J., & Nieland, J.-U. (Eds.). (2007). Das Spiel mit dem Fußball. Interessen, Projektionen und Vereinnahmungen. Essen: Klartext. Muras, U. (2012, November 27). Der Herbst der sterbenden Fußballvereine. Die Welt. https://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/article111548089/Der-Her bst-der-sterbenden-Fussballvereine.html.

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Nauright, J., & Ramfjord, J. (2010). Who Owns England’s Game? American Professional Sporting Influences and Foreign Ownership in the Premier League. Soccer & Society, 11(4), 428–441. PA. (2016, July 21). Swansea Takeover Confirmed After American Group Completes £110m deal. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/foo tball/2016/jul/21/swansea-takeover-steve-kaplan-jason-levien. Paul, C., & Teevs, C. (2015, August 3). Investoren in der Bundesliga: Bis nichts mehr bleibt. Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/fussball-bun desliga-so-gehen-die-klubs-mit-investoren-um-a-1042220.html. Pistorius, H. (2014, March 23). Helmut Sandrock: Die 3. Liga ist eine Erfolgsgeschichte. Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. http://www.noz.de/artikel/ 461332. Schäflein, M., & Schneider, P. (2016, November 22). Ismaiks Machtdemonstration mit Mister Power. Süddeutsche Zeitung. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/ sport/-bundesliga-ismaiks-machtdemonstration-mit-mister-power-1.3261532. Schäflein, M., & Schneider, P. (2017, May 31). Der Erpressungsversuch des Hasan Ismaik. Süddeutsche Zeitung. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/ 1860-muenchen-der-erpressungsversuch-des-hasan-ismaik-1.3529584. Shah, S., & Lister, D. (2002). Football Clubs Threatened by Collapse of ITV Digital. Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/footballclubs-threatened-by-collapse-of-itv-digital-9137592.html. SID. (2008, November 28). Bundesliga bleibt ARD und Premiere treu. Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/tv-rechte-bundesliga-ble ibt-ard-und-premiere-treu-a-593325.html. SID. (2015, Feburary 11). DFL regt Debatte über Anstoßzeiten an. Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/dfl-geschaeftsfuehrer-chr istian-seifert-will-anstosszeiten-veraendern-a-1017958.html. Söderman, S., & Dolles, H. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of Research on Sport and Business. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Sport England. (2003). Sports Volunteering in England 2002. Summary Report. https://www.sportengland.org/media/3383/valuing-volunteeringin-sport-in-england-summary-report.pdf. Accessed 15 July 2019. Storm, R. K., & Nielsen, K. (2012). Soft Budget Constraints in Professional Football. European Sport Management Quarterly, 12(2), 183–201. Sweney, M. (2016, June 9). Sky’s Shares Up After e3.5bn German Bundesliga TV Deal. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/ jun/09/skys-shares-up-35bn-german-bundesliga-tv-deal. Szymanski, S. (2010a). Football Economics and Policy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Szymanski, S. (2010b). The Political Economy of Sport. In S. Szymanski (Ed.), The Comparative Economics of Sport (pp. 79–86). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide

In the following chapter I will describe what I call the cultural crisis of football clubs as the consequence of the processes of commercialisation and commodification described in the previous chapter. The focus will be on developments since the early 1990s and what has been widely regarded as an emerging breach between clubs and their social environment. This era of ‘New Football’ first emerged in England but, as will be shown in the following, German football has caught up in the meantime with the developments that shaped today’s English professional game, as indicated in the previous chapter. Needless to say, this new era has also had effects on lower league football. The cultural crisis posited here is largely characterised by the disruptions that occurred in club community relations in the wake of this now roughly three decades long transformation of football at the topflight. That ‘community’ has become a centrepiece and commonplace in this new football culture is striking and, as within other societal contexts, I argue that community is particularly popular in football because, here too, it is in a state of crisis. The chapter will start by shedding light on the historical emergence of clubs and their communities, the function of sports from the very beginning in the process of industrialisation and the emergence of class divisions, and how the working classes, by means of professionalisation and commercialisation, formed football into an integral part of their own cultures. I argue that the ambivalent relationship between clubs and © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_4

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communities as well as the functional continuum applied to football clubs can be understood only when considering the historic development of the clubs, with path dependencies and social origin strongly conditioning similarities and differences in the situation in which these football clubs find themselves today.

Historical Continuities in Clubs’ Community Relations As has been laid out previously, football clubs in Germany and England are centred on a quite different structural basis. This structural difference has direct effects on the relations between clubs and their communities. In very simple terms, the difference is that in Germany the club is already a community sui generis, that is, a community of its members, whereas in England the club has to find or create its ‘external’ community and—more or less—integrate it in some way. The ownership issue has also been pinpointed previously as one of the reasons why, especially in the English case, relationships between football clubs and their communities are in fact often fractious. Even though some English football clubs started out as parish teams—an origin which might have reached a wider, more heterogeneous local community—the majority of clubs have their origins in factories—which then made the respective factory’s workforce the club’s community (Mason 1997: 26–27). Historically, the bonds between club and community were not as naturally given as some commentators would like. In fact, the club usually came after the community; it usually imposed itself upon a community—in England more so than in Germany. Thus, if there is continuity in the relationship between a given football club and its local community, then that it is a rather difficult one. It is a changeable relationship of instrumentalization, alienation and appropriation. Accordingly, the disruptions in more recent history are rooted in a long tradition, as the following chapter will show. For their English founders, usually either of church or bourgeois background,1 the clubs were intended to serve the philosophy of rational recreation for the working class under middle class control (Holt 1989: 136–138). Rational recreation was aimed at keeping the growing working class at bay and effectively preserving middle class status by teaching the poor ‘how to play’ and, as in the public schools before, use football as a means of ‘improving character’ (Bourdieu 1978). In the second half of the nineteenth century this idea caught on with the British bourgeoisie.

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Embedded into a wider framework of parks, libraries, baths and museums, sports were seen as a means to create a ‘healthy, moral and orderly workforce’ (ibid.: 136) which had hitherto indulged itself in cultural practices rather contrary to such ambitions. In the wake of a considerable decline in religious affection among the working classes,2 a ‘moral panic’ (Cohen 1972 [2002]) arose in northern English cities where industrial expansion was most disruptive. The rise of football in the years to come has in part been explained as the efforts of an increasingly concerned bourgeoisie to contain the growing masses below and must be seen against this background. The limits of this explanation will not be assessed here, but the fear of a radicalised urban workforce3 growing rapidly in numbers and—more problematically for a bourgeois ruling class—growing more and more confident in their self-awareness definitely fuelled concerns about the well-being of the poor and spawned programmes to educate and morally reform the working classes. The target group of such aspirations was the next generation and thus youth clubs were regarded as the appropriate measure to exert control over the working men: ‘Youth’, by which the commentators usually meant inner-city working class boys, was defined as a ‘social problem’ towards the end of the nineteenth century and efforts were made to direct the energies of what came to be called ‘adolescence’ into acceptable terms. The traditional institutions of youth with their licensed revels had gone, and new forms of control were required. (Holt 1989: 138)

Sports were soon the means to draw the young off the streets and religious youth groups were keen to use football to advocate for the attractiveness of organised religion.4 It is hardly surprising that the younger generation gladly embraced the prospect of kicking balls within the institutional frameworks of these clubs but were less keen about their religious aspects. Still, as there was no alternative to playing sports and especially football in an organised manner—sports as part of elementary schooling had not yet been introduced—the clubs proved quite attractive. Furthermore, not all of the parish clubs were founded by clergymen. Indeed, the clubs founded by ordinary church members increased in numbers during the 1880s (Wagg 1984: 4). Needless to say, the clubs did not have the effect the proclaimers of rational recreation intended. As Holt (1989) points out, street football had to be forbidden, as workingclass boys used every possible spot in the northern cities to kick around

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balls—or anything vaguely resembling a ball. Soon, the urban lore was enriched by policemen chasing local boys down alleys, and this small act of defiance against authority contributed in turn to the consolidation of a distinct working-class culture. While philanthropists tried to discipline and cultivate sports in programmes both in elementary school and in the factories, football with its growing phenomenon of spectatorship caused by the rising practice of professionalism had already become too much an integral part of working-class culture to still be effectively directed from above. However futile or successful the philanthropic and reformist attempts might have been, they document that sport—and particularly football—was used by various institutions from the very beginning of its dissemination to pursue higher, moral goals of social control, education, and the forming of society and especially saving the working-class youth (Bourdieu 1978: 831–832).5 By the 1880s, football was in fact deemed to serve as a tool for societisation. Some decades earlier, the improving of personal and social skills by teaching team play and the value of the gentleman ideal had been the main reason for introducing sport into the public school curriculum in the 1840s. The ‘handing over’ of the sport from the elite to the labouring masses also encompassed a shift from the communitisation to the societisation functions of football. By dissemination of the sport to the lower classes—and thereby a larger part of the population—the function of the sport was not merely seen as improving personal and social skills—which were also necessary for playing the game successfully—but also the improvement of a social class, the containment of its uncontrollable elements and its formation in the service of society as a whole. In Germany, by contrast, sports were considered unfit for such purposes because of their competitive and rough character. The training of social and personal skills and character and later the formation of a unified, national community was seen to be best met by gymnastics (Turnen) beginning in the early nineteenth century. Accordingly, sports were refuted by the gymnasts, but football nevertheless gained in popularity only a short while after the sport was codified in England (Hesse-Lichtenberger 2003).6 The origin and distribution in Germany had its roots in English language schools and industrial relations (Giulianotti 1999: 8). The assumed value of football as a ‘social educator’ for the working classes was not put into practice as it first had to be established among the middle class, which was quite satisfied with the role

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gymnastics played in this regard and thus merely integrated football into its curriculum and range of activities. Football, then, was thus Germanised and nationalised and used in terms of fostering a national identity (Krüger 2004: 128–129). The vast majority of football clubs were founded by the working masses some years later, beginning in Leipzig and particularly in the Ruhr area7 (Hesse-Lichtenberger 2003: 36) towards the end of the nineteenth century, the regulation of the working day meant an increase in leisure time. Here, again, football emerged as a representational expression of local working-class culture and community and, at least in part, as an answer to the bourgeois gymnastics clubs (Turnvereine) (ibid.). Other examples show gymnastics clubs adopting football and other sports as club divisions within their club, thus forming the Turn- und Sportvereine (TSV). In many cases though, the rivalry between gymnastics and sports drove the latter out of the clubs to form football clubs in their own right. Until today, football and gymnastics rank first and second respectively in membership numbers within the DOSB. Thus, football grew in two quite different environments: in Germany, the organisational landscape in which Turnvereine already existed led to football clubs being established as Vereine as well. In England, on the other hand, football fell on ‘unspoiled’ ground and the—company—club became the epitome of its organisational existence. These crucially different points of departure condition the eventual role and form that community would play in both environments. In both countries, and regardless whether the clubs grew out of church, factory or, as became common towards the end of the century, a pub background, football quickly acquired its status as a male-only sport, both on the field and on the terraces.8 Already in these early days, the ground was laid for constructing a space for display and reenactment of what would come to be called the ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1987) of football culture. The crowd and the players consisted of young men and football was seen as a further cultural asset for the culture of the working classes. As Holt points out, the working classes not only embraced the sport due to its simplicity but also because the game allowed them to develop and express a sense of local community in an unknown urban environment (1989: 153–155). In moving to the city, they exchanged their rural and in many ways simpler past for a new and overwhelming future. The game of football and the clubs that developed helped its—male—followers to find stability and local pride.9 Consequently, if football clubs served the function of community-building,

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these were in fact quite exclusive communities. While football and its clubs might have been strongly intertwined and interconnected with the white, male workforce, this surely did not extend beyond that peer group. However, in England, this white, male workforce lived a life that was quite confined and specific. Many common social activities involved gambling, despite the fact that betting had been declared illegal for the working class in the mid-nineteenth century. The ban focused on gambling houses and other places where the working class placed their bets10 while leaving betting on site—i.e. the horse track—or in country clubs and, thus, the places where the upper classes placed their bets, untouched.11 Today it is usually claimed that the ongoing professionalisation and commercialisation of the sport led to the rupture between the clubs and their communities. While this holds true to some extent and especially for the past two decades or so, professionalisation is not a recent development in football. Regarding the early days of the sport, a different claim has to be made: it was only by means of professionalisation—in this case, the payment of players—that the working classes—predominantly from the northern English cities—were able to claim the sport and make it a marker and repository of their specific identity and culture. The split between amateurs and professionals was the watershed for establishing the character of football which later became idealised and romanticised as ‘the people’s game’. Distinct community formation around football clubs was fuelled by professionalisation; spectatorship and what later came to be known as fandom was paved by the early steps towards the professionalisation of the game. In each time period, it was always the most professionalised version of the game that could exert a hegemonic position on the sport because of the quality and elaborate interpretation it displayed. This holds true until today and it is hard to imagine that football could have reached a comparable efficacy in the lives of modern and late-modern individuals were it not for these continuous professionalisation processes. What should also have become clear is that the exploitation of football for social purposes was from the very beginning part of the sport. Attempts to address the qualities of the sport in terms of education, discipline and the overall generation of social value can be traced back to the days of its first dissemination and might be one of the many reasons why football spread around the globe so quickly. In fact, in stressing these qualities and thereby exploiting the qualities of the sport, football’s societisation function becomes evident from its earliest days. However, it was

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predominantly the working classes which, in adopting and taking up the sport and its clubs as a repository for the development of local pride and collective identification, made use of its communitisation qualities in a more serious manner. The downside, that is, the divisive ‘quality’ of football, has existed from the early days of the sport too. Employed by the military in the colonies, football served to show the colonised ‘their’ place in the world and to underline power relations. With regard to the spread of the sport among the lower classes in England it could equally be argued that the ruling classes followed a similar ‘divide-and-rule’ strategy: by ‘giving’ the working classes football, the growing masses were distracted by a controllable spectacle and—by means of the potential of the sport with regard to identity and community construction—the working classes thus quarrelled inwards instead of upwards. In Marx’s terms, football thus served as an opiate of the masses—at some points in history maybe even more so than religion.

Disrupted Communities and New Football Politics As Taylor (2004) pointed out, there are in fact ‘very few examples of football clubs that were established on a mutual basis’ (48) with their communities. The claiming of land for stadiums and football grounds in particular did not always take place on equal footing between the local community and the clubs. Enshrining a club in the legally protected structural setup as a private company with a managing board void of democratic participation was of enormous advantage when it came to quarrelling for land. The clubs then rested in the hands of ‘paternalistic local benefactors, who saw opportunities to gain local, and to some extent, national prestige and recognition for themselves’ (ibid.). This motif seems to continue until today, although now the benefactors are in many cases of global rather than local origin, as the previous chapter showed. Despite football’s mythological status as a working-class sport and the fact that the club community relationship has changed over time, notions about what makes football culture authentic—what its values and ideals are—stem from the time of its high popularity within the working classes and have prevailed comparably unchanged until today. It is arguably due to these notions that communities have felt estranged, alienated and excluded from the sport since the 1990s.

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As the previous chapter has shown, the most apparent disconnection between clubs and their communities in the English case is visible on the structural level and happened as early as the 1890s during the transformation of clubs or member associations into companies (Conn 2010). In Germany, however, clubs remained member associations. Given that most German clubs still exist as Vereine, that is, member associations, it may seem that club community relations are in a better, as in healthier, state there. As mentioned in chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”, the structural formation of the German Vereine is an ideal-typical one which is crassly contradicted by the realities in larger football clubs. Of course, while most German football clubs are still—at their core—member associations, their status as non-profitorganisations with charitable intentions has to be seriously questioned. In 2016, Bayern Munich was faced with the threat of being cut from the association registry due to a violation of the NPO clause—a precedence case which, in fact, threatened the structural setup of the Bundesliga and the DFB as a whole (Fritsch 2016). The structural bending and the innerclub controversies about the organisational setup no doubt also affect the club’s community relations. Most of these developments are linked to the financial excesses to which late-modern football has succumbed in terms of commercialisation and commodification. Thus, disengagement between clubs and their communities can be accredited to three developments: (1) a change in the social structure of football communities due to shifting economic and social circumstances (Taylor 2004: 50); (2) football’s ‘Sky-ification’ (Taylor 2004: 52; also: Kelner 2012: pp. 209) starting with the BskyB deal and the following commodification of football as a result of previous government regulation; and (3) an exclusion of football’s traditional crowds from the terraces (King 1998). The latter developments mainly triggered in England are, along with their accompanying transformations in fan and supporter culture, the culture of the game and football culture in general, usually summed up under the term ‘modern football’ (Numerato 2015; Redhead 1997). Along with these transformations, far-reaching and deep-cutting breaches between football and its ‘traditional’ communities have been identified. Commentators agree that since these unhallowed days, the ‘beautiful game’ has suddenly ‘lost its soul’ (Conn 2005; Bazell 2008). However, these developments, driven mainly by market forces which saw the financial value of football clubs skyrocketing, were propelled and paved by government intervention in the football business—mainly with regard to regulating grounds safety

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via controlling the composition of the crowd and opening the football business to the free market economy (Hamil 1999; King 1998; Williams 2006). The developments of the last twenty-five years or so have seen football’s market value explode—and not just in England. The Premier League might be at the forefront of these developments, but its effects and mechanisms have emerged in other leagues in Europe as well. These developments have also seen growing resistance among football fans and followers. Many of the fan initiatives concerned with the developments of the past two decades operate under the motto ‘against modern football’ (AMF) (Numerato 2015; Webber 2015; Hill et al. 2016). Two problems need to be discussed here. First, why would a development which started in the early 1990s be described as a ‘modernisation’ of football if the ‘modern game’ was codified and developed over a century ago? And second, what is a ‘traditional’ community and, with regard to recent developments in the club landscape, what is a traditional club? Elsewhere I have argued that the developments of this transitional period have not merely led to a disruption of traditional fan communities in England but have also helped to create a politicised supporter culture (Ziesche 2011). This politicisation of football culture in general can be seen as symptomatic since the early 2000s and is not limited to the English case. Instead, the spread of Ultra-culture across continental Europe has led to a shift in the form of a political turn in fan culture, despite the popular statement—issued predominantly by fans—that football and politics need to be seen separately and that one has nothing to do with the other (Ziesche 2017). The politicisation of football culture is furthermore a result of direct government involvement. With an increased interest by British politicians and governments in the business and the ‘fabric’ of football since the late 1980s—out of various reasons, with hooliganism and later club bankruptcy among the most prominent—calls for an increase in supporter participation in the running of clubs have become louder in recent years (Porter 2019). A general call for a turnover and a shift in focus on supporters and the community has been issued by the APPFG, Supporters Direct and football associations such as UEFA. In fact, community- or supporter-owned football clubs (SOFC) have been on the rise since the early 2000s, as Fig. 1 shows. Still, the number of SOFCs is comparably low—especially as they are spread throughout the league pyramid. The increase is due to several developments: first, the founding of so-called Supporters’ Trusts (ST) at many clubs throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The trusts were set

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up to raise pressure and money from the fan side, often with the option to buy shares or even buy the club back from owners when a window of opportunity opened up (Lomax 2000; also McGill 2001). In many clubs not included in the figure, STs hold a minority in shares and can thus appoint a number of board members. The trusts themselves are usually set up as IPSs, open to members who can then vote on the individuals the ST appoints to board membership. In 2013, SD listed sixteen clubs in which supporters have partial ownership via the minority shares their trust owns. Secondly, STs are often the first step in the development of SOFCs and, clearly, success stories such as AFC Wimbledon or FCUM have helped promote the idea and increased the demand for fan ownership. In a report from 2013, SD cites findings from a YouGov survey conducted for Coops UK with regard to the extended demand: …83% of Manchester United fans and 72% of Liverpool fans who expressed an opinion felt their club would be in better hands if it was owned cooperatively. Across the country, 56% of fans, who gave an opinion, feel the same way. […] On average supporters would be prepared to personally invest £414 in a cooperative in order to save their club from administration. (Supporters Direct 2013: 5)

Finally, the establishment of Supporters Direct in 2000 by the UK government as an umbrella organisation for its member STs and to assist fans in finding ways to gain access to the decision-making processes in their clubs has had an influence. The setting up of SD with cross-party support is itself an indicator for the increasing interest by the government in promoting the inclusion of fans in the running of their clubs. Repeated inquiries into the state of the game called on the FA to find ways to make the increased fan involvement at clubs possible under threat of legislative measures (HoC CMSC 2011: 99). German football clubs often serve as a positive example in terms of membership inclusion, particularly among English commentators and academics (Conn 2012a, b; Supporters Direct 2013; Doidge 2014). However, the separations discussed in chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations” have also led to splits between parts of the fan community and their clubs in Germany. Predominantly, Ultra groups which oppose measures to increase commercial

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exploitation possibilities openly criticise these developments and sometimes act against their club as well as other fans to demonstrate their opposition. Still, as hotly debated as this topic might be within German football, separations caught on in German football by the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, as Fig. 2 illustrates, and have sustainably shifted the member association paradigm in the league. Moreover, when looking at the timeframe of separations between different levels of the league pyramid, as visualised in Fig. 3, it becomes obvious that this trend started in the top two leagues and caught on in the levels below about six years later. The aforementioned pressure by more company-like clubs in the league is thus also—and increasingly—raised in the leagues below the topflight. Thus, the community-driven Vereine find themselves competing in increasingly imbalanced leagues with organisations that are differently structured and which—eventually—might be owned by investors rather than the club community, as in the previously mentioned cases of TSG Hoffenheim and Hannover 96. Meanwhile, almost half of all clubs which have separated structures are found below level two of the pyramid. This is a prime example of how practices from the top tier resonate in the leagues below and of how processes of institutional mimicry, driven by normative incentive in this case, are set in motion, as the aforementioned examples of KFC Uerdingen and Lokomotive Leipzig show. The increased occurrence of alternative structural setups constitutes a parallel development in both systems. The direction of these developments, however, is significantly different: while on the one hand the alternative in the English case is oriented towards non-profit organisations and seeks the inclusion of the club’s fans, the German alternative models, on the other hand, envisage profit maximisation and more independent entrepreneurial controllability which instead moves away from direct members’ influence. Thus, while the English system tends to move towards a more social democratic, ‘classic’ German concept of the football business, the German shifts are headed towards the ‘classic’ English liberal market economy model. In either case, English or German, it has been pointed out multiple times that clubs do not actually make a profit. In those few cases where clubs generate a profit, it is minimal. The majority of clubs operate on a deficit, especially in the lower leagues, as chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games” has shown. The only ‘value’ a club has is, in fact, its cultural and emotional capital and the value which is accredited to it; the

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value which makes it either a valuable asset to possess—like a painting—or an indispensable social and cultural institution.

‘A Place for Thee’: The Community Value of Football Grounds Regardless whether home to a first or seventh league level club—every stadium bears witness to victory and defeat, to moments of glory and despair, of collective euphoria and collective mourning, in sum, moments worth remembering. Essentially, Anfield Road does not differ much from any rundown football field on the outskirts of Cheltenham in this regard. On the sporting level, the importance of the specific events remembered might differ, as might the size of the group of witnesses to a particular event, however, the stadium, or ‘the ground’ as a place for the enactment of collective emotions does not need a big audience to function as an arena. It just needs the game of twenty-two people kicking a ball to be acted out on its turf, witnessed by a handful of spectators. The following section will be dedicated to the correlations and interdependencies between stadiums and football clubs. Therein I will focus strongly on the concept of ‘place’ as a means for evoking a sense of belonging and the enactment of collective identities. Since its very beginning, as Thomas Alkemeyer argues, sport has been intrinsically interwoven with the—architectural—structures it has produced and which deliver the framework for the spectacle, thus elevating the game from the daily routine of common events (2008: 90). Furthermore, the stadium provides the space for a public sphere in which, even though unwanted by the governing bodies and other involved parties, political expression is ‘achievable, if not unavoidable’ (Guschwan 2014: 884). While clubs provide and co-create a variety of spaces within their area of influence—a variety which is increasing, as this section will show—the stadium is the space with the most profound communal impact since here, usually, the largest crowds gather. The club’s—traditional— purpose is put on public display here. Finally, the very presence of the stadium as architecture affects public life. The stadium then, is not only a space, it is the place where the symbol of the club takes on its most vivid, public form.

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Topophilia and Genius Loci The struggles of clubs for their grounds or stadiums are a rich and continuous narrative in football culture. Arguably, few physical places are equally laden with myths, legends and lore as the stadiums of football clubs. Like the clubs they house, the stadiums are symbols; and even more: the stadium creates the space where the symbol of the club becomes manifest in the public eye, where the club is displayed to a wider public. Stadiums are places of weekly pilgrimage and several authors have pointed towards the similarities between stadiums and religious sites such as temples or churches (Gebauer 2006, 2010; Bale 1993, 2000). Stadiums are regularly described as cathedrals (Lanfranchi 1995) and, sometimes, stadiums also bear religious connotations or resemblances in their names.12 In England especially, club grounds were often built on land formerly owned by the church. The grounds of lower league clubs are rarely described as cathedrals, nor do they usually bear such melodious names and attributes as Stadium of Light or Parc des Princes. The names of English stadiums usually reference the street, neighbourhood or borough in which they are built, reflecting a deep sense of local anchoring and creating a sense of place. In Germany, naming stadiums after club heroes has a long tradition, although naming a stadium after the local area or streets is also quite common. Today, in England and Germany alike, there are usually two names a stadium carries: the official name, which commonly consists of a sponsor’s name plus the word ‘stadium’ or ‘park’, or, very popular in Germany, ‘Arena’, and in addition, an unofficial, traditional, historical, folkloristic name, the name which is used among fans—and not necessarily just the fans of the respective club—and among the local population. This double-naming is now standard for many stadiums throughout the levels of the league pyramid as, in fact, few clubs can resist the sums paid for a stadium—name—sponsorship. Bale has pointed to the fact that the application of ‘stadium’ instead of ‘grounds’ in the post-Hillsborough ground-improvement era could already be read as an upgrading of the game’s image (2000: 93). Moreover, ‘parks’ and ‘gardens’ have increasingly found their way into the naming of stadiums, according to Bale signalling an element of play in an otherwise highly machine-like professional football setting (1999: 50–51). Park is also used in Germany, and similarly, the German Arena reflects the image upgrade referred to by Bale but furthermore, as I would argue, an upgrade in the quality of

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the spectacle: Whereas a stadium offered merely spectator sport, an arena evokes images of the agonistic character of the game and reflects the inflation of football matches to holistic sport spectacles with pre-match and half-time shows, including sound and light performances. Stadiums are also often used for numerous other events than just football matches. For instance, they are frequently used for other team sports, concert events and the like, especially in cases where it is municipalityowned. Some clubs also seek ways to use their stadium in other, creative ways. The Hamburg club St. Pauli for example organised reading sessions of the German author Heinrich Böll in their Millerntor stadium and each December, Union Berlin invites people to sing Christmas carols in their stadium Alte Försterei. The club also set an example with regard to creating a bond between stadium and community by relying on its fans in the reconstruction of ‘their’ ground (Horeni 2009). Of course, primarily, the stadium is a place to watch football being played; it is indeed a basal element of spectator sport but, here too, third-party interests often come into play. The land on which a stadium stands might increase in value and be sold. Furthermore, local politicians might think that a modern arena would put the city on the map for hosting international fixtures, be it friendly games or as host city in a nation’s Euro or World Cup bid. Whatever its name, the stadium also creates a space for the display and representation of expressions of fan culture in its various forms. The interaction of the audience with the match has been described as the creation of a spectacle in its own right (Baudrillard 1990: 87). Following Baudrillard, there is a concurrence and symbiotic relationship of the two spectacles during a football game, the one on the pitch and the one on the terraces. But apart from this function as a stage, a theatre for the matches and the audience that interacts with them, the stadium also serves as a space for the congregation of a club’s community: it becomes a symbolic place, mythologised, almost sacred in character, a cultural artefact. These stages, furthermore, also serve the enactment of society (Gebauer et al. 2004). Such places—as in the conception of spaces filled with cultural meaning—can evoke feelings of belonging; a club’s stadium is referred to as its ‘home’, both in the literal and emotional sense (Edensor and Millington 2010: 148; Brown 2010). The stadium is the space where the community of the club materialises, where it becomes manifest in a cultural place. Referring to a concept by Tuan (1974), Bale describes stadiums as a source of ‘topophilia’ (2000: 92), the love of ‘place’. Fans

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build strong attachments to their stadiums, and Bale cites one of his interviewees who expressed the feeling that it would be ‘like losing a family member’ (ibid.) if the club were ever to move to a new ground. I will now discuss a further dimension of the cultural importance of stadiums, namely their ability to incorporate genius loci, a spirit or sense of place (Bale 1999). Among others, King has pointed to the massive transformation stadiums have gone through with regard to their outer appearance since the mid-1990s (2010).13 This is true for Germany as well, where football-only stadiums became common in the late 1990s and early 2000s, superseding the multi-purpose athletics stadiums that had hitherto shaped Germany’s stadium landscape.14 It could be argued that the transformations both in English and German stadium landscapes have created a shift from an original genius loci to what Marc Augé (1995) called a ‘non-place’. Non-places are for Augé ‘space[s] which cannot be defined as relational, historical, or concerned with identity’ (ibid.: 63), that is, which are not an anthropological place. Subjective as this assertion might be, the architectural dimension of a new grounds is increasingly less spectacular the lower a club plays or the lower the status of the club is in view of the football community. Typical elements which have dominated the shared architecture—tracks around the field and relatively flat, rounded terraces—hence the term Kurve in Germany—one or two elevated wooden stands and lower standing terraces in England have made way for all-enclosed multi-purpose arenas. Certainly, the reconstruction and conversion of stadiums have been an ongoing phenomenon even prior to 1990 (Inglis 1987, 1990) but rarely did it occur in such far-reaching transformation in functional terms or architectural style. Discussing newly built grounds all over Europe, King concludes that the combination of plastic seats—which also define large parts of the stands in modern German stadiums—roofed stands and glass constructions mirrored the processes of commercialisation and control, the increase in transnational capital as well as the new consumption of football: The stadiums have become nodes in an emergent transnational order, representing the alliance of global capital, football clubs and consumers. They denote profound institutional transformations at the level of state and capital. They signify the emergence of a transnational order in which concentrated nodes of economic power interact across national borders with increasing ease. However, they also represent a transformation of the

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twentieth-century social order, with the renegotiation of old hierarchies of race, class, gender and ethnicity. In particular, the new European stadium has prioritized the affluent and respectable family as the prime consumer in place of the mass masculine spectatorship of the twentieth century. The new European stadiums embody a historical transformation of profound significance. (King 2010: 33–34)

This architectural turn has also taken hold in the lower leagues. However, in the top leagues, funds and the status of the clubs allow for the stadiums to be status symbols by sheer appearance and feature architectural elements which make them unique—e.g. the pillar construction at San Siro, the illuminated hull of the Allianz Arena, the huge standing terrace in the Westfalenstadion, the roof construction of the Emirates stadium, etc. In the lower leagues these distinguishable features are few and far between. At the same time, when a stadium is newly constructed on an old site, attempts are made to keep some of the genius loci and implement it into the new architecture, for example, by keeping an element of the old stadium or only upgrading parts of the old substance. This was the case for the German third tier club Chemnitzer FC where the roof of the old main stand serves today as the entrance gate into the club’s new stadium opened in 2016. In Germany, the restructuring has, it is argued, led to a better atmosphere and a more direct fan experience (Alkemeyer 2008: 92). Given the spatial dimensions of a pure football stadium compared to a multipurpose athletics stadium, this is certainly true. Moreover, it could be argued that the old stadiums were never quite distinguishable, featuring very similar architectural styles and forms. However, the old stadiums had genius loci, they had historical and cultural value. As Bale argues, the logic of competitive sports—non-recreational, professional sport—demanded a space instead of a place for the game to take place, due to the internal logic of fair play as well as measurement. ‘Placelessness’, to borrow from Relph (1976), was therefore what modern sites of competition longed for; the reduction of any disturbing factors which would interfere with the logic of standardisation necessary to achieve comparable. This process began by drawing a line around the field in 1882 to keep spectators from hindering the course of the match (Bale 1998: 268–269) and using treeless pitches; this was continued in fixing the size of the field and endures today in retractable stadium roofs, artificial turf and Hawk-Eye goal line technology. This striving for placelessness, though, interferes with the

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tendency of fans to create place simply by supporting ‘their’ team. Thus, according to Bale, a constant tension exists within the stadium between place and placelessness, the latter being further nurtured by increasing commercial interests of TV marketing: Televised sport continues the general trend. The banning of spectators furthers the domestication and the spatial confinement of the spectating experience. […] This also reminds us of the commercial imperatives of modern sports for which sanitised and safe places, combined with a synthetic environment which, as far as possible, should be ‘weatherless’, are highly desirable. (Bale 1998: 273–274)

It is evident that many of the measures imposed on the clubs by regulators and additions made to new stadiums voluntarily serve the undisturbed proceeding of the competition in Bale’s sense: roofs which can be closed, undersoil heating and hybrid soils have made football matches more comparable. However, with regard to the overall architecture it can also be stated that genius loci has been substituted by a felt ‘sameness’ (ibid.: 267) as local specificity and variation have diminished15 : I believe that there is considerable evidence that the football landscape—at least, the field of ‘play’—is becoming more predictable, and hence more placeless, over time. Contributors to football fanzines bemoan the ‘container architecture’ of their modern stadiums and the sameness of the football environment. (Bale 1998: 270)

Nostalgia is certainly a key element in this argumentation by commentators and supporters. Certainly, the ‘containers’ have become a reality for many football clubs. But, given the general development of football in the past fifteen years, standing in a multi-purpose arena with a track around the field as a football fan has only limited nostalgic value, as recent examples show. The atmosphere in the Olympiastadion in Berlin, despite featuring one of those nostalgic tracks, is not considered to be very good due to its excessive size and the huge distance between the audience and the pitch (RBB, 29 March 2016). And how must it feel for supporters of West Ham United to have to leave the culturally internalised and iconic Upton Park (Alexander 2005) and move to the huge London Olympic Stadium because their old grounds had to make way for a new housing complex (BBC, 10 May 2016)?

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For the clubs too, the stadium is nothing short of ‘home’. Still, as clubs operate based on cost-benefit calculations, there comes a point when they have to consider moving grounds and need to convince their respective club—and urban—community that this decision is either inevitable or better for the club in the long run. Usually, long-standing traditions are what make these moves hard. Today, in some cases, clubs have been rooted in their grounds for more than a century. Such moves often happen unwillingly and, in the lower leagues, often with little influence on decision-making on the part of the clubs, as the following section will show. Ground Moves, Relocations and the Question of Stadium Ownership Actual ground moves in the form of relocation are quite different from the simple renaming of stadiums and generally a more delicate matter for a club. They are in many ways more complicated and touch upon a variety of issues ranging from fan culture to economic transformations in the local lived environment. The site where a stadium is situated has an enormous amount of meaning attached to it, not only for the fans of a club but also for the people in the local area. If a stadium is renovated, expanded or even demolished and built anew at the old site, fans and ‘affected’ people can usually deal with these transformations as necessity embedded in usual modernisation processes. Typically, the old ground did not meet the security standards set by the football and league authorities or had to be demolished because renovations proved too expensive. However, it is a different matter altogether when clubs move to new grounds which are located elsewhere. In many cases, the old stadiums are either demolished, left to rot or converted, while the clubs embark into a new area and era on new ground. The problem for the clubs is that the meaning attached to the old stadium stays at the old stadium; it cannot be transferred as might be possible if a new stadium replaces an old one on the same site, that is, when the ‘turf’ remains the same. Several relocations bear witness to this fact, at the top as well as in lower level football. Moreover, if a club relocates it usually takes a large part of what defined that part of the town or city with it. The fact that football clubs affect the local community and its people, from fan to shopkeeper, rarely becomes so evident as in the case of grounds relocation. The site of the stadium is usually also the borough where the club was founded and the historic roots reach deep into the local community’s fabric.

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The worst case for club culture is, indeed, if relocation meets a stadium name change, for example, for sponsorship reasons—which it usually does. The Emirates of Arsenal FC is just known as the Emirates. Of course, it could hardly be named like the old stadium which was closed in 2006, simply because Highbury was a different stadium at a different site in a London borough called Highbury. The Emirates is not: it stands in Holloway, a different borough, even though it is just a few hundred metres west of the old stadium—which has in the meantime been demolished to be replaced by housing blocks with 700 apartments.16 Still, if the new stadium had been named after its new geographical location, fans might—perhaps—have better come to terms with it. Similar to the case of Chemnitzer FCs new stadium, in Arsenal’s new cathedral a remnant of the old stadium, a piece of the genius loci, found its way into the new grounds. The Arsenal clock which once iconographically defined the ‘Clock End’ at Highbury was fixed to the outside of the Emirates facing in the direction of its old home as a marker of Arsenal’s heritage at Highbury and as part of what the club termed the ‘Arsenalisation process’ of the new stadium, which started in 2009 and involved a re-introduction of Highbury names for the stands. As sponsorship names usually do not resonate well with supporters, the issue of a lack of emotional attachment is quite apparent. Ground moves are not only a regular occurrence in the top leagues, they are even more common in the leagues below—mainly for financial reasons and the increased demands made by authorities on the infrastructure in terms of security measures. One argument put forward in this regard both by clubs and public authorities revolves around the notion that new stadiums will serve the pacification of troubling fan behaviour, that the aura of modern stadiums would speak a different language and have a civilising effect. In addition infrastructural and architectural elements—i.e. sectoral separation—will make it possible for better crowd control. This argumentation can also be found in the DFL regulations for the stadiums in the first and second Bundesliga and the DFB regulations for the 3. Liga. Below the third level, regulations are less stringent. That said, clubs have repeatedly waived promotion because their stadiums did not meet requirements for the fourth level—and be it alone because they balked at investing in flood lighting. In England, these issues are handled similarly. In Germany, pure football stadiums were rare in the early 1990s. Today, the omnipresent multi-purpose stadiums of old have themselves become a rarity. The 1990s witnessed a great deal of turmoil with regard

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to stadiums both in Germany and England. In England’s top leagues, stadiums had to be restructured according to the recommendations of the Taylor Report in the wake of the Hillsborough stadium disaster, removing all standing terraces.17 Today, such standing terraces or even wooden terraces can only be found in the lower English leagues.18 Figure 4 shows the average number of visitors in a league game during a season as well as the season’s overall attendance for the top leagues in each country. In both countries, the phases of stadium expansion can clearly be seen in the average attendance statistics which show that attendance has grown by around six million as a consequence of grounds redevelopment. In England, average attendance climbed after 1992/1993 and levelled out in 2002/2003. In Germany, numbers also climbed after reunification, yet the phase of stadium expansion did not start before 2002/2003 and the successful World Cup, levelling out around 2009/2010. The higher overall attendance is due to the higher number of games played in the Premier League—306 in the BL compared to 380 in the PL. The average 45

40

35

30 Average Germany

25

Total Germany Average England Total England

20

15

10

5

Fig. 4 Average attendance development, PL & BL, 1990–2019 (Source Own figure, data acquired from worldoffootball.net)

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numbers are therefore more telling; here Germany has built up quite a margin since 2006. The German stadiums hold larger numbers with their standing terraces and further increases are possible since capacity utilisation in Germany’s BL is only 91% compared to 96% in the PL (Deloitte 2018: 9). The recent rise in England’s average and total attendance is due to Tottenham’s move to New White Heart Lange in 2017/2018 adding roughly 30,000 seats in stadium capacity. More importantly for the scope of this thesis, the grounds developments at the top have triggered similar processes in the leagues below. In order to provide the infrastructural means in case of promotion, lower league clubs, especially those in larger cities down to league level four, have also begun to erect new stadiums or refit and expand older stadiums, sometimes at remarkably low cost (Stadionwelt, 07 May 2007). Today, the pacification of top league football—i.e. TV revenue relevant football— is paramount and thus the regulations for stadium security has increased in the lower leagues as well. Since standing terraces were gradually banned after the 2012/2013 season, clubs in the Championship—second tier— are today allowed to admit spectators to seated accommodation only. Regulations do still allow standing areas in the leagues below, but these have to be reduced season by season until in the fourth season of play in these leagues, clubs are only allowed standing areas which comply with the safe standing regulations of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority Act 2011. Furthermore, clubs are only allowed to the Championship if their stadium fulfils the PL criteria on the date of theoretical promotion. However, clubs can still choose not to open standing areas to visitors if they have not been converted. According to my data collection, in the 2016/2017 season two clubs in the Championship still had mixed accommodation stadiums. In one case, the club, Burton Albion, had just promoted to the second tier. The other case, Brentford FC, was in its last transition year for accommodating standing terraces and had to either convert or close the standing area in the 2017/2018 season. In League 1, eighteen out of twenty-four clubs—75%—played in all-seater stadiums, whereas in League 2 it was still ten out of twenty-four—42%. The number of all-seater stadiums then decreases rapidly, with only two out of twentyfour clubs having all-seater stadiums at the fifth level—eight per cent. Still, the requirements for clubs joining the fifth level also hold significant challenges with regard to grounds improvements. To qualify, the stadium needs to have a capacity of 4000 with the ability to be extended

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to 5000—of which 500 must be seated with the ability to reach 1000. In the first season the extended criteria—capacity of 5000 including 1000 seated accommodation—must be reached by the club by 1 May. By 1 May of its third season in the league, a club has to increase the seating capacity to 2000. Requirements extend to specifics in flood lighting, etc. In Germany, all-seater stadiums are almost non-existent as standing is too much considered an integral part of fan culture. One of two exceptions is the new Zentralstadion in Leipzig, opened in 2004 and currently home to RasenBallsport Leipzig. The new stadium, literally built into the old stadium for use during the 2006 World Cup, was designed as a stadium for international matches and, thus, does not feature standing terraces.19 Still, every now and then and preceded by fan misbehaviour, public and political pressure is raised in Germany and the abolishment of the standing areas is openly contemplated. This, however, has not produced any serious consequences as of yet and is mainly used to keep the fans in line. The collected data shows a stark difference with regard to the status of stadium ownership between German and English clubs. Table 1 lists the Table 1 Percentage of public stadium ownership in respective league levels (2017) Level

England

Germanya

1

20.0

27.7

2

12.5

50.0

70%

3

12.5

72.2

60%

4

25.0

89.6b

50%

England

40%

Germany

5

29.2

84.2c

100% 90% 80%

30% 20% 10% 0% 1

2

3

4

5

a Reserve teams (second squads) have not been included b The fourth tier in Germany was calculated on the basis of two of the five divisions only, namely

the clubs in the West and North-East division. Out of twenty-nine clubs, twenty-six are tenants at communal sport facilities, two clubs own their stadium and, in one case the stadium is owned by a third private entity c Due to the number of teams at this level, a random sample of twenty clubs was drawn from all fourteen divisions. In one case, the stadium was owned by a third private entity, in sixteen cases the stadium belonged to the communal authority Source Own table and figures based on own calculations from data collection carried out for the clubs competing in each level in the 2016/2017 season

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number of clubs at each league level that rent their stadium from a public authority. While in England about one-third of all clubs in the first to fifth levels do not directly own their stadium but rent it from a public authority, the numbers in Germany are in general higher, which again reveals the differences between the leagues. The largest gap between English and German public ownership appears in level three. Public ownership decreases from PL to Championship level and then rises at level four; public ownership in Germany increases constantly down to the fourth level. From the fifth level downwards, the data then suggests a decrease in public ownership. I would expect the value to remain slightly above the 80% mark further down the leagues since Breuer and Wicker (2011: 78– 79) assessed the rate of football clubs—from all levels—using communal sporting infrastructure to be around 83%.20 Both in England and Germany, stadiums are in some cases owned by project consortiums. These are often PPPs that raise funds for erecting, converting or simply running a stadium collectively. In some cases, especially when publicly owned, stadiums are run by operating companies that are direct subsidiaries of the public authority. A few general remarks about ownership have to be made at this point. First, in the English context, ownership has to be—again—problematized as, except for cases in which an ST owns the stadium, the club does not actually own the ground. The club’s ground is usually owned by the owner of the club, as the stadium is one asset in the club’s package. Theoretically, and in some cases this has indeed been the case, the owner can sell the club but keep ownership of the stadium, as the case of Oldham Athletic testifies (Herbert 2016). Thus, English clubs are once more extremely dependent on their private benefactors. Selling a club’s ground, however, is not always easy, as the site might be accredited community value, which makes selling it quite hard since the land may then not be developed further. The ST of Blackburn Rovers made a particular effort to ensure that the club’s ground could not be sold (roverstrust.com, 20 September 2016). The peculiar status the owners enjoy sometimes creates effects of very different kinds. In the case of Forest Green Rovers, the chairman—the owner of the club and the stadium—turned the club into the first all-vegan football club in England, following the introduction of solar-powered lawn mowers and other eco-friendly measures. He also ordered players not to eat raw meat and the club eventually turned vegan (forestgreenroversfc.com, 30

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October 2015). In 2017, the Gloucestershire club announced plans to build a modern all-wooden stadium (ABC, 09 February 2017). On the other hand, in England it is the owners of the club and stadium who have to come up with the costs of policing during the matches. In the case of Wigan Athletic, this caused the police department to threaten to cease policing during the club’s matches due to unpaid bills which chairman Daven Whelan deemed too high (Ogden 2005). In Germany the costs for policing at and around football matches are generally paid for by the taxpayer. A ruling in 2019 found that clubs can be charged for high-profile matches (Deutsche Welle 2019), a verdict which might proof to be problematic for lower league clubs in the foreseeable future. In some cases, clubs seek to sell their stadium to a public authority in order to settle their finances, as the grounds are usually a club’s most valuable asset. In the case of Walsall for example, the city refused to buy the ground. Other clubs try to buy the ground they are renting from local authorities, also in order to reduce costs, as they might be forced to move to a different ground as the case of Swindon shows. Despite the fact that English clubs in most cases only partially own their ground, there are some cases where the ground is clearly in club-decoupled, third-party private ownership. In these—and other tenancy—cases, rent disputes put further pressure on the club, as in the case of League 1 club Coventry FC (BBC, 21 August 2014). The club left its stadium and played its matches in Northampton, around thirty-five miles away, after a dispute with the company which rented out the stadium in 2013. In 2014 a new deal was agreed upon and the club returned to play its matches ‘at home’. In extreme cases where the land a club is based on is especially valuable, clubs might even find themselves under pressure from the public authority to abandon their ground. Millwall FC was facing such a scenario in 2016 when fears arose that the club would be dispossessed of land around The Den via a compulsory purchase order, which would have forced the third tier club to relocate to Kent. After about six months and increasing pressure from the club’s community, the public and the media over the unclear connections between the developer and the local Labour government, the plan was finally abandoned by the borough’s mayor (Simpson and Winston 2017; Ronay 2016, 2017b, c). Selling and redeveloping grounds—often as housing areas—has become quite a tradition in the meantime. The properties are often extremely valuable, particularly in urban areas. Ronay described the effect of the proceedings at Millwall:

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‘Should the [compulsory purchase] order be confirmed the ripples will be felt by other league clubs in areas where rising land prices are likely to attract developers with an eye on regeneration. Supporters of nearby Charlton Athletic and Leyton Orient will be watching with interest, as will other mid-size Football League clubs across the country.’ (Ronay 2017a)

The strong dependence on public sport infrastructure and the special deals German clubs often achieve in terms of rent and financial support puts them in a delicate position in terms of how they legitimise the received concessions before a broader public. Financially strapped clubs have often been helped by authorities buying stadiums or helping to erect new ones so that the club could continue to compete in its respective league level or could gain access to potential promotion by fulfilling the licensing criteria. Especially in the leagues below the fourth tier, clubs which do not own the stadiums in which they are playing usually have a leasehold agreement with the communal owner that also includes a hereditary building right. Therefore, in these cases, clubs enjoy de facto a quasi-ownership of their grounds, especially since the leaseholds often extend over decades. Around 28.5% of all single sport football clubs as well as multi-sport football clubs do not have to contribute financially or by other means in return for the use of communal facilities (Breuer and Wicker 2011: 78). While the cultural crisis can be seen in disrupted links between communities and clubs, it is this obligation towards the broader public which puts clubs in what I call a social crisis and which will be dealt with in the following chapter.

Notes 1. The clubs founded in factories were usually the product of paternalistic owners and businessmen (Wagg 1984: 4). It might meanwhile count as an established fact that football did not originate as a working-class game— and has never been so, despite the myth surrounding the ‘people’s game’ origins. In fact, English football originated in the upper and middle classes and was then adopted by the working class (Curry and Dunning 2015). 2. A census on religious worship in England and Wales conducted in 1851 revealed that over five million people did not attend church services, most of whom were considered to be part of the ‘labouring population’ (Census of Great Britain 1851: 94). The report indicated that

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

145

the two main reasons for this were the manifestations of class separation that estranged the working class from religious institutions and the increasing number of ‘unconscious secularists’ (ibid.: 93) in the labour force. However, it remains doubtful how much of this alleged religious apathy can be expressed in church service attendance figures, especially when the data is based on figures collected on one day in one year (ibid.: vi–vii). By the 1850s, the Chartist movement had already passed its peak. However, the radical democratic attitudes by this essentially economic movement, above all, the idea of universal suffrage was still of concern to the Whig government in power (see Pugh 1999: 46). As Holt points out, these groups were often of paramilitary character, such as the Boys’ Brigade in Glasgow or the Church Lads’ Brigade, but not necessarily, as the Young Men’s Christian Association demonstrates. Older, non-religious groups such as the Volunteer Force used football with equal success (Holt 1989: 138). The importance of the military in the popularisation of football and football clubs in Britain has been laid out by Mason and Riedi (2010). As Giulianotti notes, this understanding about the role and value of football clubs was also firmly present in the Edwardian era, and the idea of football clubs as ‘de facto “crime prevention units”’ (1999: 34, italics in orig.) can be found in some of the UK’s policy reports even in the 1960s (ibid.). The first football club in Germany and possibly in continental Europe was founded in 1874 in Dresden by a group of British workers, the Dresden Football Club (Wittner 2006). The club Lipsia Leipzig was founded in 1893 by craftsmen (HesseLichtenberger 2003: 36). Leipzig was also the founding city of the DFB in 1900 as well as the site for the first German championship in 1903. The Ruhr Valley has the highest density in football clubs even today. In fact, early attempts to form women’s football clubs and leagues during the late-Victorian period were quite rigidly suppressed and ridiculed by the patriarchs of the sport (Lee 2008). The FA outlawed women’s football from being played on ‘its’ turfs in 1921 after women’s football had seen a rise in popularity during the Great War. English women then founded their own association and moved to rugby grounds, a sport which— for whatever reason—seems to have been more inclusive than football. The status of football as a space for the exertion of masculine dominance (Bourdieu 2001; Meuser 2008) was thus set quite quickly. The ban and its aftermath resonate until today. It took until 2012—and the decision of the Abu Dhabi United Group—for the women’s team of Manchester City to be integrated as an own department into Manchester City, despite the club’s existence since 1988. On football as a male space, see also Kreisky

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. 16.

17.

and Spitaler (2006), Pfister et al. (2013), Pfister and Fasting (2004), and Parry and Malcolm (2004). On the establishment of working class masculinity, see Connell (2002: 253). In fact, it was the regularity and affordability of league competition which further eased football’s transition into everyday culture. While the working classes regarded cricket as holiday entertainment due to the costs that accompanied the long matches, football ‘provided the staple diet of popular sports for most of the year’ (Holt 1989: 179). The ban only moved the betting elsewhere, predominantly the streets. Street-betting became very popular and, as feared by many, an industry of betting evolved, using new means of transportation and communication to its advantage (Hopkins 1991: 57; Holt 1989: 180). People from the working classes could not afford to bet on site and county clubs were inaccessible to them not only for reasons of social acceptance but also due to the high costs of membership. On betting and horse racing see Wray Vamplew’s seminal work (1976). See for example Sunderland’s Stadium of Light and Benfica’s Estádio da Luz, or Newcastle’s St. James’ Park, Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium— to which they moved in 2001—and Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo. Many of the post-Hillsborough conversions were realised only with additional funding from the Football Trust. The Trust was founded in 1975 by the Labour government as the Football Grounds Improvement Trust to provide grants for stadium safety improvements after the passing of the Safety of Sports Grounds Act. It existed until 2000, when it was replaced by the Football Foundation, which also funds grounds’ improvements, though on the grassroots level. It is funded by the PL, the FA and the NGB Sports England. https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm1 99899/cmselect/cmcumeds/124/124ap40.htm. The existence of these stadiums, which always featured a track around the football pitch, is in itself symbolic for the interrelationship and struggle between gymnastics and sports in Germany. On Bale’s line of argument on the commercialisation and territorialisation effects on the architecture of stadiums see also: Schroer (2008: 157, 164). In this case, Arsenal converted the site itself and sought to sell Highbury Square at a profit. Mounting debts and unfulfilled purchase contracts forced Arsenal to sell 150 flats at well below market value (The Telegraph, 28 September 2009). As a matter of fact, the report did not recommend abolishing of standing terraces explicitly. It only pointed out that a seated audience was easier to control. Above all, the report pointed to the lack of policing as the main cause of the stadium disaster which cost the lives of ninety-six FC Liverpool fans (Home Office 1989: 44, 49; 1990: 100; Johnes 2004: 143). The report did recommend the abolishment of perimeter fencing,

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which was then put into practice by the all-seater solution implemented by the government. The ‘Green Guide’, which was first issued with the report, specified safety regulations for sports grounds (DCMS 2008) and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA)—until 2011 the Football Licensing Authority, SGSA Act 2011)—was appointed to oversee its implementation. 18. Enduring campaigning by the FSF has kept the issue of standing areas alive since the turn of the millennium. A trial version of a safe standing area has been built in the stadium of Bristol City FC, a Football League club. However, it is only used for rugby matches and not for football. While backing for the FSF’s Safe Standing Campaign by the clubs throughout the league levels has grown tremendously over the years, the authorities still do not allow safe standing on match days. In late 2016, Premier League clubs began talks with the FA over the issue after thirteen clubs indicated interest in backing safe standing trials, Liverpool FC being the only club which formally opposed the resolution. To date, the only British club with a safe standing area being used for football matches is Celtic Glasgow. The 2600 capacity rail seating area was opened for the 2016/2017 season. A successful trial in Scotland is hoped to be a watershed for the return of standing areas in English stadiums. 19. The only further exception—to my knowledge—is the Olympiastadion used by Hertha BSC Berlin. 20. This figure is based on my calculations. Breuer and Wicker (2011) suggest a rate of 72.5% for SBSC football clubs (n = 4500) and 86.5% for MBSC football clubs (n = 17,000).

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Mason, T. (1997). Großbritannien. In C. Eisenberg (Ed.), Fußball, soccer, calico. Ein englischer Sport auf seinem Weg um die Welt (pp. 22–40). München: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag. Mason, T., & Riedi, E. (2010). Sport and the Military. The British Armed Forces 1880–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McGill, C. (2001). Football Inc.: How Soccer Fans Are Losing the Game. London: Vision. Meuser, M. (2008). It’s a Men’s World. Ernste Spiele männlicher Vergemeinschaftung. In G. Klein & M. Meuser (Eds.), Ernste Spiele. Zur politischen Soziologie des Fußballs (pp. 113–134). Bielefeld: Transcript. Numerato, D. (2015). Who Says ‘No to Modern Football?’ Italian Supporters, Reflexivity, and Neo-Liberalism. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 39(2), 120– 138. Ogden, M. (2005, January 13). Wigan Anger at ‘Unfair’ Police Bill. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/2353678/Wigan-angerat-unfair-police-bill.html. Parry, M., & Malcolm, D. (2004). England’s Barmy Army. Commercialization, Masculinity and Nationalism. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 39(1), 75–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690204040524. Pfister, G., & Fasting, K. (2004). Geschlechterkonstruktion auf dem Fußballplatz. Aussagen von Fußballspielerinnen zu Männlichkeits- und Weiblichkeitskonzepten. In D. H. Jütting (Ed.), Die lokal-globale Fußballkultur wissenschaftlich beobachtet (pp. 137–152). Münster: Waxmann. Pfister, G., Lenneis, V., & Mintert, S. (2013). Female Fans of Men’s Football—A Case Study in Denmark. Soccer & Society, 14(6), 850–871. Porter, C. (2019). Supporter Ownership in English Football: Class, Culture and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pugh, M. (1999). Britain Since 1789: A Concise History. New York: Palgrave. Redhead, S. (1997). Post-Fandom and the Millennial Blues: The Transformation of Soccer Culture. London and New York: Routledge. Relph, E. (1976). Place and Placelessness. London: Pion. Ronay, B. (2016, October 27). Millwall Given New Hope in Land Battle as Disquiet Grows over Property Deal. The Guardian. https://www.thegua rdian.com/football/2016/oct/27/millwall-the-den-lewisham-council-pro perty-developers. Ronay, B. (2017a, January 5). Millwall Admit Council Scheme Could Force Club to Leave Lewisham. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/ 2017/jan/05/millwall-admit-council-scheme-leave-lewisham. Ronay, B. (2017b, January 25). Millwall CPO Scrapped as Lewisham Mayor Calls Time on Development Plan. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2017/jan/25/millwall-cpo-scrapped-lewisham-mayor.

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Ronay, B. (2017c, January 27). How the Battle to Save Millwall’s Stadium Was Won. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/ jan/27/how-local-resistance-and-press-scrutiny-saved-millwalls-stadium. Schroer, M. (2008). Vom ‘Bolzplatz’ zum ‘Fußballtempel’. Was sagt die Architektur der neuen Fußballstadien über die Gesellschaft der Gegenwart aus? In G. Klein & M. Meuser (Eds.), Ernste Spiele. Zur politischen Soziologie des Fußballs (pp. 155–173). Bielefled: Transcript. Simpson, M., & Winston, W. (2017, January 26). Millwall’s Fight for The Den: ‘It’s Been a Hell of a Battle, a Victory for the Small Man’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/jan/26/mil lwall-fans-cpo-threat-the-den-lifted. Sports Ground Safety Authority Act 2011. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/ 2011/6/pdfs/ukpga_20110006_en.pdf. Taylor, N. (2004). ‘Giving Something Back’: Can Football Clubs and Their Communities Coexist? In S. Wagg (Ed.), British Football and Social Exclusion (pp. 47–66). Oxon and New York: Routledge. Tuan, Y. F. (1974). Topophilia. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Vamplew, W. (1976). The Turf. A Social and Economic History of Horse Racing. New York: Viking Press. Wagg, S. (1984). The Football World. A Contemporary Social History. Sussex: Harvester Press. Webber, D. M. (2015). ‘Playing on the Break’. Karl Polanyi and the DoubleMovement ‘Against Modern Football’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690215621025. Williams, J. (2006). ‘Protect Me From What I Want’: Football Fandom, Celebrity Cultures and ‘New’ Football in England. Soccer & Society, 7 (1), 96–114. Wittner, A. (2006, July 4). Als die Engländer noch dauernd siegten. Die Welt. https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article227103/Als-die-Englaender-nochdauernd-siegten.html. Ziesche, D. (2011). Reclaiming the Game? Soziale Differenzierung, Exklusion und transformative Prozesse in der Fußballkultur Englands. Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin. Ziesche, D. (2017). Well Governed? Stakeholder Representation in German Professional Football Clubs. In B. García & J. Zheng (Eds.), Football and Supporter Activism in Europe: Whose Game Is It? (pp. 89–120). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Social Crisis: Building Bridges

Strongly related to the economic and cultural crises in football and their effects on the club community relations discussed previously is what I call the crisis of the football club as a social institution. This social crisis affects the standing or the reputation of the social institution of the football club in broader society and exists in interdependency with the two crises already discussed. Further, this social crisis is related to a process of politicisation which affects football at different levels and has to be assessed from different perspectives. This will describe the general nature of the social crisis of the football club as an institution, first by drawing upon recent attempts to politically regulate the business of football. I then move on to discuss the issue of public opposition to football clubs, which mainly originates in urban communities. The last part of this chapter is then devoted to community engagement strategies in the form of community programmes (CPs) which are increasingly being developed by clubs at lower league levels both in England and Germany. While I will initially deal with the structures behind these strategies, the strategic agenda of the football clubs and other actors in implementing these programmes will be discussed.

© The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_5

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Politics Moving In All the processes discussed on the following have emerged as a reaction to the two crises described in chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games” and “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”. Recent economic developments in the football business have triggered government investigations in the form of an All-Party Parliamentary Football Group (APPFG) and has stirred debates over stadium security that have involved politicians and government officials in both England and Germany. As high profile public institutions, clubs are themselves political actors engaged in a highly politicised field and are therefore frequently the subject of political agendas, finding themselves under pressure to be visible and active social institutions, both because of their potential to contribute to social cohesion as well as because of the funding they receive. However, with regard to regulating the business of professional football in economic terms, politics has left the sport to its own devices for quite a while. The ignorance that policymakers ranging from the EU level to the local level have shown towards sport has backfired, with a significant lack of regulation and a broad array of autonomies and exemptions, especially when seen in contrast to ordinary market organisations. The demands made by clubs and the transformations they impose on their local environments often result in conflicts of interest among politicians, but leave them with little to no ability to act. As Szymanski points out: In Europe, sports developed as social institutions with only a limited economic dimension, until the 1990s, when the economic potential was recognised by business interests in broadcasting and merchandising. Politicians saw no need to intervene in the past, but are now facing up to developments which do not please their constituents, but have not violated any specific rules or regulations. (Szymanski 2010: 86)

Politicians are thus in a dilemma, as they are forced to intervene in an unregulated system; the clubs and associations are working within current legal parameters. Even if wrongdoing is identified—which, of course, happens from time to time in such a competitive business such as football—politicians have to differentiate between the club, what it symbolises and its owner—who will have acted against the law. One possible strategy to influence football clubs is to put indirect pressure on them by appraising and emphasising their value for the community and society as such. The sport as well as its clubs are thus co-opted as best

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practice examples of social integrative institutions. This begs the question as to whether and how they deliver. With the publishing of the APPFG reports, the British government became aware of the issues concerning ruptures between communities and clubs at the top level of English football and decided to intervene. While during the late 1990s and early 2000s such interventions were based on the mere feeling that clubs should ‘give something back’ to the community (Taylor 2004), the British government has since upped its game. Clubs now face a real threat of being forced to give supporters a greater say and to include them effectively in the decision-making process (Martin 2007). Backed by publicly funded organisations such as Supporters Direct, supporters are being empowered, even to seize ownership of a club in the form of trusts. They are given the first chance to offer a bid for their club in insolvency cases (DCMS 2015). Even though the threat of insolvency might not affect the top clubs in the same way and with the same immediacy,1 the intervention is noteworthy and will potentially tip the scales in favour of supporter ownership in the future. The centrality of the club structures with regard to matters of social involvement is obvious: a club which mainly serves entrepreneurial purposes will have a different agenda than a supporter-owned club with a charitable agenda. With an increasing number of supporter-owned clubs in England, questions have been raised whether increasing supporter ownership of clubs would benefit the perceived social value of football. As David Boyle, chief executive of Supporters Direct points out: ‘Clubs that incorporate supporter involvement have a more expansive view of what they are for, and can have a more beneficial social impact. It links clearly to the wider movements to encourage mutual models of ownership and the big society agenda’ (cited in Conn 2010). In using the term ‘big society’, Boyle evokes a concept which was particularly popular with then leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron. ‘Big society’ was deemed to re-invent British conservatism and sought to decrease central power by means of the empowerment of civil society and engagement in social and educational spheres, quite in line with communitarian arguments. The strategy sought a direct opposition to Thatcherite conservatism while sharing its opposition to the strategy of state interventionism (Scott 2011; HoC PASC 2011; Cabinet Office 2010). The project of community-/mutual-/fan-/supporter-ownership in England has been promoted and supported by different UK governments regardless of party affiliation. From the founding of the Football Task

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Force to the creation of an APPFG, the founding of Supporters Direct, or the establishment of a ‘Supporter Ownership and Engagement Group’, government has shown deep concern regarding the issue of football club ownership and has taken various measures to address it. In October 2014, Labour unveiled far-reaching plans to empower football fans and proposed measures which would enshrine the rights of supporters in positions on club boards of directors and STs to own a significant number of shares in clubs (Labour Party 2014; Roan and Slater 2014; Gibson 2014). It is this government involvement that is one of the strongest indicators for the actuality of the social crisis of football in the UK.

Public Opposition to Football Clubs The social role of football clubs as exerting social control is a motif that is quite regularly associated with sports in general and football in particular (Giulianotti 1999: 14–15; see chapter “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”). The everyday media representations of football, however, regularly show its limits in terms of social containment and control it can exert. Here, the divisive and exclusionary forces that football can set in motion are highlighted and thus shape the public image of the sport and its actors. Many of the measures in the transformation of English football in the 1990s were aimed at pacifying stadiums and football culture by means of regulating the anti-social behaviour among spectators and the disorder caused by football matches (James and Pearson 2014). In Germany, similar measures in terms of fan separation and surveillance methods in stadiums were taken. I will not go in into detail about the ‘panopticisation’ of modern society in general (Foucault 1977: 216– 218)2 and football stadiums specifically any further (Giulanotti 1999: 83; also: Bale 1992; King 2010). The implementation of CCTV usage and increased stewardship, however, has resulted both in a shift in discourse on the use of the term ‘violence’—from its application to actual physical violence to fan-related forms of misconduct such as the use of pyrotechnics—as well as in a shift of the place where—physical—violence itself is acted out, namely, from the comparably confined space of the stadium to the far more public spaces of the city. Discrepancies between the public image that football clubs want to transmit and the images which their fan scenes transport to the media from time to time pose another challenge for football clubs. When football shows its ugly face, the capacity of clubs to serve as institutions of

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social containment is questioned by politicians and civil society. In the ‘new’ football world, this—never fully controllable—‘interference’ with the social image of football becomes even more severe as the perceived discrepancy increases: the clubs can participate in school projects as much as they want, as long as they are not able to enact control on parts of their fan scene, their image will not improve sustainably. As Bale convincingly argued, the urban community directly affected by football stadiums due to its proximity can easily be fractured into those who support the local club and those for whom the nuisances and the missing ties to football are reason enough to form local NIMBYlike activist groups against ground reconstructions, relocations or other measures in their direct local vicinity (2000: 93). Some years ago, new plans at Salford City FC—then sixth level—to reconstruct their old ground into a new 5000 seater stadium raised such protests. While they were primarily directed against the plans for the stadium, the commercial trajectory of the club under its current ownership by the ‘Class of ’92’, a group of former Manchester United players, was also criticised (Stone 2016). In lower league football, these NIMBY-groups find additional fodder to oppose clubs in their vicinity in claims—amplified by media reports and police statistics—that fans in these less regulated leagues tend to be more violent than those of the more ‘civilised’ top clubs. Oftentimes, lower league clubs still have their grounds within the city or neighbourhood in which they are based whereas the top clubs with their large audiences choose or are directed towards new grounds outside the perimeter of the city. Thus, the direct impact of a lower league club is more directly felt by its neighbouring communities. Furthermore, the general scarcity of public—and green—space in urban areas prompts protest against ground development. The example of FCUM, a SOFC dealt with later in this study in more detail, and its problems acquiring its own ground shows that public opposition to such ventures can form even if the club in question has a clear and longstanding community focus. There are numerous reasons why the situation around Broadhurst Park developed as it did, as Porter concisely describes (2019). But the fact that the NIMBY initiative that formed against FCUM’s plans for Broadhurst Park had at least partial ties to Manchester City FC—the main rival of FCUM’s mother club Manchester United FC—also demonstrates the limited reach of a football club’s community focus and shows how the divisive potential of football can hinder community aspirations. Arguably, it is still only the football-friendly and

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club-sympathetic community which is addressed by such CPs and not the wider community, as is often claimed. In Germany especially, clubs have usually found their new, relocated homes on the outskirts of a city, close to motorway junctions that thus reduce the problems of transportation to and from the stadium and reduce inner city traffic on match days. But these relocations of stadiums beyond the ‘city walls’ also increase the cultural and emotional distance between urban communities and the clubs that claim to represent them. A shift in the cultural embeddedness and accessibility as well as the cultural quality of a football match event takes place: the match takes place somewhere else, people have to decide explicitly to take part where in the past the match taking place in the middle of the community was almost impossible to ignore. In England, this move to the outskirts was in effect in meeting with the recommendations made in the Taylor Report, which argued that it benefitted the community and urged local authorities to assist clubs in their relocation: There has recently been a number of attempts by clubs to find greenfield sites for new grounds only to be turned down at each attempt on planning grounds. Clearly, an application for a football ground in a conservation area or green belt poses planning problems. But, although the protection of such areas is an important principle, two other considerations may also carry weight. First, that the quality of life of residents living adjacent to a football ground in a town would be much improved by resiting it elsewhere. Secondly, that if we want safety and improved standards at grounds there are some clubs which will need a new site at which to achieve them. (Home Office 1990: 50)

While aspects such as limited parking availability and overcrowding in certain city neighbourhoods on match days might not be among their more pressing concerns, lower league football clubs still have to deal with public opposition to their presence. Crowd behaviour is a particular issue in the lower leagues as the standard in stadium security and crowd control measures is lower. Public opposition grows when football clubs fail to deliver sufficient social value to legitimise their existence in the community. This intensifies even further, when clubs are physically removed from their neighbourhoods. In this case, they not only can be perceived as detached from their club communities—i.e. by their own fans—they can also gradually lose the broader support of the urban community because they are absent from

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public life altogether. This decrease in a club’s emotional and cultural capital has significant consequences not the least of which emerge when the club finds itself in need of public money. The question of funding for ground construction has led to debates among the populations of various German cities, when football clubs were perceived as being favoured over other cultural institutions in equal need of public funding, such as theatres, opera houses or museums (e.g. Defeld 2016). The dependency of the clubs on a city council’s goodwill in allocating public funds can be seen in Chemnitz and Dresden, both Saxon cities with football clubs playing in the 3. Liga at the time they needed to reconstruct their grounds. In both cases the grounds were owned by the city and the city council had to decide on the new buildings. By the end of 2016, Chemnitzer FC was facing administration due to mismanagement and a debt of roughly e2 m. Eventually, the city saved the club, having just invested e27 m in a brand new stadium which it did not want to see stand empty (Held 2016). In other cases, such as in Bremen (Weser Kurier 13 November 2015) and St. Pauli (n-TV , 08 October 2009), or more recently in the case of Everton’s new £300 m stadium in Liverpool (Hunter 2017), the cities were forced to act as guarantors for the costs involved. At Alemannia Aachen, the city eventually bought the ground from the club to relieve it from the financial burden (Der Spiegel, 28 January 2015). The high costs involved in stadium construction are yet another issue in the debate on the legitimacy of the allocation of public funds to football clubs, the city council having to justify its decision before its constituents. Yet, the cultural and emotional capital clubs generate might also be a source to renew regional and local pride. Just as on the national level, the identity-endowing potential of football is at play on the sub-national level as well. This does not only account for the immediate followers of a football club, the fans and supporters, but also the wider community of the locality in which a football club is situated. Indeed, a community which takes pride in their club might thrive as a spillover effect from this club. Henry Winter has described such a case in Burnley FC, a club from a deprived east Lancashire town which has seen the collapse of its traditional industries and a catapult rise in unemployment levels. Burnley FC, according to Winter a ‘community pillar’ (2007), can recur on a glorious past that is omnipresent throughout the city and is narrated down the generations. In the wake of deprivation, the town of Burnley suffered

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from the same symptoms as many other towns struck by far-reaching transformational processes: As a town, Burnley has been struggling economically and it has had civil disturbances. Thirty-five per cent of homeowners are on less than £10,000 a year and 600 people move out of the town every year. The able youngsters move out for higher education, move onwards and upwards and don’t return. The ones who stay seem to suffer from low esteem, low horizons and low wages. Burnley needs to be re-established as that dynamic east Lancashire town it used to be, and that’s why we are working alongside the borough council, county council and North-West Development Agency. (Burnley FC CEO Edmundson cited in Winter [2007])

With a chief executive looking to change things for the better accompanied by long-term sporting success—the club was promoted to the Premier League at the end of the 2015/2016 season—Burnley FC has put tremendous effort into strengthening the local community by employing social workers and endorsing a Community Sports Trust to train talents from vulnerable areas in different sports, not just in football. Of course, this development is not open to all football clubs from deprived regions and the case of Burnley does point to the question of how important sporting success is in this process. In the following, I will focus on community engagement schemes at football clubs, one of the most popular measures employed throughout the leagues to establish the social link between clubs and their communities. Although these programmes have been mentioned earlier, here I will show in more detail how they have developed at the top and then, again, caught on within lower league football.

Community Schemes: Delivering Social Responsibility As Gavin Mellor (2008) points out, football clubs in England have been engaging in community-based work since the 1980s. At that time, English football had to face massive problems due to hooliganism, crowd disturbances, a historical drop in spectatorship and the resultant economic problems. It is thus hardly surprising that the clubs aspired to reconnect with their local communities in order to overcome these challenges.

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Early community schemes were ‘[o]riginally suggested as an interventionist measure to combat the effects of football hooliganism as far back as 1975’ (Watson 2000: 114). Consequently, the national Football in the Community (FITC) scheme was established in 1986 in order to address these issues in a joint venture between the Football League and the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA).3 Consisting mainly of player appearances in public spaces and traditional children’s coaching schemes (Mellor 2008: 319; Parnell et al. 2013: 35), it was not until the 1990s that these programmes gained any momentum (Watson 2000). This momentum was due to two forms of politicisation that have been previously mentioned: the politicisation within the fan culture as well as political pressure from the outside. Giulianotti describes the politicisation of fan culture and defines the rising pressure by Independent Supporter Associations (ISAs) and critical Football Fanzines that were set up in the 1990s which, in line with other single-issue movements in other societal fields, opposed traditional forms of political action, especially in their lack of hierarchy focus on a participatory culture: These supporter actions must be located within the broader epochal shift from modern formal politics to postmodern cultural politics. […] The egalitarianism and situationism of movements like football fanzines and ISAs are far more attractive to young and critical supporters.’ (Giulianotti 1999: 62–63)

In a rather dismissive tone, Giulianotti then goes on to describe the first community projects as reactions to these trends in fan culture and, effectively, an expansion of the club’s commercial interests under the cloak of social work: Many clubs have sought to defuse the political relevance of these supporter groups by setting up their own ‘community projects’ with ‘community officers’. In a few cases, such as Milwall, the project has been designed to enhance relations between the club and its surrounding community. More commonly, these projects are public relations exercises for the club’s commercial wing, with a lot of emphasis placed on building up new ‘consumer markets’ and local talent-spotting for top young players. (Giulianotti 1999: 63)

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The political pressure from outside culminated in 1998 when the New Labour government established a Football Task Force (FTF) to investigate the state of the English game six years after the introduction of the PL, after having been put under extreme public pressure to do so (Lee 1998). By then, the narrative that the PL had rid English football of its traditional bonds in an unregulated market free-for-all and alienated and excluded large parts of the traditional spectatorship in the process was already widely established among ‘traditional’ English football fans. When the FTF published its report in 1999, the task force was split into two factions: one in support of installing an independent regulator, the other opposed to such interventions in the football industry (Lomax 2000; Taylor 2000). While the New Labour government followed the recommendations of the latter faction and avoided regulating the football business any more than the preceding Conservative government—very much in line with the re-interpretation of Labour politics at the time—they still expected the clubs to engage in the ‘Third Way’ paradigm in other areas. In 2004, Taylor assessed the effect of these community schemes rather sceptically: ‘It is, then, no surprise that many football clubs like to play safe with their definition of ‘community’, and to operate within the parameters that they can understand and hope to control. This means that they concentrate on match days or, at most, football-related activities that predominantly serve their own interests.’ (Taylor 2004: 47)

What Taylor means by ‘own interests’ are financial gains via increasing gate receipts, which some of the PL clubs did quite successfully. According to the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research (SNCCFR), in 1999 the additional gate receipts of PL clubs amounted to £10 m annually (Taylor 2004: 45). Given the current economics of the PL, it is doubtful whether the SNCCFR would today still label the additional £400,000–£500,000 that each club earned as ‘enormous net commercial gains’ (cited in ibid.). Nevertheless, the extent and number of these projects have been rising ever since. First being established broadly—and later mandatorily— among professional football clubs at the top, this funding system was soon taken up by the leagues below. Within a matter of years, FITC schemes were found at clubs down to the sixth or seventh league level, that is, far below what counts as ‘professional’. In 2018, all seventy-two clubs in the

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three tiers of the EFL system as well as fifty-nine clubs in the National League system featured a FITC scheme, which is an astounding growth compared to the mere forty-four trusts listed by Anagnostopoulos for the year 2011 (2013: 94) and in line with a general increase in these organisations since the introduction of the ‘Big Society’ agenda of the Coalition Government in 2010 (Bingham and Walters 2012: 609). While clubs are still certainly more inclined to invest in their relationship with communities, out of the reasons outlined above, the moral obligation for lower league clubs to ‘give back’ is far less explicit due to the fact that they simply possess less from which they could give back. And yet, clubs from the lower leagues have also installed community projects. In England, these efforts are connected to the funds handed out by the Football League and by the National League in the form of trusts created by these bodies. The FLT was founded in 2007, the NLT followed some years later in 2011. It was founded as the Conference League Trust but renamed in 2016 and is funded by both the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) and the PL. Besides the funds from the PFA and PL, the FLT is also funded by the EFL and the FA. Besides sharing some of their funding partners, both trusts have similar agendas. The projects the NLT funds have a broad focus and are made possible by grant aids and advice: The National League Trust supports CPs at clubs who are members of the three divisions of the National League. This support comes in the form of grant aid and development advice. Our aim is to encourage every National League club to become involved in their community. Projects range from music, dance and other arts activities, encouraging volunteering, work with young people not in education or training (NEETs), helping disability groups to play sport, and creating educational initiatives for both adult and children – including literacy and numeracy programmes. There has been work with isolated community groups, green projects, information about healthy eating and lifestyle, and working in partnership with schools to deliver football coaching and other initiatives.’ (Nationalleaguetrust.org.uk)

The FLT mission sounds quite similar: The Trust tackles society’s greater goals by inspiring people through powerful projects built upon a foundation of our four key themes: sport, education, inclusion and health. […] The national game speaks in a

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language people understand, with the power to go further where others fall short. The Trust embraces this magic to raise the aspirations of millions by delivering dynamic initiatives to communities throughout the country. Aspiring to change lives and create a legacy, we have a specific focus on youth engagement, bringing learning to life through the spirit of sport. Beyond this, we rise to the challenge of wider government agendas, from drug rehabilitation to dealing with dementia. (efltrust.com)

The phrasing of ‘wider government agendas’ is noteworthy as the notion can encompass all kinds of social work. Again, the role of thirdparty interests in this regard cannot be overestimated. With regard to the English case, Taylor lists ‘central government, local authorities, private companies […] and organisations in what is now known as the voluntary and community sector’ (2004: 51). While the government is behind most of the pressure in England, it only plays a marginal role in the German federal system. Instead, pressure from local authorities as well as from the NGBs can indeed be considered the crucial factor here. These different strategies and agendas are more or less inevitable considering the different structural setups in Germany and England. While the company clubs and, possibly, the Verein+X, might put ‘market’ ahead of ‘community’, the Vereine and the society clubs should tend to react quite the opposite as their dependency on community resources is much more pronounced due to a presumed inability—or, in fact, reluctance—to attract potent benefactors. Therefore, the need to base the club on a solid footing in the wider community can be regarded to be more existential in these club structures which, by tendency, prioritise community over market.

Structural Setup and Agenda of Community Programmes While, as mentioned previously, the schemes might have been primarily run for the direct financial benefit of the clubs during their early days, structures soon became more sophisticated and funding regulations sought to provide the means for actual community benefitting work. Many of the structures found in England today are charities, thereby following the recommendations of Brown et al. (2006: 77) for FITC schemes to be structurally independent of their clubs. These charities were thus founded to run programmes and should not be interpreted as a club suddenly rediscovering its social responsibility. They are a ‘response to

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the “recipes” provided by football’s governing bodies’ (Anagnostopoulos 2013: 95), that is, the funding by the trust can only benefit trusts and not the club as a business. With this in mind, a look into how these programmes have evolved suggests itself and whether Giulanotti’s and Taylor’s rather sceptical positions cited previously can still be upheld. Independent of how these charities are funded today, Taylor’s assessment that ‘the first casualty of a club’s financial plight is generally its community work’ (2004: 59) surely has not lost its relevance. This is true for both national contexts, as the extent to which clubs can create and uphold such measures, regardless of their structure, will largely depend on the available funds and resources (Babiak and Wolfe 2009). The structures of these projects are of a similar nature both in England and Germany. In English clubs, a FITC department exists at clubs in one or the other way, either directly attached to the club or outsourced in a charity. In the following, I consider community related activities as part of what I term community programmes (CPs) which in their totality define the wider agenda and are understood as a holistic, social programme addressing different fields of social and community work. While this might include classical CSR work too, projects in which the club clearly goes beyond its usual sphere of expertise and traditional field of practice—i.e. the game of football—will be focused on in the further course of this work. On different levels, CPs are quite different from the scope of measures which bear ‘just’ the CSR label. While I am well aware of the fact that some of the measures discussed in the following are referred to as CSR by different authors, I still perceive the introduction of CP as useful and necessary. Having its origin in economics, CSR, along with or as part of the concept of ‘good governance’, has emerged in the wake of a shift from shareholder to stakeholder interests. Just as with good governance, CSR has proven to be very compatible with sport and sport organisations especially and thus provided an easy field for further adaptation and implementation (Babiak and Wolfe 2013). Furthermore, CSR has become increasingly associated with ecological and environmental ideals in its focus on ‘sustainability’ (Babiak and Trendafilova 2011; Trendafilova et al. 2013). Most importantly, though, as Babiak and Wolfe (2013) show, the various definitions of CSR all presuppose actors that take the form of business or other corporate interests (2013: 17). While the CSR concept might thus be sufficient to describe company clubs, this is problematic for Vereine and society clubs, for which reason I will refer to the concept of

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CPs to describe the projects examined in the further course of this study— and thus what Babiak and Wolfe have identified as the ‘third pillar’ of CSR performance trends—as community relations (2013: 21). The projects implemented by football clubs or their charities can be divided into different types and areas of interest. The projects range from youth work—both pre- and post-schooling—and work in schools—allday schooling—to work with at-risk populations and adult education, to HEPA-measures and the classic club-related event work, such as festivities and fundraisers. The driving factor for the introduction of these schemes can be of a different nature: some are entirely voluntary; others are demanded by public law and again others are required by league or football authority statutes and thus mandatory by private law. The aims and goals these projects pursue are equally diverse and can be divided into three categories. Those in the first category serve to improve a club’s image or to prevent the introduction of laws which would harm the club in a strategy of pre-emptive obedience. This could be described as classic CSR measures. The second category includes sport sector and market relevant activities that seek to strengthen a club’s sporting perspectives by extending the pools of players or creating sustainable structures. Also, a more market-driven goal might be pursued which aims at better positioning the club in the market. The last category consists of community-relevant goals such as increasing public engagement, legitimizing public funding and support, and fostering community and identity bonds. It goes without saying that these goals are not mutually exclusive and are often pursued simultaneously. Usually strongly connected to the legal or formal structure of a project is the nature of its funding, which has been divided into four types: (1) club equity, (2) league or football authorities, (3) private third-party support, and (4) public funding (see Table 1). In Germany, a club as a member association with a charity clause in its statute is obliged to maintain such projects. Football community-related social work is realised via different structures each with different agendas. First and second Bundesliga clubs are required to have fan advisers who keep contact with the fan scene of the club as a licensing requirement. All Bundesliga and 3. Liga clubs also maintain so-called Fanprojekte (transl. fan projects), which are funded in a public-private partnership by the DFB and the communal authority—the cost burden is shared equally. Detached from the club itself in order to avoid conflicts of interest are projects

Source Own table

• Voluntary • CSR • By club • Mandatory (public) a. Improving club’s • By league/football (law) image authorities • Mandatory (private) b. Prevention of laws • Private third party (league/football disadvantageous for • By public funding regulations) clubs (anticipatory obedience) • Sport/market relevant c. Extending player/employee/volunteer/ d. consumer pool e. Creating sustainable structures f. Positioning of own brand within market • Community relevant g. Increasing community involvement in the club (spectators, etc.) h. Legitimise public funding/support i. Fostering community/identity bonds

Funding

• Youth work (pre-/post-school) • Work in schools (all-day schooling, PE) • Work with vulnerable people • Adult education • HEPA-measures • Event work (club festivities, bake sale, fundraisers, etc.)

Agenda

Reasons

Community programme activities

Types/Examples

Table 1

• Change in role of clubs as social actors (e.g. community/civil society/educational function) • Change in role of clubs as political actors (e.g. on the communal level, stronger active role, promotion of co-operative principle) • Change in role of clubs as cultural actors (e.g. identity formation, traditions)

Possible effects

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that address more problematic aspects of the fan scene, offering educational programmes and guidance on issues of anti-racism and anti-violence (Ziesche 2017). Thus, while the social work with fans of German clubs is more or less formally organised—at least in higher league levels—the work with the urban community is something clubs actively seek on their own account and through the incentive of funding. In England, clubs are required to found charities to run community programmes. This is due to the fact that the funds of the FLT and NLT can only be handed out to the charities. Funding streams ideally circumvent club structures and ensure their proper use. This funding by league trusts ensures that the community schemes do not strain the club’s budgets, although cofunding requirements do exist. At a minimum the projects might thus not be much more than highly socially rewarding PR work—in a CSR sense—for a comparably small fee. Community programmes, if conceptualised in a wider, holistic framework, might include concepts such as inclusion, resilience and empowerment. Exemplarily, the PL (CSR) programme has the title ‘Creating Chances’ and includes different projects with a wide variety of thematic fields (Morgan 2013: 252). The effects of CPs can also be divided into categories and depend on the agenda of the specific CP. Effects can be clearly distinguished from the results—which are the measurable and desired outcome—and refer to mid- to long-term developments which tend to address the public perception of the organisation and its role. Clubs might thus be perceived or take on a role either as a political, social, or cultural organisation. For the English case, it is noteworthy how much community projects focus on providing football for girls and women as these are usually not part of English club structures. Ladies’ football clubs receive funding through the establishment of community trusts. In Germany, women’s and girl’s teams are in many cases part of the Verein structure and often an integral part of the club community. The empowerment of vulnerable, socially disadvantaged communities especially in cities is a sociopolitical agenda pursued by public authorities and civil society organisations. Strengthening the resilience of a community can be seen as an important strategic effect of CES measures. Not only the resilience of the community but also the resilience—or adaptive capabilities—of the clubs are strengthened by these measures. CES measures are crucially important for smaller, lower league clubs. A shifting social structure in their social environment changes the playing field and if, to vary upon the

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proverb, the community does not come to the club, the club must go to the community. It seems plausible to suggest that company clubs will not do much more than necessary, that is, as is legally required, whereas society clubs and Vereine will invest more in these projects since they are more dependent on the goodwill of the urban community. On the other hand, company clubs too seek to engage with their urban communities in order to gain access to all the other expected benefits, such as an increased talent pool, a larger gate and better sponsorship deals, not to mention as a sign of goodwill to pre-empt further government legislation that might force more supporter ownership. The work of clubs with schools can be regarded as a symbiotic relationship, since the clubs can hope to profit in a number of ways: The most common factors contributing to perceived success in club-school links are reported by clubs to be: students joining the clubs as members, effective communication, advertising club opportunities in schools, club coaches or officials assisting in PE [Physical Education] lessons, and the opportunity for clubs to identify talent in schools. (Nichols and Taylor 2015: 124)

While similar motives can be assumed for the German member associations, the main interest of all clubs lies clearly in identifying and acquiring young talent. This might take place in school collaborations as in the example above, but also in the field of social work in vulnerable communities, adult education, etc. Here, clubs might expect to identify talent resources which cannot be spotted by the traditional scouting system since youth of weaker social background and lower levels of education are unlikely to join clubs or become part of youth sport teams (DOSB 2014). Table 1 shows an overview of projects within the CP framework in terms of different characteristics identified in the course of my research. The characteristics are, of course, not mutually exclusive, that is, projects might follow more than one agenda at the same time and have multiple effects. As diverse as the characteristics of CP activities might be, certain characteristics or features are typical due to their path dependency. A club fundraiser, for example, will usually be financed by private means and be

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entirely voluntary while a measure that is mandatory by public law will usually involve public funding or at least a private/public funding model.

Interim Conclusion: Issues of Legitimisation and the Dual Function of Football Clubs Football clubs find themselves confronted with issues of legitimatisation, not just on the individual club level but also as an institution. In the wake of the aforementioned crises, clubs have fallen short of delivering on the promises made to their communities and society in general. As a result, the institution of football clubs finds itself in a legitimisation dilemma, both internally with regard to their club communities as well as externally vis-à-vis other organisations in their social environment. While this affects all clubs at all levels, in light of economic and social discrepancies, it expresses itself in more existential ways in the leagues below. In the top leagues, I would argue a ‘horse-racing-effect’ can be identified in England: in the same way as horse racing in the middle of the nineteenth century, PL football today is becoming increasingly exclusive both for spatial and economic reasons (King 1998; Williams 2006). Ticket prices and the more general costs of attendance in the Premier League have left many supporters excluded from attending live matches (Conn 2011). Still, as was the case horse racing in the nineteenth and early twentieth century (Holt 1989: 181), football enjoys enormous popularity and has a global following. The fact that it is an exclusive live event has, for a while, only increased the fascination and led to massive growth. Today, however, first indicators show that there might indeed be an end to the seemingly endless growth. While it remains unclear if it is a statistical ‘blip or a trend’ (Gibson 2016), the news of a decline in viewership has alarmed the football world.4 Following the institutionalist argument outlined in chapter “Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy”, institutional legitimisation is realised by means of the fulfilment of expectations. In chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations” two functions which clubs are primarily expected to fulfil—both internally as externally but with different emphasis—were outlined and called communitisation and societisation. While the former is a function expected by football’s internal peer group or stakeholders, the latter is the function that external stakeholders expect from their clubs. The serving

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of these two masters poses immense problems, as some of the objectives do not intersect or overlap but are instead opposed to one another. Furthermore, clubs seek to interpret both roles in increasingly challenging environments. How they do so will be at least in large parts determined by their structural setup. As described in chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”, football clubs have a long-standing tradition in both countries and have proven to be quite resilient organisations. And of course, clubs in both national frameworks have not been idle in the wake of the difficulties and pressures they are facing. Quite the contrary: several adaptive strategies have been pursued, some by the clubs themselves, some by other actors, most prominently fans, in order to adapt to or confront the transformations which have been shaping football into its current, late-modern form. All of these measures have at their core been attempts to resolve the crisis of legitimacy the clubs are facing to re-establish their community connections. The following, second part of this study will be devoted to the investigation of these strategies.

Notes 1. While certainly not impossible—and not without example—bankruptcy usually affects clubs in lower leagues much more than top clubs, as has been shown in chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games”. The top clubs could be considered—in their own right—too big to fail. Also, the effects are not as existence-threatening as alternative investors are usually easily found if a club is up for sale. 2. With regard to the ever more fluidly exerted und structured power relations in postmodern society, Bauman, in reference to Foucault’s conception, coins the term ‘post-Panoptical’ (2000: 11). 3. The Footballers’ Further Education and Vocational Training Society has supervised and administrated the national Community Programme in Professional Football since 1979 and formed the umbrella organisation for FITC schemes until its dissolution in 2011 (Watson 2000). 4. This fear of the bubble bursting has kept American broadcasting stations on alert for some time now. Having paid in excess of £50 bn for broadcasting rights until 2020, the viewership of the 2016/2017 season sank by twodigit numbers (Raz 2016).

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References Anagnostopoulos, C. (2013). ‘Getting the Tactics Right’: Implementing CSR in English Football. In J. L. Paramio-Salcines, K. Babiak, & G. Walters (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sport and Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 91– 104). Oxon and New York: Routledge. Babiak, K., & Trendafilova, S. (2011). CSR and Environmental Responsibility: Motives and Pressures to Adopt Green Management Practices. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 18(1), 11–24. Babiak, K., & Wolfe, R. (2009). Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility in Professional Sport: Internal and External Factors. Journal of Sport Management, 23(6), 717–742. Babiak, K., & Wolfe, R. (2013). Perspectives on Social Responsibility in Sport. In J. L. Paramio-Salcines, K. Babiak, & G. Walters (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sport and Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 17–34). Oxon and New York: Routledge. Bale, J. (1992). Cartographic Fetishism to Geographical Humanism: Some Central Features of a Geography of Sport. Innovation in Social Sciences Research, 5(1), 71–88. Bale, J. (2000). The Changing Face of Football: Stadiums and Communities. In J. Garland, D. Malcom, & M. Rowe (Eds.), The Future of Football. Challenges for the Twenty-First Century (pp. 91–101). London and Portland: Frank Cass. Baumann, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bingham, T., & Walters, G. (2012). Financial Sustainability Within UK Charities: Community Sport Trusts and Corporate Social Responsibility Partnerships. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 24(3), 606–629. Brown, A., Crabbe, T., Mellor, G., Blackshaw, T., & Stone, C. (2006). Football and its Communities: Final Report for the Football Foundation. Manchester: Substance. Cabinet Office. (2010). Building the Big Society. Policy Paper. https://www.gov. uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78979/bui lding-big-society_0.pdf. Conn, D. (2010, August 18). How Can Football Clubs Capture the Social Value of the Beautiful Game? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/soc iety/2010/aug/18/football-social-value-report-supporter-owned. Conn, D. (2011, August 16). The Premier League Has Priced Out Fans, Young and Old. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/david-conninside-sport-blog/2011/aug/16/premier-league-football-ticket-prices. DCMS. (2015). Government Expert Working Group on Football Supporter Ownership and Engagement. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/govern ment/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493213/Football_Sup porter_Ownership_and_Engagement_2015_FINAL__1_.docx.

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Defeld, A. (2016). Die teuerste Nebensache der Welt. In Bund der Steuerzahler (Ed.), Schwarzbuch. http://www.schwarzbuch.de/aufgedeckt/fall-details/ news/die-teuerste-nebensache-der-welt/?tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D= News&tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&cHash=a4210607be94ee5c061bb ca6f144b323. Accessed 15 June 2019. DOSB. (2014). Zielgruppenorientierte Integrationsarbeit Orientierungshilfe und Handlungsleitfaden für Vereine und Verbände zur Förderung der Integration von Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund. http://www.integration-durchsport.de/fileadmin/fm-dosb/arbeitsfelder/ids/images/2014/Zielgruppeno rientierte_Integrationsarbeit_2014.pdf. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline & Punish. New York: Random House. Gibson, O. (2014, October 17). Labour Promises Board Membership and Minority Stakes for Football Fans. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2014/oct/17/labour-board-membership-minority-stakes-sup porters. Gibson, O. (2016, October 24). Is the Unthinkable Happening—Are People Finally Switching the Football Off? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2016/oct/24/sky-sports-bt-sport-people-switching-footballoff. Giulianotti, R. (1999). Football. A Sociology of the Global Game. Oxford: Polity Press. Held, F. (2016, December 16). Chemnitzer FC: Wieder einmal soll die Politik einspringen. Zeit Online. http://www.zeit.de/sport/2016-12/chemnitz-cfcinsolvenz-dritte-liga. Holt, R. (1989). Sport and the British. A Modern History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Home Office. (1990). The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, 15 April 1989. Inquiry by the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Taylor. Final Report. London: HMSO. House of Commons PASC. (2011). The Big Society. Seventeenth Report of Session 2010–12. London: The Stationary Office Ltd. Hunter, A. (2017, March 31). Everton’s Plans for £300m New Stadium Approved by Liverpool City Council. The Guardian. https://www.thegua rdian.com/football/2017/mar/31/everton-new-stadium-liverpool-city-cou ncil. James, M., & Pearson, G. (2014). Regulating Anti-social Behaviour and Disorder Among Football Spectators. In S. Pickard (Ed.), Anti-social Behaviour in Britain (pp. 296–307). London: Palgrave Macmillan. King, A. (1998). The End of the Terraces. The Transformation of English Football in the 1990s. London: Leicester University Press. King, A. (2010). The New European Stadium. In S. Frank & S. Streets (Eds.), Stadium Worlds Football, Space and the Built Environment (pp. 19–35). Oxon: Routledge.

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Labour Party. (2014, October 17). Putting Fans at the Heart of Football’s Future. Labour Party. http://press.labour.org.uk/post/100193817909/lab our-putting-fans-at-the-heart-of-footballs. Lee, S. (1998). Grey Shirts to Grey Suits: The Political Economy of English Football. In A. Brown (Ed.), Fanatics! Power, Identity & Fandom in Football (pp. 32–49). London: Routledge. Lomax, B. (2000). Self-regulation or Regulation? In S. Hamil, J. Michie, C. Oughton, & S. Warby (Eds.), Football in the Digital Age: Whose Game is It Anyway? (pp. 273–276). Edinburgh: Mainstream. Martin, P. (2007). Football, Community and Cooperation: A Critical Analysis of Supporter Trusts in England. Soccer & Society, 8(4), 636–653. Mellor, G. (2008). ‘The Janus-Faced Sport’: English Football, Community and the Legacy of the ‘Third Way’. Soccer & Society, 9(3), 313–324. Morgan, S. (2013). The Premier League: A Commitment to Social Responsibility. In J. L. Paramio-Salcines, K. Babiak, & G. Walters (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sport and Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 251–262). Oxon and New York: Routledge. Nichols, G., & Taylor, P. (2015). Sport clubs in England. In C. Breuer, R. Hoekman, S. Nagel, & H. van der Werff (Eds.), Sport Clubs in Europe. A Cross-National Comparative Perspective (pp. 111–130). Cham: Springer. Parnell, D., Stratton, G., Drust, B., & Richardson, D. (2013). Football in the Community Schemes: Exploring the Effectiveness of an Intervention in Promoting Healthful Behaviour Change. Soccer & Society, 14(1), 35–51. Porter, C. (2019). Supporter Ownership in English Football: Class, Culture and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Raz, F. (2016, October 26). Endet in den USA gerade der Boom von Livesport am TV? Tagesanzeiger. http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/sport/weitere/Endetin-den-USA-gerade-der-Boom-von-Livesport-am-TV/story/16073017. Roan, D., & Slater, M. (2014, October 16). Labour Proposes Greater Ownership Powers for Football Fans. BBC. http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/296 52317. Scott, M. (2011). Reflections on ‘The Big Society’. Community Development Journal, 46(1), 132–137. Stone, S. (2016, December 15). Salford City Granted Planning Permission for 5,000-Capacity Redeveloped Stadium. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/sport/ football/38300227. Szymanski, S. (2010). The Political Economy of Sport. In S. Szymanski (Ed.), The Comparative Economics of Sport (pp. 79–86). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, N. (2004). ‘Giving Something Back’: Can Football Clubs and Their Communities Coexist? In S. Wagg (Ed.), British Football and Social Exclusion (pp. 47–66). Oxon and New York: Routledge.

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Taylor, R. (2000). Why Football Needs a Regulator. In S. Hamil, J. Michie, C. Oughton, & S. Warby (Eds.), Football in the Digital Age: Whose Game is It Anyway? (pp. 55–61). Edinburgh: Mainstream. Trendafilova, S., Pfahl, M. E., & Casper, J. (2013). CSR and Environmental Responsibility. The Case of NCAA Athletic Departments. In J. L. ParamioSalcines, K. Babiak, & G. Walters (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sport and Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 105–118). Oxon and New York: Routledge. Watson, N. (2000). Football in the Community: ‘What’s the Score?’. In J. Garland, D. Malcom, & M. Rowe (Eds.), The Future of Football. Challenges for the Twenty-First Century (pp. 114–125). London and Portland: Frank Cass. Williams, J. (2006). ‘Protect Me From What I Want’: Football Fandom, Celebrity Cultures and ‘New’ Football in England. Soccer & Society, 7 (1), 96–114. Winter, H. (2007, April 28). Burnley Using ‘Religion’ to Save Community. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/columnists/henrywinter/ 2312005/Burnley-using-religion-to-save-community.html. Ziesche, D. (2017). Well Governed? Stakeholder Representation in German Professional Football Clubs. In B. García & J. Zheng (Eds.), Football and Supporter Activism in Europe: Whose Game Is It? (pp. 89–120). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ways Out of the Crises

The following four chapters form the second part of the empirical, analytical core of this volume and include the complete qualitative case study research, starting with a description of the case selection and case study design (Chapter “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany”)—to then move on to present the findings on adaptive strategies taken up by the studied clubs in three core fields that align with the three kinds of crises with which clubs are being confronted (Chapters “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, or—Creating Sustainable Structures”–“Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions”). The pressures outlined in the previous Chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”–“Social Crisis: Building Bridges” affect clubs on all levels. As has been shown, the lower leagues present a field where those pressures are more explicit in many regards and can thus be considered to affect the daily routines and long-term development strategies of clubs at these levels. In the following, strategies for how clubs react to the transformations which set them under pressure or which contribute to the crisis in which the clubs find themselves, both individually and collectively, will be presented. The strategic agendas can be ordered into three ideal-typical fields— each of which addresses one of the three general crises elaborated on in Chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”–“Social Crisis: Building Bridges”: 1. Creating sustainable structures—i.e. reaction to the economic crisis

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2. Re-engaging with local communities—i.e. reaction to the cultural crisis 3. Improving credibility, significance and value as social institutions—i.e. reaction to the social crisis In combination, the strategies in these three fields ideally provide solutions to the threefold dilemma of legitimacy. Some fields might be addressed to a greater extent by some clubs than by others, and not every club will be equally addressed in every field. Again, many of the strategies or developments presented in the following chapters cannot be fully identified with each of the analytical, ideal-typical fields. Communitisation and societisation processes can exist in a conflicting relationship with one another; sometimes they are even diametrically opposed. All-inclusive mechanisms at play in community programmes do not represent the realities within the football club’s internal fan communities. In these communities, collective identity formation is far more specific in terms of its construction than it is in more universally conceptualised community projects found in the urban community. Furthermore, more professional structures in terms of full-time employment or the separation of a capital company have the potential to disrupt relationships between the club and the club community. These dynamics, and how these conflicts appear and are addressed, will additionally be described in Chapters “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, or—Creating Sustainable Structures”–“Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions”.

Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany

Eight clubs from different leagues and backgrounds have been chosen as qualitative case studies with the goal of determining how these clubs adapt to the challenges described up to this point. I will first present the case selection as well as the characteristics of each case in greater detail. German clubs have been given three-letter acronyms and English clubs’ four letters acronyms so as to more easily differentiate them.

Case Selection and Methodology Of the eight clubs from England and Germany four have been selected from each country. The clubs in turn fall into two categories. Four clubs are from the third to fifth tier and are referred to in the following as established traditional football clubs (ETFCs).1 The other four clubs are from the tiers below, with the highest level being the sixth level of the league pyramid and since they all have a protest and/or political stance at their core, they are referred to as protest and political football clubs (PPFCs). Again, each category includes two clubs from each country. Besides their political or protest agenda, all PPFCs are significantly younger—the oldest one was founded in 1999—and thus can also be considered ‘new’ football clubs. Generally, the four basic club structural alignments identified and described in chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations” are represented in the clubs investigated. These © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_6

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are the classic company club, the classic Verein, the separated Verein+X and the community club structure usually found in SOFCs or STs owning an SOFC. Thus, both the club structural as well as the club cultural differentiation dimension is represented in the case selection. From the ETFCs selected, some have seen better times in terms of league affiliation and all have experienced increased financial pressure in the past. One is a phoenix club—Lokomotive Leipzig (LOK)—two have dealt with administration—Rot-Weiss Essen (RWE) and Chesterfield FC (CFFC)—and all have had or still have severe issues concerning stadium ownership. At the time of study, CFFC was the most successful club as it was briefly promoted to FL 1—third tier—at the end of the 2013/2014 season. Two clubs never left level four—Mansfield Town FC (MTFC) and RWE—and one—LOK—was relegated to level five to be promoted back up to level four in 2015. Of the PPFCs, both the English cases are SOFCs. FC United of Manchester was founded as an act of protest against the owner of Manchester United FC. AFC Liverpool (AFCL) describes itself an ‘affordable football club’ and was founded by fans of Liverpool FC. It sees itself as providing financially affordable and accessible live football. HFC Falke (HFC) from Germany is a protest club founded after the separation of structures at Hamburger SV, a case comparable to FCUM in terms of the founders’ motivations. Roter Stern Leipzig (RSL) is another football club from the largest city in Saxony intent on combining a left-wing political agenda with football. All clubs played between levels six and ten of their respective league system during the time of study with FCUM ranking highest playing four seasons at level six, RSL and HFC playing at level seven and AFCL meanwhile competing at the tenth level. Table 1 presents an overview of the investigated clubs, their league affiliation listed in the course of the seven seasons from 2013/2014 to 2019/2020, and their ‘character’, agenda or other crucial characteristics which might influence either the way the club is perceived by its members or the club’s developmental agenda. FC United of Manchester has been the focus of numerous academic studies which might give the impression that the club is a bit ‘overstudied’ (Brown 2008b, 2010; Millward and Poulton 2014; Porter 2019). Porter (2019) has included CFFC in his volume on supporterowned football clubs due to its period of supporter ownership. Academic, single case studies of the other clubs are non-existent. There is a rather dated and brief overview on LOK (Nöldner and Pfitzner 1987); all

QUALITATIVE CASE STUDIES FROM ENGLAND AND GERMANY

Table 1

181

Case study overview

Structural Type

Club Name

League Level (2013–2019)

Specifics

a Region

Company Club

Chesterfield FC Mansfield Town FC Rot-Weiss Essen HFC Falke Roter Stern Leipzig Lokomotive Leipzig AFC Liverpool FC United of Manchester

4-3-3-3-4-5-5 4-4-4-4-4-4-4

Administration –

EML EML

4-4-4-4-4-4-4 x-x-9-8-7-7-7 8-8-7-7-7-7-7

Administration Protest Political

NRW HH SNY

4-5-5-4-4-4-4

Phoenix

SNY

9-9-9-9-9-10-10 7-7-6-6-6-6-7

Protest Protest

NWE NWE

Verein

Verein+X Community Club

a Regions: EML = East Midlands, NWE = North West England, SNY = Saxony, NRW = North-

Rhine Westphalia, HH = Hamburg Source Own table

ETFCs have been the focus of historical, belletrist accounts and image collections (Schrepper and Wick 2004; Wick and Schrepper 2015; Franke and Hofmann 2017; Giles 2013; Taylor and Shaw 2007) the likes of which can be found for numerous clubs and which will not be taken into account further. In the following I therefore rely heavily on the respective club’s website, which usually contain sections on the history and structural setup as well as information on admission prices, youth teams, etc. Interviews were conducted with actors of five of the eight clubs: CFFC, MTFC, RWE, LOK and AFCL. These semi-structured guided interviews were conducted in April 2014 in Germany and October 2014 in England. Interview partners were persons involved either at the executive level or in the communications or public relations department and lasted between thirty and seventy minutes. Two additional, shorter interviews were conducted with both the chairman of AFCL and an AFCL fan. With the exception of HFC, all clubs and their grounds were visited on one or more occasions. Match day experiences were part of the research at FCUM, AFCL, RSL and LOK and field observations flow into the descriptive part of the analysis. Additionally, a content analysis of club policies and statutes was conducted, as well as the collection of data on the specifics of the clubs. Furthermore, the social activities or community programmes of the clubs have been included in the research in order to

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gain an understanding of the size, shape and foci of these programmes. In addition, the specifics of the clubs’ stadiums and position within the community are rendered in order to analyse how the club draws on the space of the stadium to create a community connection or how the stadium reflects club and community connections. The data was thus collected applying a variety of methods from the social sciences and cultural studies, based on a concept of methodological triangulation—the collection of empirical data, content analysis and expert interviews.

Club Profiles For a better understanding of the clubs investigated in the study, the following section will introduce each club with background information and facts to contribute to an overall understanding of the specific club situation. In the English cases, the profiles will put more emphasis on the status of ownership whereas in the German cases, a little more emphasis is put on the club histories. Established and Traditional Football Clubs The four fully professional ETFCs in the study played in levels three to five of their pyramids during the research. Common among them is that they recently experienced what might be considered ‘exogenous shocks’ of a game-changing nature for the clubs that forced developments which encouraged the need for adaptation. Chesterfield Football Club Chesterfield FC is a company club from the East Midlands. After gaining promotion to the third tier in the 2013/2014 season, they came close to another promotion in the 2014/2015 season as the club managed to enter the playoffs for promotion to the championship but failed. ‘The Spireites’ take their name from the ‘spire’, the twisted church tower of St Mary’s church in Chesterfield’s city centre which features prominently in the club’s crest. Founded in 1866, the club is recognised as one of the six oldest clubs in the world. The most turbulent period in the club’s history started in 2000 after the club was relegated to tier four of the pyramid and Darren Brown, a local entrepreneur who owned ice hockey clubs

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both in Sheffield and Hull as well as a basketball club in Sheffield, took over CFFC (Conn 2005a, Britten 2005). The preceding 134 years were comparably uneventful, as David Conn points out: Before Brown’s arrival, Chesterfield’s history was most notable for spectacular uneventfulness. In some ways that was the whole point: the club’s proudest achievement was simply to have kept going since 1866, the fourth oldest League club in the country, behind the two Nottingham clubs and Stoke City. Their high point came in 1997 when 23,000 fans swarmed over to Old Trafford for the FA Cup semi-final against Middleborough – said to be the largest peace-time movement of people ever from north Derbyshire. (Conn 2005a).

In only a few months, Brown managed to bring the club to the brink of ruin. After impressive transfers and a successful season, the FA launched an investigation into irregularities in transfer fees in early 2001 (The Telegraph, 25 January 2001). Despite the consequent deduction of nine points and a £20,000 fine, the club was able to promote to tier three. In March 2001, in the wake of mounting debts and allegations of fraud, Brown bowed out of club leadership and the Chesterfield Football Supporters Society (CFSS), a Supporters Trust founded just before, took over the club in April (Conn 2002). CFFC had to go into administration later that year.2 CFFC was then fan-owned from 2001 to 2003. Conn continues: ‘The CFSS takeover was a landmark for Supporters Direct, and the principle that football clubs should be owned collectively by supporters, not by individual businessmen, could hardly have been bolstered with more graphic evidence’ (Conn 2005b.). The supporter ownership ended in 2003 when the CFSS handed control to a four-person consortium of two businessmen, an accountant and a fan who won the lottery (ibid.). In 2008, Dave Allen bought a majority of 60 per cent of the shares in the club. After differences with other shareholders, Allen stepped down from his positions as chairman and director in November 2016, which was then followed by the resignation of four further directors (Thomas 2016), reducing the former eight-member board to a board of three. As Allen had kept the club afloat year after year (BBC, 14 November 2016), at the end of 2016, the club were again in debt, up for sale and facing administration. Moreover, with the 2016/2017 season coming to a close, the club was relegated to level four and after a further problematic season dropped out of the FL tier in 2018 for the first time in the club’s history.

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Mansfield Town Football Club Founded in 1897, Mansfield Town, nicknamed ‘The Stags’, is another company club from the East Midlands region that, after promoting from the Conference National at the end of the 2012/2013 season, played consistent fourth league football throughout the research period. The club is probably the most unspectacular of the case studies. MTFC is well established as a lower league club; in 1977/1978 they played a single season at level two of the pyramid. The club maintains a fierce rivalry with Chesterfield FC, the closest footballing neighbour. This rivalry intensified significantly during the miner’s strike in 1984/1985 when workers in the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield joined the strike while their fellow miners in the Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield did not (Interview Stevenson, 2014). That said Mansfield supporters have also had their peculiar experiences with a former owner, Keith Haslam, who bought the club in 1993 for one pound. Haslam was in charge for fifteen years, his last year being one of particular discontent. His reign was marked by misconduct, especially with the club’s fans. As in the case of Chesterfield, Haslam ran up debts in excess of one million pounds (Conn 2005b, 2010). After being attacked by fans, he sold the club to a consortium backed by fans in 2008, which then sold it in September 2010 to the current owner, John Radford, also a lifelong fan of the club. On the same day that Haslam sold the club he used a dividend paid out to his company to buy the club’s Field Mill ground, leaving the club in the particularly uncomfortable situation of having to pay an annual rent of £120,000 (cf. Conn 2010) to its hated former owner—who himself owed the club a significant amount of money. Haslam sold Field Mill to Radford in early March 2012 which led fans to receive him with standing ovations during the next home game. John Radford said to the developments: Keith Haslam has nothing to do with this club now whatsoever. I’m absolutely delighted and privileged that I have been able to buy the ground. We have a clause that says the ground can only be used for sports for the next 20 years and after that I intend for the fans to own the ground. I will obviously never charge any rent, which will help with the finances, even if I am not chairman any more during that time. (John Radford in March 2012, cited in stagsnet.net (2012))

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Radford holds a majority of shares of about 90%. He also backs the finances by bringing in one million pounds a year and has made Mansfield a kind of family business with his wife Carolyn Radford as the club’s CEO and his sister acting as director of operations. His brother-in-law is the stadium director (Interview Stevenson, 2014). Radford’s company One Call Insurances is the stadium sponsor. The club also has an ST called Stags Fans United which owns a small minority of shares. Rot-Weiss Essen Founded in 1907, RWE is one of two traditional clubs from city of Essen in the Ruhr Valley. The city was Europe’s cultural capital in 2010. At the time of writing, the club was playing at level four of the league pyramid. In 2016/2017 the club launched an unsuccessful campaign to gain promotion to the 3. Liga. A classic German Verein, members over twenty-five years of age pay a e75 (£65) annual membership fee.3 All members of the supervisory and honorary boards are male. Having experienced several financial downturns since the 1990s, the former German champion (1955) and cup winner (1953) was handed down through the leagues. Their only European appearance in 1955 was at the same time the first such appearance by a German team but ended in the first round. These were sporting highlights the club would never reach again. The first Bundesliga began in 1963 without RWE, and the team hovered between the top and the second level with promotions to the first Bundesliga in 1966, 1969 and 1973 until the early 1980s when the club was relegated to the third level. In 1991 they lost their licence and were forced to relegate for the first time. This happened again in 1994, notably in a season when the club had reached the German cup final. With relegation to the then fourth tier Oberliga in 1998 the club reached its sporting low point. After promoting back to the Regionalliga in 1999, RWE missed the qualification for the coming 3. Liga in the 2007/2008 season by two points on the last match day of the season and was effectively relegated to the fourth tier again where it has remained ever since. In 2010 RWE had to go into administration. The club made farreaching changes to its internal structure and conceptual orientation. Since then the club has developed a wide range of partnerships with private and public organisations and institutions in the city of Essen and has gained the support of local VIPs and the financial backing of local sponsors. A local rivalry exists with Schwarz-Weiss Essen, but not on the pitch.

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1. Fußballclub Lokomotive Leipzig Lokomotive Leipzig, ‘die Loksche’, is a mid-league Verein+X-club from the city of Leipzig in the federal state of Saxony and at the time of writing in level five of the pyramid. It was relegated from level four at the end of the 2013/2014 season after a new praesidium had taken over the management of the club in the course of an internal crisis and pressure from the members which led to the prior board and the praesidium stepping down. The club then underwent a turbulent period with several internal overhauls, including a new brand image. After relegation to the fifth level, the club separated the professional squad into a capital company in December 2014, making it a Verein+X. In 2016 the club was promoted back to the fourth level. The membership fee is e72 (£62) per annum for over 25year-olds. There were no female members on the supervisory board or praesidium at the time of research. The club can look back on a successful and turbulent past back to its founding as VfB Leipzig in 1893 and becoming first German champion in 1903 and again in 1906 and 1913 as well as winning the German Cup in 1936. The club was dissolved in the post-war reforms in the GDR but appeared again in 1954 as SC Lokomotive Leipzig as one of the first ‘new’ football clubs in the country. The club was united with SC Rotation in 1963 to form the SC Leipzig only to re-emerge in 1966 as 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig after football structures in Leipzig were reorganised once again. The other big local club, BSG Chemie Leipzig became Lok’s fierce rival.4 The club never won GDR championship, but it won the FDGB cup five times5 and had seventy-seven European Cup appearances, reaching the semi-finals in 1974 and the finals in 1987, resulting in the club becoming internationally renowned. The Loksche counts as one of the most successful GDR football clubs. After German reunification the club renamed itself VfB Leipzig in 1991, but was dissolved in 2004. The youth and women’s squads were integrated into the new 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, which had been founded once again by fans preemptively at the end of 2003 in the wake of insolvency proceedings at VfB Leipzig, which makes the current club a de facto phoenix club. With the arrival of RB Leipzig,6 the city’s football landscape and the positioning of Lokomotive Leipzig within it changed dramatically. The club regards itself in the tradition of VfB Leipzig and during its 125-year anniversary season 2018/2019 sought a formal fusion with the dissolved VfB Leipzig in order to be recognised as the official successor club and thus be eligible to carry the star representing a title in the

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national championship—so called Meisterstern—on its jersey. This process had to be halted in 2019 due to issues regarding tax regulations, but the effort to be the first club in Leipzig—and thus beat newcomer RB Leipzig—to carry a Meisterstern on the jersey has become a very emotional endeavour for the officials and fans of the club. Political and Protest Football Clubs I have defined the second group of four clubs as political and protest football clubs (PPFCs), and the focus in their short histories will be on the specific aspects that resulted in my defining them as such. These comparably young clubs played in levels seven to ten of their pyramids during my research. Accordingly, the focus will be on the circumstances of their founding along with the general agenda these clubs follow. In addition, I will look at how these clubs are themselves reactions to the system’s ruling structures—i.e. by how far these clubs themselves constitute a form of adaptive strategy. FC United of Manchester and AFCL are semi-professional football clubs, the two German clubs function on an amateur or non-professional basis. Affordable Football Club Liverpool AFCL is a society club founded in 2008 as an ‘Affordable Football Club’ devoted to giving fans of Liverpool FC the chance to watch live football at a club that bears the name and breathes the spirit of ‘the Reds’ for a decent fee. These fans had been excluded from their club due to the high costs involved in attending PL matches. The club is structured as an IPS and describes itself as being run as a ‘professional organisation’. However, the club’s official status is semi-professional. The club started out at the tenth level of the pyramid and gained promotion after the 2010/2011 season despite finishing in fourth place since two teams ahead of them declined promotion. According to club chairman Chris Stirrup, the ‘Eastern bloc’ appearance (Interview MacDonald, 2014) of the team logo has no political connotations. It was the result of a student competition and the motif was decided on by the members (Interview Stirrup, 2014). The name of the IPS under which the club is registered is AFC Liverpool Supporters Society Limited, a CBS.7 The club has a onemember-one-vote rule and membership is £12 (e14) a year for adults.

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According to the club’s Facebook page, their mission and purpose is ‘to provide affordable football to all those who don’t have live football in their lives’. Football Club United of Manchester The society club FCUM was founded in 2005 as a protest club against Malcom Glazer’s ownership of Manchester United (Brown 2008a). The founding members were all Manchester United fans and part of the greenand-gold campaign which had tried to raise fan-internal pressure against the club’s owners of the club. After several attempts by the Supporters Trust to buy shares in the club had failed, some of them decided to found FCUM. It is important to note that the ties to Manchester United are still close (Taylor 2013), as songs and banners revolving around the theme ‘two Uniteds–one soul’ indicate. However, even after the death of Glazer in 2014, fans did not return to Manchester United but remained with their new club. The club found itself in turmoil in 2016 and struggles constantly to keeping member interests at bay (Taylor 2016a, b). The name of the IPS under which the club is registered is FC United Limited, a CBS. Members join on a one-member-one-vote basis and every member has an equal share in ownership. Membership is £12 (e14) a year for adults. There is no female member on the elected board. As described in the introduction, FCUM opened its own ground, Broadhurst Park in May 2015. The club has experienced immense publicity for a club at this level. The club has also been subject to several academic analyses since its founding, especially by a group of researchers from Manchester Metropolitan who were themselves among the founding members of the club. This ‘Manchester School’, as one might call it, devoted a number of studies to the club’s specific culture, especially in the wider areas of community formation and democratic fan practices.8 The club’s motto is ‘changing the face of football and returning it to the fans’. Hamburger Fußballclub Falke HFC Falke (HFC) is the first protest Verein to be founded in Germany as a reaction by fans to transformations within their old club. In this case, the club was founded as a reaction to the decision to separate the professional structures of the Hamburger SV in the 2014 AGM. It has to be stressed here that, as opposed to protest clubs, the HFC was founded in protest to an HSV members’ decision, not an undemocratic decision by a majority owner. The decision to separate structures at HSV was made

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in a democratic decision-making process. Still, the members of influential supporter groups at the HSV were not content with the majority decision of the members at HSV. Consequently, the most important HSV Ultra group—‘Chosen Few’—together with others left the club and went on to found HFC (Buchheister 2015; Trotier 2015). The club is set up as a Verein with a minimum annual membership fee of e60 (£52). HFC Falke did not begin league competition until the 2015/2016 season, starting in the Kreisklasse—ninth level—and were promoted by the end of this first season to the Kreisliga with twenty-seven wins, one draw and a goal difference of 159:17. After another promotion in the following season, the club has remained at level seven of the pyramid, like RSL and—technically—FCUM. The club is still on friendly terms with the HSV. After winning the Kreisklasse championship, HSV’s chairman Dietmar Beiersdorfer appeared at the celebration and congratulated the team and the club. The strategic goal is to reach the fifth league. Despite being a new club, it attracts around 500 people to their home matches (Der Spiegel, 23 April 2016). Their slogan translates to ‘grateful back, bravely ahead’ pointing to their past with the HSV and their future path after a new start. The club president is Tamara Dwenger. Roter Stern Leipzig Roter Stern Leipzig, also a classical Verein, was founded in 1999 in Leipzig’s borough of Connewitz to which the club maintains a strong relationship. The club started in level eleven of the pyramid and managed to promote to level seven for the second time in their history at the end of the 2014/2015 season. At the time of writing, the club had established itself at this league level. Not surprisingly, given its origins9 and according to the title of a chapter the club has authored in Gerd Dembowski’s Tatort Stadion about its concept, RSL is a ‘cultural political sport project between the poles of normal football clubs and left-radical politics’ (Roter Stern Leipzig 2002: 186).10 Roter Stern Leipzig is a politically motivated, leftist club in the vein of many such clubs in Germany and Europe.11 The club is set up as a Verein, the AGM in January 2017 raised the minimum membership fee from e60 (£52) to e120 (£104) a year, making the membership in RSL the most expensive of all case studies. Roter Stern Leipzig received the Saxon award for democracy in 2009 and the DFB’s Julius Hirsch award in 2010, an award for projects against discrimination.12 The club has the fastest growing membership among its youth teams in the city and records a steady rise in membership numbers.

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Many of the club’s away matches have to be cancelled as the home teams fear attacks by neo-Nazi groups, as happened in the town of Brandis in 2009 (Glindmeier and Reschke 2009). Both the club as well as the borough from which it originates have been repeatedly attacked by rightwing extremist groups in the past (Kuhlhoff and Bock 2011; Stange and Kaul 2016; Ruf 2009). Membership and Attendance Membership development is perhaps the most important indicator of how clubs developed in the course of the study. The crucial limiting factor is, of course, that this data can only be collected for the German clubs and the English community clubs. With regard to membership development it can be stated that numbers have been increasing steadily alone at RSL. As Table 2 shows, both established German clubs had an overall increase in this period. While membership numbers can only be collected for the clubs which allow members, stadium attendance is also a signifier for club development and community relations. Presumably, membership is less dependent on league affiliation, season performance and the opposition in the league than attendance. Instead, it is assumed that increases or decreases in membership numbers express agreement or disagreement with the club’s general culture and leadership. In the case of Lokomotive Leipzig, such a dependency is quite visible with regard to the invocation of the club’s new leadership in 2013 and relegation in 2014. While membership numbers initially decreased during and after the period of Table 2

Membership development 2013–2019

Year

AFCL

FCUM

RWE

LOK

HFCF

RSL

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

200 – – – – – –

3410 4284 5381 3938 2852 2537 2097

4400 4400 5044 5080 5100 5600 5859

1829 1600 1744 2152 2406 2696 2719

– 329 – 275 – – 400

600 760 800 1000 – – 1513

Source Own table based on own data collection. ‘–’ = no data available

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transition, the numbers increased again after the new leadership consolidated itself and the club made important strategic decisions such as the new club branding and separation of the first squad. Since 2014, regardless of league affiliation, membership numbers have increased consistently. At FCUM a similar effect but with a different outcome can be seen in membership numbers. While the club was promoted at the end of the 2014/2015 season, the quarrels within the club in early 2016 led to a drop in membership later that year. Numbers have been decreasing ever since and relegation at the end of the 2018/2019 season triggered a further slump by almost a fifth of total membership. Since 2016, the club has thus lost half of its members. At RWE, the development is especially remarkable as membership significantly increased after administration in 2010. The community rallied behind the club in a time of sportive and financial crisis and became members. In 2011, the club had 2646 members, a number which had almost doubled by 2017. With the target to reach 6000 members by the end of 2019, the club launched several initiatives to attract new members and came close to reaching that goal—all this in a period of sportive stagnation at level four. At HFC, membership numbers decreased in the first years even if, according to the AGM in 2016, the drop in that year was due to ordering the books after mistakes in the member count had been made in the years before. By 2019 membership increased to about 400. Roter Stern Leipzig, the biggest football club in Leipzig in terms of active players has seen a remarkable increase in memberships, a development that is posing significant problems for the club. The club was able to attract new members consistently, even after the hike in membership fees in 2017, indicating that the club’s peers are willing to invest a comparably high amount of money into the club. The advantage of attendance as an indicator for the respective club’s performance is that it can be measured for all clubs in this study. Nonetheless, as mentioned before, attendance is a highly volatile indicator, strongly influenced by the performance of the club on the pitch. The findings in Table 3 seem to support this assumption, perhaps most vividly at CFFC, where attendance numbers plunged with poor league performance and two consecutive relegations between 2015 and 2019. In the case of MTFC, a club which was neither relegated nor promoted in the investigated timeframe, numbers again increased and decreased according to the performance with a significant overall increase in average numbers in the timespan covered in this study. The record number in

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Table 3

Attendance during home league games 2013–2019

Season

CFFC

MTFC

AFCL

FCUM

RWE

LOK

HFCF

RSL

2013/2014 2014/2015 2015/2016 2016/2017 2017/2018 2018/2019

6279 6925 6676 5929 5355 4504

3385 3064 3439 3774 4309 4897

119 139 139 145 141 116

1969 2154 401 2660 2109 1814

7684 8208 7349 7865 6828 7279

2572 2660 2887 3222 3068 3023

– – 499 397 268 256

188 278 412 428 416 365

Source Own table based on own data collection. ‘-‘ = no data available

2018/2019 was achieved in a season where the club missed direct promotion by three points to finish fourth, thus reaching the playoffs. The numbers for RWE average around 7500 with larger and smaller increases and decreases, while LOK’s numbers have seen a moderate increase since the new praesidium took over in 2013, contrary to the plunge in membership in the wake of this transition. At FCUM, again, after the turmoil in 2015/2016, attendance numbers more than halved between 2015 and 2019. For both AFCL and RSL how many people they can attract on match days at the current level appears to have peaked, with AFCL suffering a slight decrease after relegation in 2017. At HFC, interestingly, average attendance has been in constant decline since the record number in 2015 as opposed to the increase in membership. Media Mobilisation While digital mobilisation rates are not a focus of this study, a quick glance at a few numbers and their general development can nevertheless contribute to an understanding of the overall performance of the clubs and their outreach. To get a feeling for the media outreach of the clubs, Facebook Likes and Twitter followers are compared. Generally, it can be stated that the English clubs have larger social media audiences than the German clubs. In the category of Facebook Likes, the English clubs— except AFCL—all have a far larger audience than their German counterparts. While AFCL ranks last in this category—4750—this is outweighed by the number of the club’s Twitter followers—25,608—which exceeds those of all German clubs combined.

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The numbers indicate that high social media outreach is not necessarily dependent on league level or team success. This is quite evident in the case of FCUM, confirming once more the extraordinary nature of club: it has almost ten times more Facebook Likes then the second ranking club CFFC. If FCUM is left out, though, league affiliation is indeed a strong factor for the number of Facebook Likes but not, however, for the number of Twitter followers, as the example of AFCL shows. While the club ranks far behind all other clubs in terms of Facebook Likes, the club takes fourth place overall in this category. This shows a strong English-German differentiation in this category, with English teams ranking first to fourth ‘out-twittering’ the German clubs by a significant margin. Domestically, the ranking would still fall in line with the league’s slow decline in followers in this field of social media activity if, again, FCUM is considered to be an exceptional outlier. Also, the number of tweets posted shows variations—e.g. RSL has posted more tweets than RWE, presumably due to a wider array of topics the club covers. Further, it has to be mentioned that the Twitter accounts of RSL and HFC are not officially linked to the clubs. With regard to how the numbers developed over time in this area, FCUM has again lost significant numbers in the period from February 2017 to February 2020 with almost 50,000 people ‘un-liking’ the club. Chesterfield FC has lost a few thousand as well, while numbers at HFC remained almost unchanged. All other clubs have increased their numbers in this area, most notably RWE, which added almost 10,000 Likes. Twitter follower numbers increased in the same time period, which might be representative of the overall higher popularity of the medium. After introducing the eight cases included in the qualitative analysis and providing an overview of the club’s histories, special points of consideration and a first, fact-based impression of the club’s performance in the researched period, the following chapter will move on to depict strategies chosen by each club to confront the issues of institutional legitimisation and the organisational crisis mapped out in chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games” to “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”.

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Notes 1. Clubs in the leagues down to level four can be considered fully professional in both countries, even though in Germany, fully professional leagues officially only encompass levels one to three. The situation varies from club to club in leagues below level four with fully professional clubs being present even in level six in some cases. For this study, all clubs down from level 6—i.e. the first multi-divisional level in England—are considered at least semi-professional. 2. Brown was eventually sentenced to four years in prison in 2005 after the Serious Fraud Office charged him with nineteen counts, among others, of false accounting, furnishing false information, and theft. The whole admittedly spectacular story is well documented (Conn 2002, 2005b; Britten 2005). The affair at Chesterfield was deemed a watershed for the league, which overhauled disciplinary procedures, installing a league lawyer and implementing a ‘fit-and-proper-person test for club directors’ (Conn 2005b). 3. For all German clubs membership grants voting rights in the—annual— general members meeting. Active participation in a team is often only possible after paying extra fees. Thus, membership here means ‘passive’ memberships in the German understanding of the term. In addition, these fees do not include membership in a ‘Funding Members Branch’ (FMB) such as RWE maintains (see chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”; regarding FMBs: see Ziesche (2017)). 4. While it is impossible to tell the story of Lok and Chemie here—and perhaps anywhere—some short remarks still have to be made for a better understanding of Leipzig’s football landscape: Both teams missed qualifying for the first all-German first Bundesliga in the 1991/1992 season since the top level of the Bundesliga was expanded by only two East German teams—FC Hansa Rostock and FC Dynamo Dresden. While Lok—then as VfB Leipzig—qualified for the second Bundesliga and was promoted to the first Bundesliga at the end of the 1992/1993 season— relegating again by the end of the 1993/1994 season—they struggled significantly in the new system, as did all clubs from the former GDR. Followed by a couple of seasons in the second Bundesliga, the steady decline of the ‘Loksche’ began in 1997/1998. Chemie’s fate was even less spectacular: missing the qualification for the second Bundesliga, they were never promoted higher than third tier again. Constantly on the verge of bankruptcy, both clubs have, miraculously, rather survived than lived through times of name changes, liquidations and re-foundings and endless internal struggles since German reunification. The rivalry between the two is legendary and fiercely pursued by followers of both teams. For further

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5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11.

12.

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information on the sell-out of East-German football after 1989, including interference by then chancellor Helmut Kohl, see Ebling (2016). The FDGB (Free German Trade Union Federation) cup was the GDR’s national cup. On football and GDR sport policy see Anderson (2011) and McDougall (2014). RB Leipzig is Red Bull’s attempt to gain entry to the German football system. After the club was founded in 2009, it took over the starting license of the fifth-league club SSV Markranstädt and was promoted to the fourth level in its first season. There it stayed for three consecutive years before sprinting up to the first Bundesliga by the end of the 2015/2016 season with three consecutive promotions. The club, and especially its structure as well as the involvement of Red Bull as sponsor, is seen critically by the German—and meanwhile to some extent also European—football public. The Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act demands that the name of the society founded has to end with the word ‘limited’ (CCBSA 2014: Sect. 10, subsect. (2)). The group of researchers I would count into that school include Adam Brown, Tim Crabbe, Gavin Mellor and Tony Blackshaw. Connewitz in the south of Leipzig has acquired a reputation as a leftleaning borough since the late 1990s and is a centre of left-wing youth culture. German original: ‘ein kultur-politisches Sportprojekt im Spannungsfeld zwischen [sic.] normalem Fußballverein und linksradikaler Politik’. In Germany these would most notably be FC St. Pauli and SV Babelsberg 03; in England, examples are Whitehawk FC, Dulwich Hamlet and Clapton CFC. Other European examples of clubs that position themselves on the political left are Italy’s AS Livorno and Be¸sikta¸s Istanbul. In UK football topflights, the fans of Celtic Glasgow and Liverpool FC are decidedly left-leaning. Named after the German-Jewish international Julius Hirsch, whose fate during the Holocaust is officially unknown but who was presumably murdered around 1943 in Auschwitz, the prize is awarded by the DFB to individuals, clubs and initiatives in football who or which stand exemplarily and visibly for (1) the inalienability of human rights and against anti-Semitism and racism; (2) rapprochement and against exclusion; and (3) plurality and against discrimination and xenophobia (cf. http://www. dfb.de/preisewettbewerbe/julius-hirsch-preis/).

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References Anderson, S. (2011). Soccer and the failure of East German sports policy. Soccer & Society, 12(5), 652–663. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970. 2011.599584. Britten, N. (2005, September 23). Chairman Jailed for ‘Milking Football Club Dry’. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1499006/ Chairman-jailed-for-milking-football-club-dry.html. Brown, A. (2008a). ‘Not for Sale?’ The Destruction and Reformation of Football Communities in the Glazer Takeover of Manchester United. In N. C. Tiesler & J. N. Coelho (Eds.), Globalised Football. Nations and Migration, the City and the Dream (pp. 175–196). Oxon: Routledge. Brown, A. (2008b). ‘Our Club, Our Rules’: Fan Communities at FC United of Manchester. Soccer & Society, 9(3), 346–358. Brown, A. (2010). ‘Come Home’: The Stadium, Locality and Community at FC United of Manchester. In S. Frank & S. Streets (Eds.), Stadium Worlds. Football, Space and the Built Environment (pp. 163–178). Oxon: Routledge. Buchheister, H. (2015, August 2). Romantik in der Kreisklasse. Der Spiegel. https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/hsv-gegenentwurf-hfc-falkestartet-in-der-kreisklasse-a-1046348.html. Conn, D. (2002, October 4). Fans Steer Chesterfield Through First Stage of Struggle for Survival. The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/ sport/football/news-and-comment/david-conn-fans-steer-chesterfield-thr ough-first-stage-of-struggle-for-survival-139043.html. Conn, D. (2005a, September 28). Prison Finally Catches Up with Chesterfield’s Crooked Spireite. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/foo tball/2005/sep/28/chesterfield. Conn, D. (2005b, December 7). The Man Who Owes Mansfield over a Million. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2005/dec/07/man sfield. Conn, D. (2010, November 17). Mansfield Town, Keith Haslam and That Controversial Dividend. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/nov/17/mansfield-town-div idend-keith-haslam. Ebling, S. (Dir.). (2016). Ost-Fußball im Ausverkauf. Die Deals der Wendejahre. ZDFinfo. Documentary. 57min. Franke, T., & Hofmann, M. (2017). 1987. Der Triumphzug des 1. FC Lok Leipzig durch Europa. Leipzig: MMT Verlag. Giles, E. (2013). Chesterfield: A History of the Spireites. Kindle: Desert Island eBooks. Glindmeier, M., & Reschke, J. (2009, October 26). Fußballclub erhebt schwere Vorwürfe gegen Leipziger Polizei. Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/

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sport/fussball/nazi-ueberfall-fussballclub-erhebt-schwere-vorwuerfe-gegen-lei pziger-polizei-a-657446.html. Kuhlhoff, B., & Bock, A. (2011). Krieg der Sterne. Zu Besuch beim linken Fußballclub Roter Stern Leipzig. 11 Freunde, 115, 68–73. McDougall, A. (2014). The People’s Game. Football, State and Society in East Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nöldner, J., & Pfitzner, J. (1987). 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig – Ein Fußballklub stellt sich vor. Berlin: Sportverlag. Millward, P., & Poulton, G. (2014). Football Fandom, Mobilisation and Herbert Blumer: A Social Movement Analysis of FC United of Manchester. Sociology of Sport Journal, 31(1), 1–22. Porter, C. (2019). Supporter Ownership in English Football: Class, Culture and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Roter Stern Leipzig. (2002). Da dreht sich was in Leipzig-Connewitz: Der Rote Stern Leipzig (RSL)—ein kultur-politisches Sportprojekt im Spannungsfeld zwischen normalem Fußballverein und linksradikaler Politik. In G. Dembowski & J. Scheidle (Eds.), Tatort Stadion. Rassismus, Antisemitismus und Sexismus im Fußball (pp. 186–194). Köln: PapyRossa. Ruf, C. (2009, October 25). Die Dummen kommen. Der Spiegel. http://www. spiegel.de/sport/fussball/neonazi-attacke-im-leipziger-fussball-die-dummenkommen-a-657240.html. Schrepper, G., & Wick, U. (2004). Immer wieder RWE! Die Geschichte von RotWeiß Essen. Essen: Verlag Die Werkstatt. Stagsnet.net (2012, March 6). Radford gains ground for stags. Stagsnet. https:// www.stagsnet.net/news/newsdetails.php?newsid=6405. Stange, J., & Kaul, M. (2016). Der Kampf um Connewitz. Taz. http://www. taz.de/!5265306/. Taylor, D. (2013, November 16). Manchester’s Other United Are Happy Living in a Very Different World. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/foo tball/blog/2013/nov/16/manchester-fc-united-different-world. Taylor, D. (2016a, March 31). FC United of Manchester: How the Togetherness Turned into Disharmony. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/foo tball/2016/mar/31/fc-united-manchester-broadhurst-park. Taylor, D. (2016b, April 28). Entire FC United of Manchester Board Offers to Resign After Calling EGM. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ football/2016/apr/28/fc-united-of-manchester-board-offers-to-resign-egm. Taylor, P., & Shaw, M. (2007). Mansfield Town Football Club. Chalford: Stadia. Thomas, L. (2016, November 18). Four Chesterfield Directors Resign as Boardroom Crisis Deepens. Skysports. http://www.skysports.com/football/news/ 11746//four-chesterfield-directors-resign-as-boardroom-crisis-deepens. Trotier, K. (2015, May 14). Gestatten, der neue HSV. Zeit Online. https:// www.zeit.de/2015/18/hsv-fans-verein-hfc-falke.

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Wick, U., & Schrepper, G. (2015). Deutscher Meister ist nur der RWE. Die goldenen fünfzoger Jahre von Rot-Weiss Essen. Essen: Verlag Die Werkstatt. Ziesche, D. (2017). Well Governed? Stakeholder Representation in German Professional Football Clubs. In B. García & J. Zheng (Eds.), Football and Supporter Activism in Europe: Whose Game Is It? (pp. 89–120). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures

This first of three chapters dealing with strategies employed and paths taken by the clubs being examined will deal with the creation of sustainable structures. For lower league clubs, operating on a sustainable structural basis means creating more effective governing structures as well as generating new income revenues in order to lower the financial pressure on the club. Financial burdens often hinder infrastructure development and limit the number of strategic options available to a club. The situation of the clubs examined here verify this general statement. Of course, the specific ways in which clubs are affected in their development by financial constraints is largely dependent on their respective agendas. However, as previous studies have shown, finances are the greatest limiting factor for clubs across all league levels, regardless of agenda and strategy (Breuer and Feiler 2009; Breuer and Wicker 2011; Szymanski 2015) and the actual sums involved, whether for a new toilet or sanitary area, a whole new training ground, a new terrace, a new stadium or a better performing team. And in a competitive surrounding such as the one in which football clubs find themselves there is always need for investment. The following chapter is divided into three parts each discussing an area of action in which the clubs in the case study seek to create sustainable structures. This first section will be focused on the ETFCs, all four of the clubs having been in serious financial trouble; three of them have even entered administration at least once in their more recent history. © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_7

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That said, the PPFCs included in the study were also on the lookout for additional financial resources from investors and sponsors, though on a smaller scale. Looking at the PPFCs, a further professional differentiation in terms of creating additional structures to realise a better division of labour within the club is perceivable, although these additional structures are largely based on voluntary work. The strategies to attract funding for further development differ between the individual clubs. Generally, it can be observed that clubs decide between two major strategies to acquire sponsors and investors: they either focus on acquiring a single, wealthy sponsor or benefactor, or they seek to raise funds through multiple, smaller donations or contributions by multiple, smaller sponsors. The English ETFCs analysed in this study are owned by individuals or a small group of owners, including important major benefactors. The instability of this structure becomes apparent as soon as discrepancies between board members emerge or crucial shareholders pull out. The mere threat of a shareholder pulling out is a powerful method for applying pressure, as explained earlier with regard to TSV 1860 München and its owner Hasan Ismaik. A case in point is the CFFC in 2016. Dave Allen, the then CEO who had been appointed chairman in 2012 and was one important benefactor of the club stepped down and put CFFC up for sale. The reason was a quarrel between the shareholders and Allen about his proposal to write off interest on their loans until the club was in a more financially stable position. When no agreement could be reached, Allen stepped down. Four shareholders followed suit within a week and almost forced the club into administration (BBC, 14 November 2016). During the interview in 2014, Turner explained that the deficit at CFFC, at the time playing in League One, ran up to around £8 m a year (Interview Turner, 2014). Mansfield Town was also financially dependent on its owner and sole benefactor. The League Two club was losing an estimated £1 million a year, a deficit that was made up by the owner John Radford in annual investments (Interview Stevenson, 2014). As Mark Stevenson pointed out, MTFC was looking for additional revenue streams to reduce the deficit: [That deficit] is being reduced year after year by little savings here and there and investments. Like, we’ve just opened up a restaurant right on the ground, it’s open from twelve to eleven. Our far side pitches are now

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available to use for the general public, they may get used every night […]. So there are little revenue streams. But that’ll take a long while for them to get that money back what we spend. But, like I said, the deficit is going down on that side of things but I couldn’t know when we’d break even, I don’t know. (Interview Stevenson, 2014)

Interestingly, the opening of the club’s premises to the broader public is not framed as a possibility for club and community to meet but as revenue generation. That said, making club structures available for general use by the public is still a step towards the local community, even if it is motivated by financial gain. Despite the club’s considerable efforts, however, Stevenson predicted that MTFC would not break even anytime soon. Opening a club’s infrastructure to the general public has a long tradition, as do agreements between local authorities and football clubs, as the case of Milwall FC shows. In his report, Taylor cites the example of Milwall as an example for a case of mutual assistance in which the local authorities and the football club agreed on the public use of the club’s premises to the benefit of both parties (Home Office 1990: 50). Renting out club assets for public use thus effectively makes the club more socially valuable and less closed off from the public.

Structural Professionalisation Steps towards a structural professionalisation as an adaptive strategy are more present and noticeable among the German clubs. This is mostly due to the fact that the English company clubs already function as businesses by their very nature. They have a high degree of professionalisation, including paid staff and full-time CEOs, communication officers, etc. In German lower league clubs, until some years ago, these functions were still filled primarily by voluntary staff, the only paid employees were often the players and coaches. As part of a broader professionalisation process in recent years, both of the German ETFCs have moved to employing professional office staff, mostly at the management level where the workload at the league levels discussed here has become too much to be managed on a voluntary basis. These processes create sustainable structures and the possibility for more longer-term strategic planning, following a trend that is symptomatic of the ways in which the everyday

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demands of fielding a competitive team have also increased in the lower leagues. Even though less prominent than in the very obvious professionalisation of structures in Germany, internal differentiation of labour is also taking place in England. Here, the emphasis is put on creating more stable checks-and-balances in the governance of the club, even if these decisions limit the freedom of decision-making. At Chesterfield, Chris Turner, the former CEO who I interviewed during my field studies at the club, was appointed director of football in early 2017—a position that was later made redundant by the club (BBC, 01 March 2017). In the interview in 2014, Turner described a whole process of shifting structures in English football towards what he called the ‘continental model’ with differentiated tasks and more stability in long-term development: [We] are now changing to more continental. There are more directors of football now coming into the clubs. […] English football is being run by the chairman and the manager. When the chairman falls out with the manager, the manager is gone. If a manager falls out with a chairman, he is on thin ice. […] In Europe, there’s a coach, there’s a general manager and then there’ll be a board. […] In England, there is generally a chairman and a board of directors who will just go off of their good instincts and after what the fans are thinking. And that is why too many bad decisions are made. Now in this country, they are swinging around to have people above the manager and relate the work in-between the board and the manager, like they do abroad between the directors and the coach. We are changing. It’s been slow. But it’s now changing that way. (Interview Turner, 2014)

In the established English clubs, the means to meet any economic crisis was seen in success on the pitch resulting in a more attractive club and more paying fans attending matches. This was pointed out by interviewees both at MTFC (Interview Stevenson, 2014) and CFFC: In a football club, if the football is not going well the financial side won’t go well. […] They go hand in hand. A good football team—better finances. [It’s] very difficult to see good finances because a good football team costs a lot of money. […] We have a deficit of around eight million pounds, and that has to be serviced, and that is very, very difficult sometimes. […] The team needs financing and the business needs financing. So you know, if you don’t have the football going well that affects everything, the attendances, the bar sales […], commercial sales, you know all that is

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driven by the football. If the football is not going well, it affects all of them. (Interview Turner, 2014)

Despite the negative experiences both clubs had with single benefactors, both interviewees at the English ETFCs were opposed to supporter ownership models. While being generally sympathetic to the model as such, they were sceptical, mainly because they did not believe that these models could rally the necessary financial means to keep the club afloat. Their main arguments included the lack of funds and the lack of experience in dealing with those kinds of sums—ability—the conflicts of interest between supporters—governability—as well as the emotionality that is involved—irrationality: My opinion is that on paper [supporter ownership] looks good. In the UK—and I know there are supporter-run clubs in Germany—in the UK it’s not really been a positive reaction. […] Portsmouth [FC], on the face of it, looks good. And is good. But behind it are seven business people from London who fund it. Not supporters. When you get supporters involved, you get all sorts of problems. And they don’t understand the facets of football. […] How to run a team. How to finance a team. What’s required. They get caught up in emotions. And when you are running a football club you can’t get caught up in emotions, you’ve got to stand back and assess it and make a calm decision. Not what fans are thinking a lot of the time. […] You have to make decisions that are best for football. Sometimes, what is best for the football of the club, rather than what the fans may think is best for the club’. (Interview Turner, 2014) [What is] positive [about supporter ownership] is that more supporters perhaps feel that they will get more of a say. And also, if you take the example of AFC [Wimbledon], you got a lot more fan involvement, most of their supporters effectively running the club on a voluntary basis. So that’s something perhaps they enjoy and they feel they’re more involved. Maybe. On the downside of things is perhaps that there are too many voices trying to have a say in what goes on. And feel because it is a fan’s club that they have an equal right to say how it should be run as much as the next man. But I am always curious to know in the long term how these clubs survive. Because I just don’t know where the investment will come from in the long term. But AFC [Wimbledon] have managed it well. But I think it’s… most of these clubs do have good fan bases. AFC Wimbledon gets about 4,000, don’t they? It’s a good gate. […] FC United of Manchester, they get great gate attendances, don’t they? But in the long term, if you begin to make any serious progression, I would say – serious,

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you’re talking league or even championship [levels 4-2] – I think you’ve got to have somebody with big money behind you’. (Interview Stevenson, 2014)

Both Turner and Stevenson appeared not quite informed on what supporter ownership meant with regard to the running of the club— specifically, that a trust appoints a democratically elected and, ideally, qualified board.1 Interestingly, both of their clubs have a history of supporter ownership activism: CFFC was fully supporter-owned in the early 2000s and Mansfield Town’s ST was a minority shareholder. The running of the club’s daily business, however, needs to be executed by, as Turner put it, ‘proper people in proper positions’ (Interview Turner, 2014). Turner himself had negative experiences with supporter ownership during his time as manager in Stockport, as he pointed out during the interview. At RWE, Michal Welling, who was appointed as directing chairman by the liquidator during the administration of the club in 2010, became CEO when the club’s period in receivership ended in June 2011. In June 2016, the club decided to split up what had previously been the position of sport director into two positions, one for the adult teams and another responsible for youth development so as to achieve a further differentiation of labour and raise the profile of the latter activities. The main idea behind this adjustment was so that the club could improve the development of young talent and establish strategical cooperation. In its outward communication, RWE puts special emphasis on the fact that the new sport director position was filled by someone tied to the club since his childhood—someone from the ranks. In the press release on the website announcing the change in structure, the club described itself as the ‘traditional club from Hafenstraße’, again citing the trope of the club’s ties to the local community (RWE website, 13 June 2016). In a previous development of the branch structure at RWE, a so-called Fan-und Föderabteilung had been founded in 2012. Such structures, which focus explicitly on fans and the support of the club’s youth structures, exist in a number of first and second BL clubs and can be understood as ‘direct support’ branches. Their agenda is to invest primarily and directly into the youth development of the club and the preservation of the club culture; thus, members in these branches pay a higher fee than members of other branches. The names of these branches may vary between clubs but can be summarised as ‘Funding

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Members Branches’ (FMB) (Ziesche 2017). The advantage in founding these branches is that they are widely autonomous entities within the club and the fee paid by their members is reserved for use directly by the branch. Thus, while the football branch might have different priorities in the allocation of their funds, an FMB might ensure that youth development does not fall short. It can thus serve as a corrective within club structures as well as connecting the fans and their club. In my interview with then LOK vice-president Martin Mieth, he expressed his bewilderment about the practices of his predecessors. He criticised their clinging to power, the missed investment chances and emphasised how the club was one of the few in the fourth league that still worked with voluntary staff at management level, a fact the new board was especially eager to change (Interview Mieth, 2014). The majority of the club’s members seemed to have faith in his new agenda and the concept of the new leadership, voting not to change course in the AGM in 2014 after being relegated and to continue with plans for separating a capital company as part of measures to increase professionalisation and create sustainable structures. LOK shifted its structure from a Verein to a Verein+X by separating a CLS from the club. Another noteworthy change in the structures of the club community was that the year before in June 2013, the women’s and girls’ teams were separated from the club to join a local LFC founded two months earlier. This was part of the club’s new strategy to focus entirely on the core business of professional men’s football (Leipziger Volkszeitung, 11 June 2013).2 In 2016, Mieth became CEO of both the members association and the CLS. It might be expected that PPFCs would be more resistant to outside pressure to impose professional structures to deal with hard league competition. This is, however, not quite the case, even at the levels that these clubs play. By the time of my interview in 2014, AFCL was operated completely on a voluntary basis (Interview MacDonald, 2014). Unlike the opinions expressed by Turner and Stevenson, neither the AFC Liverpool secretary nor its chairman saw reason to question the club’s supporter ownership system; quite the contrary it was seen as fundamental for the structures the club planned to establish: AFC Liverpool - it’s still young, you know, it’s still only six years old, it’s still struggling to find its identity. It’s still struggling to find its foundation upon which it can then build its fan base and its memberships. And once we start that momentum I am very confident that the connection will then

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start coming back were people will feel actually ‘that is our club’, ‘that is part of AFC’, ‘that is part of the Liverpool community and I want to be a part of that’. And that’s where I get it. You’ve got this emergence of a massive global body which is Liverpool FC, others looking at it going ‘that is not my club anymore’, ‘I don’t feel any connection with it’, but we’ve got this young, up-and-coming non-league club in which we’ve got work to do as a board, to build a profile for it, to enable others to get that, to get them in, to feel part of it. (Interview MacDonald, 2014)

By then three levels up, at FCUM, structures are highly professional: the club has a range of full-time, part-time and temporary staff on the operational level. As of March 2017, the club employed ten people as full-time staff, seven as part-time staff and three as temporary staff, in addition to match-day security and food staff and players (FCUM website, accessed 15 March 2017). FCUM is also a living wage employer, a standard which—quite astonishingly in the light of their general financial situation—only a few PL clubs have felt obliged to subscribe to until recently.3 When Chelsea became the first PL club to pay a living wage to its entire staff in 2014 (Conn 2014), it created a good deal of public attention and outrage directed at those many other clubs that did not (Goldblatt 2014). Hamburger Fußball-Club Falke e.V. is also still very young. Thus, professionalisation tendencies are not yet visible to any meaningful extent. Initially the club did not have a jersey sponsor. They have since acquired an equipment supplier and are now looking to divide the rising costs onto many shoulders in order to reduce the dependency on individual benefactors (Trotier 2015). RSL is the only MBSC among the case studies with fifteen further branches, among others for cycling, handball and volleyball. Interestingly—and contrary to the ‘usual’ development—the club was founded as an SBSC and later started to introduce further branches. Besides football, the largest branch with over twenty active teams competing, the multi-branch setup is one of the reasons for the continuous increase in membership numbers. The membership in all non-football branches makes up around one-quarter of the club’s total membership and has shown the greatest increase since 2014 (Roter Stern Leipzig 2016: 3). During the AGM in 2015, the RSL-Principles (RSL-Thesen) were passed. These include measures to meet the demands of expanding structures, including a gradual shift to increased full-time employment as a means

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to support the voluntary work (RSL website, accessed 13 January 2017). After the club’s membership numbers had broken the 1000 mark, the club announced in preparation for the AGM in 2017 that such professionalisation had to be put into practice to meet the rising demands, especially at the youth level and in general club organisation (Roter Stern Leipzig 2016: 5–6). Thus, a turn to employed staff in these two fields seems likely to occur in the near future, especially since a doubling of the membership fee for ‘passive’ membership was also passed during the AGM in 2017. The club has made several efforts to renovate and improve its facilities, also due to the growth of its active membership. Among others, the club has realised a project called Sozialtrakt (social wing). This involved the renovation of an old gymnasium and making these facilities available to the club’s members. While this is not part of a larger CP agenda, the club has received e700,000 for the construction from the local authorities. Further infrastructure projects have been realised such as the conversion of an artificial turf pitch, the restoration of a natural turf pitch and an overhead sprinkler system with overall costs of around e1,4 m, with RSL itself contributing equity of around e180,000 (Roter Stern Leipzig 2016: 5).

Football Academies and Young Talent Both in England as in Germany the training of young talent is an integral part of a club’s purpose, structure and culture. But while every club has youth teams and, thus, trains young talent to some extent, the existence of youth academies is not self-evident and requires significant investment on the part of a club. Still, the founding of youth academies has caught on in the past fifteen years or so, both in England and Germany. Incentives for developing a professional youth academy include hopes for an improved image as well as financial gain. In a growing market in which ever younger talent is traded for ever higher sums, the youth academy strategy is also being pursued by an increasing number of clubs from lower leagues. The resources that some third level German clubs invest— more than seven per cent of their budget—roughly equals those of second BL clubs and vastly exceeds the average of 3.8% that first BL clubs invest (DFB 2016: 68). While average numbers for the leagues below are unavailable, I would expect an ambituous youth sector to cost a club more in percent of total budget the lower the level a club’s first team is playing at. Within the scope of this study, this rise in the importance of youth academies in lower

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leagues is considered to be yet another example of institutional mimicry of the leagues above, that is, an example of institutional isomorphism. Incentives for this alignment are of a coercive and normative nature: while some youth development structures are mandatory in Germany to be able to progress to the BL level, clubs below tier two might feel the need to pre-emptively provide said structures. Normatively, the existence of such structures at bigger clubs in the area and the holistic concepts they endorse might attract player potential and draw away lower league clubs’ talent. Founding such structures themselves is thus a strategy to meet the competitive pressure in the highly important youth sector. At CFFC, Turner expressed the need to develop young talent and tie them to the club faster than other clubs in the area: Oh yeah there’s lots [of players being drafted by other clubs]. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to stop that or slow it down and improve our chances at these young players and get them to playing for Chesterfield. That’s why we’ve opened up the development school. Our academy has […] been re-focused, with new people that Paul Cook [then manager] and I have brought to the club. And we changed the philosophy as we know we’ve improved it. So, players from Chesterfield are coming into a professional club at school-boy level which is much, much better than it has been and we are attracting players from this area rather than them going to Sheffield. (Interview Turner, 2014)

A CFFC academy—called Chesterfield FC International Football Academy—was established by Chris Turner and former non-league footballer Liam Sutcliffe in early 2016 (Derbyshire Times, 07 February 2017). Part of this venture was the Chesterfield FC Development School (CFCDS), which had already been established in 2012. The project nevertheless had to be closed at the end of 2016, with Turner resigning as director in August. The International Football Academy could be saved, and was taken over by FBT, a sporting goods brand. The whole project is ‘legally separate but heavily associated’ (Smyth 2017) with CFFC. Chesterfield FC Village, where the CFCDS is based, is across the street from CFFC’s stadium and uses the club’s logo. Interestingly, Turner did not want to comment on the affair. He did say to the Derbyshire Times ‘I’ve left the football club and I’m moving on with my life’ (cited in Smyth 2017).

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The academy remained in FBT’s hands but adjoined to CFFC. FBT voiced its goals with regard to running the academy on the club’s website, clearly implying commercial interests: We would like to add, however, that since we have had the opportunity to showcase the football strengths of the academy to our friends in the Far East, Middle East and Africa, all have been hugely impressed with the facility and standards that exist in Chesterfield. It is an excellent facility and all these partners from abroad wish to become part of the growth and future of the concept. We are therefore looking forward to harnessing the positives from the academy and taking it forward on a new and innovative path. (Chesterfield FC, 7 February 2017)

At MTFC, the club’s youth teams were part of the EFL youth alliance. In my interview with him, Stevenson spoke about an academy, but its existence could not be verified in documents or on the club’s website. It is possible that Stevenson was referring to the normal youth teams and the club’s scouts. Usually, though, an academy offers structured courses. The MTFC youth system has nevertheless brought forth talent, as Stevenson was proud to mention: Yeah, we have [lost players to the bigger clubs] in the past, yeah. In fact, Liam Lawrence came through the youth system here, he was sold to Sunderland. Alex Baptiste, he was sold. Yeah, I think it’s a normal case in football, in this country where the bigger clubs can get the best players than the smaller clubs. And, of course, a club of our level can’t really afford to turn that sort of money down sometimes. [Nottingham] Forest and [Notts] County […] they send scouts around here to look for the best players. So, we are competing with those, as well. […] And, yeah, we’ve got our own academy system where we obviously send our own scouts around to look at the local clubs and try and pick their best players. And hope that Forest or County don’t beat us there. (Interview Stevenson, 2014).

In 2018, the club opened its RH Academy, a state-of-the-art training facility with multiple pitches and a pavilion with various facilities made available to the community on a rental basis. The project was largely financed by owner Radford and director Hymas, who have contributed £1.5 million to the project. (The Chad, 25 October 2018). Meanwhile, the Youth Setup of the club is also presented as an academy on the club’s website.

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At RWE, the club founded a youth academy with the reconsolidation of the club following administration in 2010 with the aim of achieving DFB-accreditation for youth development, which it eventually did in 2014. While these DFB-accredited youth academies—so-called Nachwuchsleistungszentrum, NLZ—are compulsory structures for first and second BL clubs, RWE actors came to the conclusion that the club would benefit from a sustainable, accredited youth programme in the long run— as have several other mid and lower league football clubs. Welling stresses the importance of this centre in the long-term strategy of the club as a key to getting in touch with local partners, despite the financial pressure on the club: [We agreed that] despite all the financial crutches and limitations we have we will continue to focus on the youth […] and we did not make any concessions in this area since we decided that we wanted to do this consciously. And in the same spirit we said we wanted to go that way, we want to establish a youth academy as a fourth league club. (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

In 2017, fifty-four clubs in Germany maintained such youth academies. It appears that if a club relegates from the second tier, it does not automatically close its youth academy. Given that thirty-six of these facilities belong to first and second BL clubs which must maintain such academies as part of their licensing agreement, the number of clubs which maintain such structures voluntarily is comparatively low. In June 2016, eleven of these academies belonged to third league clubs and nine belonged to fourth league clubs.4 In some cases, these might stem from times when the club played in the top two levels and were continued after relegation. Information about the league level at which the club played when the academy was founded is not available on the website. Furthermore, it has to be stated that the demands for accreditation by the DFB are not extraordinarily high. In fact, most of what the DFB demands in terms of infrastructure can be considered as given for a club with longer-term ambitions for its first team. This is not to say that certain financial investments are not to be considered. One of the most important criteria for accreditation is the qualification of the coaching staff (DFL 2017: 83). The decision to open the club’s infrastructure to youth teams and to employ adequately qualified staff is what is most important for the DFB which, of course, costs money as well. Well-trained and well-coached

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youth teams, however, also offer lower level teams a chance to compete with the big clubs in the region, as a local newspaper in Essen pointed out when reporting from the RWE AGM in 2012: And yet, RWE launches ‘Project 3’. Behind this working title hides the ambitious goal to rise to the third footballing power in the region, behind [Borussia] Dortmund and Schalke [04]. From a sport perspective this is of course utopian, even though the RWE youth of all ages again compete in the highest leagues. The first squads of Bochum and Duisburg though are two tiers above Essen. In terms of season tickets sold, membership numbers and Facebook friends, both clubs are within reach. (Torma 2012, my translation)

Shortly after the founding of LOK in 1966, the club also formulated its agenda with regard to young talent and youth development, stating: ‘Young talent will be a focus of our activity. The quality of the youth of today determines the top quality of our football tomorrow’ (cited in Nöldner und Pfitzner 1987: 12, my translation). In the club’s efforts to create a new image in 2013 and in the seven proposed guiding principles that were formulated in this respect, the seventh and last of the points is a commitment to youth development in the club. The wording is almost identical to the version from around half a century ago and reads: ‘Youth work on a high level is a quality feature of the sporting orientation of the club. With the intensive support of youth competitive sport, we shape our sporting future’ (Lokomotive Leipzig 2015, my translation). The youth branch is especially important to the club’s future as it lost parts of its up-and-coming teams in the administration process in 2003 to local rival Chemie Leipzig. The creation of an NLZ in Leipzig, however, took place without LOK and today RasenBallsport Leipzig has taken the lead in this respect with its e35m training facilities including an academy which they launched in October 2015 (Kroemer 2015). Successful scouting and the acquisition of young talent and young players and training them within their clubs is the standing capital—or human capital—of football clubs. The competition for these ‘resources’ begins at a young age and is increasingly being fought with extraordinary financial means. Bigger clubs lure young talent away from other clubs with transfer fees and salaries, as Martin Mieth points out (Interview Mieth, 2014).5 Of course, for the smaller clubs, this evolving youth transfer

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market, first of all, means further options for acquiring additional financial means. The improvements in the creation of a positive image, which are fostered by maintaining an expensive youth academy, can literally be turned into gold with a lucrative transfer. The lack of quality players was one of the reasons for Germany’s poor international performance around the turn of the millennium. The major reason for German football’s international improvement over the two decades since can be seen in the change in strategy with regard to promoting talent since that time and the systematic development of NLZ structures (James 2013). The paramount importance that was awarded to nurturing talent in the professional clubs then set in motion mimicking effects in the leagues below—not least because clubs were effectively forced to offer better facilities in order to not have their talent drawn away by bigger clubs. Having a DFB-licensed youth facility is thus valuable for a club as it demonstrates a quality standard of training. Two possible gains derive from this fact: not only does it increase the value of the players trained in such an academy—i.e. their human capital which can then be turned into economic capital—it also makes the club a more favoured choice for future players who look for professional training and consider training in these centres as a special quality attribute and a means of increasing their chances of a professional career. Considering the competition, these structures could make the difference. Consequently, while Borussia Dortmund might still be the ultimate dream of any player from North-Rhine Westphalia, maintaining a DFB-accredited NLZ can improve RWE’s chances in the competition for young players following that dream. Being a fourth league club, this is also a strong signifier of its ambition and self-identification as belonging to the region’s top clubs. A youth academy only exists at one of the PPFCs in this study (FCUM), largely due to limited resources and the low level played. There are five youth teams at AFCL competing in four age categories—under 11 s to under 17 s. At FCUM youth structures are, again, already highly professional in comparison to the other PPFCs. The junior members of the club are organised within the so-called ‘FCUth’ scheme—motto: ‘our club, our future’—which seeks to teach the club philosophy and the idea of democratic participation to younger members. The club has also established an academy with a two-year, full-time programme which is free of tuition fees for 16–18 year olds and collaborates with Moston Juniors FC, a club focused on training young players from under 7s to under 21s.6

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As a very young club HFC has only two adult teams and no youth programme to speak of. However, the club announced in 2017 that it intended to gradually develop a youth branch (Westphal 2016), which it would be required to do for licensing reasons anyway, should it be promoted further up the league hierarchy. A major factor for setting up a youth branch is the infrastructure on which a club can rely. In the case of HFC, the club still does not have the infrastructural means to coordinate training units for three or more teams. RSLs youth branches are among the largest in Leipzig with over 300 active players in seventeen teams. This fact contributes to the club’s enormous problems with its limited facilities, a fact that will be further discussed in chapter “Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”. In sum, with one exception, all the clubs in this study host youth teams for a number of different reasons, be it (1) because this meets the criteria for Vereine or CBS status—i.e. that they be for public benefit; (2) because they are looking to increase their talent pool and develop potential players at comparably low cost and often for significant profit on the transfer market, or (3) because youth teams foster sociability in sport and help to further connect the club to its community. A problem that has not been discussed in this last regard is that in almost all cases, the infrastructure available for such youth development projects is quite limited—with the possible exception of LOK, which has a large number of training grounds. The number of available pitches often does not provide enough space for all teams to train on site. Consequently, especially the youth teams are scattered across a city, training and playing on other club’s or public pitches. This again runs the risk of disconnecting the immediate club community, since contacts between players of different teams and ages are hindered. Another result is that the second and third squads as well as youth teams drop out of the focus of the broader club community. This ‘scattering’ issue will be addressed more thoroughly in chapter “Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”.

Effects of ‘Big Players’ and Other Regional Impacts Interviewees at all ETFCs generally agreed that ‘suction effects’ of bigger clubs in their surroundings had played a role with regard to their ability to draft players and volunteers as well as attract larger crowds to matches.

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In the case of the English clubs, the unanimous stance was that these clubs had always been there and, thus, this was not a new phenomenon. While this is certainly true with regard to Chesterfield and Mansfield and their rather unspectacular history, it is quite different for RWE and LOK: here interviewees cited the existence of suction effects as naturally given in light of their current role as fourth league competitors and their inability to compete with bigger local rivals on a sporting and economic level. However, in contrast to CFFC and MTFC, both clubs can look back to a time where their own role in this imbalance had been quite different, which in turn influences their strategies to reclaim lost ground. Especially with regard to the issue of acquiring young talent and keeping them, negative suction effects by bigger clubs are indeed a problem, as Welling noted. At LOK, the appearance of Red Bull in the city’s football landscape in the form of RasenBallsport Leipzig and the consequent shift in the city’s club alignment is usually seen in positive terms. While traditional fans of other clubs are critical of RBL’s corporate setup, some even displaying open hostility, Mieth, from a club executive’s point of view, suggests that there are positive spillover effects of having what was at the time a potential first Bundesliga club in the city. However, at the same time, LOK looks clearly to distinguish itself by stressing that it is the counter-model to RBL. Since not all players will be able to make it with the big clubs, Mieth expresses optimism about an increase in the quality of players in Leipzig and at LOK which, due to an improving situation in terms of available sponsors, he sees fit to compete at least in level three in the long run (Interview Mieth, 2014). RWE continues to see itself in a long-term rivalry with the biggest clubs in their direct vicinity, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04. It is this past success that sets the German ETFCs apart from their English counterparts. Both of the English ETFCs seem more or less concerned about and satisfied with ‘doing considerably well’. Although discussing the relevance of a club’s history on the decision-making processes and governability goes beyond the scope of this analysis, it does, however, play a significant role in the case of these two established German clubs. This is most clearly expressed in the interviews with regard to the expectations expressed in the fan scene and among members—and in concerns that the ‘reality’ of the club’s current situation and its financial and resourcerelated limitations has not yet sunk in. A club’s history, as well as the regional disparities, are also clear contributors to a club’s strategies to

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connect with its football community in terms of identity and community construction, as the following chapter will show.

Notes 1. There are more extreme cases of supporter ownership, one of which was Ebbsfleet United, a case which also turns up in the interview with Chris Turner. Here, fans even had a say on the line-up and transfers. The ownership was made possible by the takeover of Myfootballclub.co.uk (MyFC) which practised a form of collective managing combined with elements of a reality show. This, of course, is not what supporter ownership in the vast majority of cases means. Similar to Ebbsfleet United, members of the German pendant Deinfussballclub.de (DFC) were part of the decisionmaking process at SC Fortuna Köln in an attempt to practise consequent democracy in all areas in a German club. Starting quite successfully, both websites lost members over the years and stopped operations at the clubs in 2012 (DFC) and 2013 (MyFC), respectively (Zerfass 2013; Lee 2010). 2. The federal women’s football academy (Landesleistungszentrum Frauenund Mädchenfußball ) was continued by the new club, FFV Leipzig. After financial troubles at FFV Leipzig, RasenBallsport Leipzig took over the academy in July 2016 (Leipziger Volkszeitung, 08 June 2016). 3. The living wage is higher than the minimum wage and is based on the cost of living. A living wage pledge was signed by all PL clubs starting with the 2016/2017 season (Gibson 2015). 4. https://fussballtraining.com/gmap/popup.html?mode=centers. Accessed 5 June 2016. 5. The developments in football’s youth talent pool, such as the increased power of player agencies, the increased money-flow and the ‘stealing’ of young talents from clubs both nationally as well as, from a certain age, internationally is receiving increasing critical attention (Hummel 2017; also: Blumensaat 2017). The most famous case perhaps is the transfer ban issued to FC Barcelona after the club violated FIFA guidelines in the process of transferring young talent from other clubs. The transfer ban was badly executed and Barça managed to announce the signing of seventy-seven new players two days after the ban was officially lifted. This was made possible because the ban prohibited only the fielding of new players. They were still allowed to sign contracts, in the meantime training with their old teams (Riach 2014). 6. https://www.wearescl.co.uk/fc-united-manchester. Accessed 12 August 2018.

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References Blumensaat, I. (Dir.) (2017). Sportclub Story: Fußballscouts auf Spielersuche. Documentary. https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/sportclub/Sportc lub-Story-Fussballscouts-auf-Spielersuche,sportclub8302.html. Breuer, C., & Feiler, S. (2009). Sportentwicklungsbericht 2007/08. Köln: Sportverlag Strauß. Breuer, C., & Wicker, P. (2011). Die Situation der Sportarten in Deutschland. Eine Analyse der Sportvereine in Deutschland auf Basis der Sportentwicklungsberichte. Köln: Sportverlag Strauß. Conn, D. (2014, December 11). Chelsea to Be first Premier League Club to Pay All Staff Living Wage. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ football/2014/dec/11/chelsea-england-living-wage. DFB. (2016). Saisonreport 3. Liga 2015/16. https://www.dfb.de/fileadmin/_ dfbdam/121130-Saisonreport_3.Liga_2015_2016.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. DFL. (2017). Ligastatut. https://www.dfb.de/fileadmin/_dfbdam/15687117_Ligastatut_DFL.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2019. Gibson, O. (2015, March 26). Premier League Living Wage Pledge Must Go Further, Says Campaign Leader. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2015/mar/26/premier-league-living-wage-campaign. Goldblatt, D. (2014, November 2). Football’s Grotesque Injustice—Huge Fortunes, Low-Paid Labour. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2014/nov/02/football-grotesque-injustice-huge-fortuneslow-pay. Home Office. (1990). The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, 15 April 1989. Inquiry by the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Taylor. Final Report. London: HMSO. Hummel, T. (2017, February 22). Das Geschäft mit den Fußballtalenten. Süddeutsche Zeitung. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/2.220/nachwuchsfussball-das-geschaeft-mit-den-fussballtalenten-1.3389222. James, S. (2013, May 23). How Germany Went from Bust to Boom on the Talent Production Line. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/foo tball/2013/may/23/germany-bust-boom-talent. Kroemer, U. (2015, October 14). RB Leipzig präsentiert Trainingszentrum. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. http://www.mz-web.de/sport/fussball/rb-leipzigpraesentiert-trainingszentrum-einblicke-ins-neue-bullen-reich-22981644. Lee, D. (2010, September 6). What Happened to MyFootballClub and Ebbsfleet United? BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/front_page/newsid_ 8967000/8967067.stm. Lokomotive Leipzig. 2015. Leitbild. https://www.lok-leipzig.com/verein/lei tbild/. Nöldner, J., & Pfitzner, J. (1987). 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig—Ein Fußballklub stellt sich vor. Berlin: Sportverlag.

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Riach, J. (2014, April 2). Barcelona Hit with a Year-Long Transfer Ban for Breaching Rules on Youngsters. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2014/apr/02/barcelona-transfer-ban-fifa-fine. Roter Stern Leipzig. (2016, December). Kiezkicker. No. 2/16. Fanzine. Smyth, G. (2017, Monday 10). Director Says It’s a ‘Disgrace’ as Spireites Are Hit by Legal Action. Derbyshire Times. http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/ sport/football/chesterfield-fc/director-says-it-s-a-disgrace-as-spireites-are-hitby-legal-action-1-8485997. Szymanski, S. (2015). Money and Football. A Soccernomics Guide. New York: Nation Books. Torma, P. (2012, June 25). Jahreshauptversammlung bei RWE: Angriff auf die Großen. Lokalkompass. https://www.lokalkompass.de/essen-nord/c-sport/ jahreshauptversammlung-bei-rwe-angriff-auf-die-grossen_a182310. Trotier, K. (2015, May 14). Gestatten, der neue HSV. Zeit Online. http://www. zeit.de/2015/18/hsv-fans-verein-hfc-falke. Westphal, L. (2016, February 20). Wie der Anti-Kommerz-Club HFC Falke fliegen lernt. Hamburger Abendblatt. http://www.abendblatt.de/sport/weltdes-sports/article207067881/Wie-der-Anti-Kommerz-Club-HFC-Falke-fli egen-lernt.html. Zerfass, F. (2013, September 29). Das Ende der Fußballdemokratie. Zeit Online. http://www.zeit.de/sport/2011-09/fortuna-koeln-deinfussballclub-fans. Ziesche, D. (2017). Well Governed? Stakeholder Representation in German Professional Football Clubs. In B. García & J. Zheng (Eds.), Football and Supporter Activism in Europe: Whose Game Is It? (pp. 89–120). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities

Unable to compete with local rivals in higher leagues on a sporting or economic level, clubs must employ other strategies to position themselves in their local community. As suggested by Giulianotti, smaller clubs could look to maintain the ‘ideological upper hand’ (1999: 12) in ongoing rivalries with local opponents, both in terms of image construction as well as the qualities of their community. Established German clubs often emphasise the use of terms which resonate well with their core fan bases. ‘Authenticity’, for example, is a term that is used rather frequently to refer to some kind of ‘tradition’—another, equally disputed term. In fielding those contested and laden terms, clubs seek to establish football-cultural credibility. This ideological differentiation mechanism only works against clubs higher up in the league hierarchy. It would be hard for RWE to distinguish itself on this basis from clubs at eye-level, such as SG Wattenscheid 09 or Rot-Weiß Oberhausen since these clubs can claim to represent ‘traditional’, ‘authentic’ or ‘real’ football culture on the same basis and with the same legitimacy as RWE. ‘Honesty’ is another term that is frequently used by lower league clubs, their current lower league status being proof for a club’s honest dealings rather than its failures. The narrative is often one of having been wronged multiple times—just as the prototypical fan being addressed has been—but standing up without ill will, nonetheless. That said, employing these narrative strategies could lead a club © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_8

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into an argumentative dilemma should upper-league status be achieved. While collective memory of an ‘honest’ ascent might be kept alive for a while—such as in a narrative in which the newly-found success is the well-earned fruit of hard work instead of financial advantages granted by a benefactor—the realities of the upper leagues in terms of player wages and larger, consumer-oriented crowds will certainly scratch at the image of the innocent ‘underdog’. Until that time this underdog narrative is one of the most effective to reinforce an identity distinguishable from the big players locally and in football in general. This internal legitimisation can also be problematic for PPFCs. Even seemingly minor measures have the potential to raise considerable issues of legitimisation among the membership. Such was the case at FCUM where the club had to cope with the financial burden of a new stadium and the board attempted to find new forms of revenue. Club members attacked these initiatives as an attempt at commercialisation of the club. The pressure from below caused the entire board to step down in April 2016 (Taylor 2016a, b).1 In order to distinguish themselves and make their club unique, ‘othering’ mechanisms to create a sense of community and collective identity are employed. In the following I will discuss how clubs construct their identity in order to establish identification bonds with their local community and ask how these matters are addressed in club agendas and statutes.

Club Image, Identity and Agenda Setting Neither of the English ETFCs made any significant attempts at rebranding their club image or corporate identity during the research period. Although both clubs overhauled their websites, there were no signs that they were looking to create a new, specific club identity. In my interviews, questions regarding how the club tried to create a specific, characteristic identity largely remained unanswered. Instead, both interviewees referred to the idea of playing attractive and successful football as a means for setting themselves apart from other clubs. The MTFC logo is a stag, which appears somewhat arbitrary, while Chesterfield’s logo with its church spire is a clear reference to the city’s iconic church. Other regional or local references to identity do not exist. As company clubs, no statutes are available in which a systematic agenda might be outlined, and no other agendas or manifestos that might guide specific practices of deliberate identity-formation appear to exist. Both clubs employ an array of

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media measures to establish their club in the region, ranging from advertising on radio stations, newspapers and regional websites and in their own social media channels. Mansfield Town’s staff predominantly consists of people with local backgrounds and ties, as Mark Stevenson emphasises. This, however, is not a club policy but rather a result of the low-league level of the club (Interview Stevenson, 2014). Both CFFC and MTFC have so-called customer charters available online, again a development first made mandatory in the PL (Winter 2000) that has been mimicked by other teams in the EFL. These charters are mainly concerned with guaranteeing quality customer service and address a wide-ranging field of issues regarding ticket allocation and prices, accommodation, grounds regulations, matters of fan and staff conduct and so on. As their names indicate, these charters see fans in a—new—role as customers. Still, small remnants of a community ideal can be found. Both clubs refer to their community programmes—the Community Trust in the case of CFFC, and the FITC scheme in the case of MTFC. Neither of these clubs attempt to create an identity as being in former mining towns or have a working-class history in their symbols or language on their websites or in their stadium magazines as, for example, does RWE. None of the terms typical in the language of German clubs— e.g. tradition or authenticity—could be found. On the contrary, when asked, Chris Turner focused predominantly on how the club contributed economically to the town, that is, the money that stadium visitors spent in the community, and on the local pride generated by the club (Interview Turner, 2014). With regard to the small gate numbers at Mansfield, Mark Stevenson was less optimistic about the role the club played for the community: I mean, if you take somebody like Newcastle [United] where there’s a huge culture of football up there, they literally live and breathe it, don’t they? They’re mad, mad about it. And the supporters we’ve got are very passionate. But if you perhaps look at the percentage of people who come to the games here compared to the population of Mansfield which is about 90,000 you look at about, what, 1.6 per cent? It’s not a lot. (Interview Stevenson, 2014)

While this lack of more holistic identity brandings could be an indicator for less legitimisation pressure, RWE’s CEO Michael Welling elaborated on how a club like Rot-Weiss Essen attempts to create an image in the

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shadow of bigger clubs, how a football culture can be created around a club, and how this is related to the pros and cons of having a new stadium: Firstly, we try to position the club with regard to its strengths but also its weaknesses as a kind of ‘countermodel’ especially to [Borussia] Dortmund and Schalke [04], where everything is at least one size bigger, where everything is shaped strongly by the media and where everything has been highly professionalised, as I would put it. Therefore, we focus on the topic of ‘pure football’ or ‘old-school football’. […] The new stadium does not help in this matter; it has an aura of top-class football but we’re still in the fourth league here. Secondly, we are trying—by emphasising this football culture—to position the club in a different way, which is closely related to the ‘old-school football’ mentioned before: That this here is real football culture, the kind of football culture the ‘hard core’ fans, if you will, expect. […] Also, we are a little tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating and try to not to be so dead serious all the time. We are also a bit snottier than others—which is typical to the Ruhr region. ‘Snotty’ in the sense of being a little rough, a bit too straightforward—we try to be all that, despite our focus on success of course, which we have as well. (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

There is a strong dimension of global–local interrelation in Welling’s statement. This positioning of smaller clubs as ‘real’, ‚genuine’, or ‘pure’ clubs that stand for an unadulterated form of football—an ‘authentic’ football—is a typical and rather intuitive strategy. That said, the CEO of the global brand in Dortmund would most likely claim this rootedness in the community as well. When Jürgen Klopp, who was coach at Borussia Dortmund at the time, wore a hat that read ‘Pöhler’, a term from local dialect, this was clearly interpreted as an indicator of the local, downto-earth football culture Dortmund represented by people in the region and perhaps in Germany. Of course, this symbol would have eluded the average Borussia fan in Tokyo completely.2 As this example shows, glocalisation processes are clearly visible in the global top clubs, as here too, globalisation and localisation processes are in constant interplay.3 The effect of these localisation approaches as shown in RWEs example is indeed to claim authenticity for oneself in a globalized—i.e. inauthentic—football world while discrediting the ‘other’ as professionalised, mundane, excessive or—as with regard to RB Leipzig—an ‘artificial’ result of globalisation processes within football and thereby separate it from football-cultural credibility (e.g. Dieckmann 2013).

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At LOK, the new praesidium which took over in 2013 aimed to expedite a ‘holistic economic professionalisation’ of the club. According to the new mission statement (Leitbild) which was formulated as a part of this process, this meant that decisions were to be made based on marketingrelated, research-based knowledge. As part of this major overhaul, a new corporate identity and, especially, a new corporate brand needed to be developed. Claiming to be among the first German clubs to do so, LOK would follow an ‘identity-oriented branding’ strategy: Few German football clubs have yet realised or seized the chances are connected to identity-oriented branding, despite the brand among the most important assets of a club considering the high awareness of the logo and the corresponding corporate identity. 2015, my translation)

which being brand (LOK

These claims go hand in hand with the proposed professional overhaul and communicate that the path LOK would pursue under the new praesidium was indeed a modern, professional one based firmly on research-based knowledge. The marketing team consisted mainly of people in the club, either praesidium or supervisory board members, and based its new brand on a survey they had conducted. This survey examined brand awareness and the image of East German—i.e. former GDR—football clubs.4 The marketing team in Leipzig then launched its new corporate identity and mission statement in the AGM in December 2015. According to the club’s website, the strategy behind this overhaul followed three mid- to long-term goals: (1) Improving the image of the club, (2) creating strategic continuity, and (3) reducing the dependency of the club’s finances on its sporting success. The new ‘brand essence’ of the marketing identity would be ‘Fußball pur’ (transl. pure football). Based on this central slogan, the marketing team developed further slogans including ‘Tradition pur’ (transl. pure tradition) and ‘Leidenschaft pur’ (transl. pure passion) (LOK 2015). The similarities to RWE’s selfbranding (see Welling above), which could be framed as a ‘purification of football’, is striking. While RWE’s own, slightly more cumbersome slogan ‘Schützenswertes Kulturgut seit 1907 ’ (transl. cultural heritage worthy of protection since 1907) tries to encapsulate the cultural weight of the club for the local community, the club—much like LOK—considers itself authentic, true and ‘pure’ in contrast to the inauthentic and overblown clubs in higher leagues. Interestingly, around a year after separation at

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LOK, which potentially weakened the direct influence by the membership on the professional branch, the club formulated under point four of its new guiding principles the concept of a ‘fanocracy’ (orig. Fanokratie), a neologism combining fan and democracy, emphasising its communal and democratic character as a club led by its members (LOK 2015). Beside these soft assertions of identity and heritage in media products such as leaflets, websites or image clips—e.g. RWE 2014—the agenda setting of a club can also be seen in its ‘hard’ legal documents. For the English cases, such documents are only available for the SOFCs. The general structure of the rules of an IPS and of the statutes of a German Verein is quite similar. Section one defines the name of the society and section two deals with the object or purpose of the organisation as such. In section two of FCUMs IPS rules, the statutes say that the object of the club is: i. to strengthen the bonds between the Club and the community which it serves and to represent the interests of the community in the running of the Club; ii. to benefit present and future members of the community served by the Club by promoting[,] encouraging and furthering the game of football as a recreational facility, sporting activity and focus for community involvement; iii. to ensure the Club to take proper account of the interests of its supporters and of the community it serves in its decisions; iv. to further the development of the game of football nationally and internationally and the upholding of its rules; v. to promote, develop and respect the rights of members of the community served by the Club and people dealing with the Club as set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, having regard in particular to the need to provide information to members and conduct the affairs of the Club in accessible and appropriate ways. (FCUM 2016: Sect. 2) The status of the community in the club’s rules is extraordinary. The club’s manifesto is a further commitment to the existing club structures and a bulwark against commercialisation. In RWE’s statutes, a section comparable to FCUM’s IPS rules reads:

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1. [The] purpose and task of the club is the fostering of exercise for the physical health of its members, especially the youth; the team sport football as the main sport has a distinguished status in the club. […] 2. The club follows exclusively and directly charitable purposes as specified in the section ‘tax-favoured purposes’ of the contribution order. It is altruistic and does not primarily pursue economic purposes beneficiary to itself. […] (RWE 2012: Sect. 2, my translation) RWE’s statute is typical for the statutes of German Vereine, sport and otherwise. They are obliged to include an NPO clause, a reference to their charitable nature and guarantee freedom of membership. But even within these comparably unitary Verein statutes clubs have the freedom to emphasise certain aspects, such as the specific purpose of their work, or to include preambles which—in a similar vein to FCUM’s manifesto—underlines the club’s agenda. RWE’s statute does not have such a preamble, but HFC’s statute does, underlining the club’s focus on self-governance, inalienability and conviviality: The work of HFC Falke rests on the core values of community and serves the togetherness of the club’s members and the common good of society. HFC Falke considers itself to be inalienable and self-governed and puts emphasis on establishing and fostering local, national and international friendship by the means of travel and matches. (HFC 2015: 1, my translation)

Further, the club has included several paragraphs in its statutes which forbid commercial exploitation in various ways, such as the selling of naming rights of future assets (HFC 2015: §1 (4), my transl.), and the consequent use of the club’s colours in the sporting dress code (HFC 2015: §4 (3), my transl.). Additionally, the last paragraph ensures that the sections on member participation cannot be altered: ‘An alteration of these statutes to curtail the participation rights of the members […] needs to have the consent of all members’ (HFC 2015: §3 (3), my transl.). This effectively bars access to the club by third party or commercial interests. The idea of ‘community’ is awarded special attention and core values are listed explicitly. LOK also added additional details into its statute after the new praesidium took over: ratified by the AGM in October 2014, the club

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expanded the section on its purpose. Beside stating the focus on sports, the statutes list in Para. 3: (3) The basis of the club’s activities is the commitment of all its members to the liberal-democratic constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. (4) The club advocates the principle of religious and ideological tolerance and party-political neutrality. (5) The club rejects extremist, racist and xenophobic aspirations and behaviour. (LOK 2014: §3 (3–5), 1–2, my translation) This can be interpreted as a direct reaction to the problem the club had—and continues to have—with right-wing extremism among its fans and a change in how it planned to address this issue. This issue will be elaborated on further at a later point in this chapter. One passage in RSL’s statutes is notable, namely that on the youth branch, which is given wide-reaching autonomy with regard to organisation, self-governance and the allocation of funds (RSL 2001a: §9). Like both of the German ETFCs, RSL defines the larger part of its agenda in forms outside of its statutes, such as the ‘RSL-Thesen’. The core of its philosophy is its self-conception as an anti-fascist sport project organised autonomously with shallow hierarchies and direct democracy. All members are urged to take an active part in the club community. The club is against any form of discrimination and seeks to communicate its aspirations to the broader public on the pitch and in the form of cultural events. A ‘grassroots’ ideology outweighs any focus on high performance. For RSL, sports, culture and politics are inseparable and together form the basis of the project (RSL 2001b). PPFCs both in England and Germany thus have an agenda that goes beyond sport and define it in their constitutional documents— in their statutes, rules and self-conception—HFC even adopting core issues inherent to the AMF movement into its statutes, underlining their commitment to these ideals.

Stadiums and Assets Stadiums are a club’s core asset, as chapter “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide” has already shown. All clubs chosen for this study have had—and in some cases still have—conflicts involving their grounds and stadiums,

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be it the sharing of grounds, ground ownership, or relocation to a new stadium with the resulting loss of place and the struggle to create this place anew. All eight have had to relocate in the past, some more than once. The status of stadium ownership is a pressing concern for all clubs as it is strongly connected to their potential for active community building and for creating spaces for identity formation at and around the ground. The German cases are more affected by this issue than the English clubs as, indeed, at the beginning of the research, none of the German clubs in the study actually owned the stadium in which they were playing. The stadium can be seen as a club’s ‘home’. And being ‘homeless’, that is, without an own stadium, is a difficult situation. After being founded, most clubs make use of opportunities to share grounds with other clubs. This is less a problem when the clubs practice different sports, as has been the case with some English football and rugby clubs sharing grounds. As soon as they are practising the same sport, however, processes of marginalisation of one of the clubs are bound to occur. Usually the club owning the pitch has the advantage, the tenant normally having little room to leave a ‘cultural’ mark on the premises and making a ‘home’ for itself. Before their relocation in 2010, CFFC played at Saltergate stadium, which was embedded in the heart of the community with churches, schools, nurseries and social welfare, and other public institutions surrounding it. The stadium was closed in 2010 and demolished in 2012 to be replaced by a housing project (Interview Turner, 2014). The club moved to the new Proact stadium, situated in a different borough of the town. David Conn describes the charms of the old grounds and how it fell into ruin: After that, however, the team stumbled to relegation in 2000 under chairman Norton Lea and longevity curdled into stagnation, with no improvements made to the historic Saltergate ground, which is still a preTaylor Report relic, complete with 1932 vintage wooden main stand and home town atmosphere. It is well worth a visit, in fact. (Conn 2005)

After the club was saved from bankruptcy, Saltergate was in dire need of investment, as Barrie Hubbard5 announced after the club had been saved: Chesterfield FC nearly went to the wall in 2001, for well-documented reasons which have now been made public. The club is looking forward

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to a brighter future with the ultimate goal of a new stadium at the heart of the community. It’s time to move on. (Barrie Hubbard, cited in Conn 2005)

However, CFFC’s new stadium helped the club improve its attendance numbers, as Turner states: They did not go up much [after promotion], but moving from Saltergate to here they’ve more than doubled. The football that’s being played in this stadium has been a very, very good standard, so you know, we’d be much, much happier with another thousand home fans coming in. (Interview Turner, 2014)

Yet, as with many other such relocations, fans are not entirely happy with the new stadium, even though, as Turner argues, it is, objectively, much better than the old one: [T]he old stadium, Saltergate, […] is renowned for Chesterfield Football club. This stadium, the Proact stadium, this is our fifth season here. […] We’ve only been here five years and we’re establishing the club because even today people still talk about the olden days at Saltergate, which was a very ancient stadium and the facilities at the stadium were very, very limited. This is now a brand-new stadium, virtually and it’s got lots of facilities that we have here that we didn’t have there. So you know the experience for the supporter now at Chesterfield is a fine stadium, facilities are very, very good, we’ll improve in every season on the facilities, and this is now watching football in comfort. (Interview Turner, 2014)

Turner was also eager to underline how the new stadium helped to develop the part of town in which the club is now located: We’ve moved down here to where we are now, directly across the road from Tesco. The ground and Tesco were brought down here to a road that was half empty. Shops were half empty, closed down, no businesses. Now, because the football club has been sited here, Tesco is here, Aldi is here, Sainsbury’s here, Asda is here, super markets are here, Costa Coffee is here, Kentucky Fried Chicken, this road is full now, it is busy! So, we, the football club in bringing the business here, it has brought work here, employment here and activity. And other businesses are being attracted to this part of town. (Interview Turner, 2014)

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It is notable that Turner sees the club’s positioning in an environment of franchises and supermarkets—i.e. in an environment of ‘non-places’ at best—as unproblematic, even as positive. This strictly economical assessment is, of course, at odds with more old-fashioned, traditional views upheld by parts of the fan scene. It seems unlikely, that Turner’s ‘objective’ remarks on the spoils of the new stadium are shared among the club’s supportership. Likewise, the relocation to a different part of the town and the cultural history that was lost with the demolition of Saltergate is not problematized in any regard. Evidence of the economic spillover effects for top league football clubs is inconclusive. In fact, the lack of hard proof for these effects is what has caused concern about the health of the relationship between clubs and their local communities in the first place. The theory that a major club will attract businesses of various kinds and contribute to the economic upturn of a town sounds intriguing and maybe even convincing, however, empirical data for this cause and effect relationship has yet to be delivered (Coates 2007; Siegfried and Zimbalist 2000, 2006). In the case of lower league football, these economic effects—if they exist at all—would be even more marginal. At MTFC the situation is considerably different from Chesterfield’s. The club still plays in the stadium where it has been playing for the greatest part of its history. Having been used for football matches since 1861, the club claims that its Field Mill is the oldest professional football ground in the world.6 The club was left without a stadium after the detested former owner Keith Haslam sold the club but kept the stadium to then rent it to MTFC. After the following owner John Radford purchased the ground from Haslam in 2012, a contract was signed to ensure that Field Mill may not be used for non-sporting events until 2032 (Nottingham Post, 5 March 2012). It took until 2017 for plans to erect a new training facility announced in 2015 were set into motion. The ground, historic as it is, includes a club pub and features a wall on the main stand which is clad with bricks that carry the names of fans who bought—or who were bought—a place on the wall, thus serving as a visual marker and reminder of the club community at the stadium. The ground is situated at the edge of town and thus in close vicinity to its local urban community. In the wake of the demolition of the old Georg-Melches-Stadion in Essen, commentators spoke of a dying piece of Ruhr history (Rossmann 2013). Indeed, the loss was deeply felt by fans and the club initiated several measures to keep the heritage alive and transfer the aura of the

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Hafenstraße—the street where the club and stadium are situated—to the new building. The old Georg-Melches-Stadion was named after the club’s co-founder, championship winner, patron and designer of the stadium in 1963 and, after financial troubles, was sold to the city in 1975 (Wahl 2014). The city later decided to tear down the old ground. The new Stadion Essen is also owned by the city. To date RWE has found it difficult to create places of memory in the new stadium, which is all too apparent when visiting the sterile ground and was expressed in my interview with Welling. The only rooms that might function in creating a ‘sense of place’ are the private boxes. In 2014, the club was allowed to erect a bust of Georg Melches in the foyer (Der Westen, 26 March 2014). In the days before the demolition of the old stadium, an initiative was founded by RWE fans and citizens devoted to keeping the heritage of the place alive: the GMS initiative. While the abbreviation officially stands for Gemeinsam Mehr Schaffen (transl. accomplishing more together), it of course also encapsulates the initials of the old Georg-Melches-Stadion. The group was founded in an attempt to preserve the main stand of the old stadium as well as one of the old floodlight poles, and they proposed the ‘juxtaposition of new and old’ on the Hafenstraße. While the GMS initiative failed in the preservation of the main stand, they succeeded in protecting the floodlight pole from demolition. The initiative is still active and is a further player in the field of actors in and around RWE. It reminds the club of the ambivalence between its claim to be a ‘culture preserver’ (Westfalenpost, 2 August 2011, orig. Kulturschützer) and its inability to preserve a crucial piece of the club’s cultural heritage. With the move to the new stadium the club’s infrastructure has been dislocated. The youth academy and branch office, the fan project and the failure to replace clubcultural institutions such as the stadium pub, for example, have disrupted the social and community aspect of club life, as Welling admits: During the times of the Georg-Melches-Stadion all RWE teams, all employees and volunteers were at one site. Then the new youth branch was established in the Seumannstraße, which is about four, five kilometres away and produces a kind of fragmentation, if you will. It simply poses a problem for the communication structures and in matters of identity-construction if these branches are not at one place. Consequently, ‘only’ the branch office, the fan project and the first team remained here [at the Hafenstraße]. With the following demolition of the Georg-Melches-Stadion we lost social facilities as well. Firstly, over there [in the old stadium] we had

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a club pub which was much frequented on match days and was also used for events and served as a social gathering point for fans. Where people met and where communication took place. This club pub was once a part of the stadium but there were no plans to establish something similar here because there was no money and because the stadium was built for Essen and not for RWE. This is the first point where such a point of reference is missing. The second missing point of reference which makes communication and collaboration more difficult is that we had our fan project which deals with fan matters in the stadium as well.7 They had their offices there [in the old stadium] and their rooms but there are no such rooms allocated to this project here [in the new stadium] either. And the question was: where will they be located? And now, after a long struggle, they are here at a distance of 60, 70 metres on a parking lot in three containers, which is only a temporary solution. Now, because the fan project is there and the club is here, the contact points for fans are completely separated. So many things here have become more economical while at the same time it has become less familial, less together, which makes many things more difficult. Indeed, in terms of management but also in terms of proximity to the fans and also with regard to the fans among themselves. Such contact points are missing, the reference points. This is noticeable and unfortunately it must be said that this is very, very difficult. (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

Until recently, LOK in Leipzig also struggled with the ownership of the Bruno-Plache-Stadion. After the first administration of VfB Leipzig in 1999, the stadium went into city ownership. After the club struggled for over a decade, in September 2015 the city council transferred ownership and the hereditary building rights to LOK, which had continued to maintain the ground. LOK could begin to rebuild the worn down stadium according to its own needs. The stadium, featuring a pre-war wooden stand, once had room for 22,500 fans (Inglis 1990: 96). With its oval stone terracing around a track it has an aura that is surely appealing to football romantics. How delicate the situation regarding ownership was in 2014 is indicated by Mieth, who called it a ‘difficult issue’ but refused to elaborate on it any further (Interview Mieth, 2014). Indeed, the general structural substance of the stadium is in such bad shape that larger parts of the stadium had to be closed and only 4500 visitors were allowed in. The first refurbishments made it possible to open the stands to 6800 guests in July 2016. In order to finance the renovation work, the club drew on its members’ willingness to work voluntarily on maintaining and modernising the facilities (lok-leipzig.com, 28 July 2016). Similar to

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MTFC, at LOK a Lokomotive has been placed outside the stadium onto which the names of deceased fans are mounted. Another complex set of issues arises when a club needs to rent its facilities. In Liverpool, AFCL’s aspirations involve delivering the best possible quality of football. Wayne MacDonald describes how the need to rent facilities affects the club’s development in this regard and its aspirations to be in close touch with its community: Previously […] we were accommodated by a club called Prescot Cables. That was in a local authority area referred to as St Helen’s. So it wasn’t in Liverpool. It was outside of Liverpool. There were a number of issues with that. One was we didn’t believe there was a connection with the Liverpool community because we were based in St. Helens. Plus, the stadium itself was quite dilapidated; the pitch was not of a very good quality. Our philosophy is to play football the best we can with the players we have. The pitch there wouldn’t allow us to do that. […] There are a number of positive things here [at Marine FC, where the club was playing at the time]. One, this is in Liverpool, two, Marine is a longstanding club, it’s been here for many, many years. And three, the pitch enables us to play football. So the time was right for us to make that move. Our aspiration is to build our fan base again, build our membership and hope we get to a point whereby we can seriously consider development of our own stadium. (Interview MacDonald, 2014)

As can be seen in these remarks, acquiring an own stadium is the longterm strategic goal at AFCL, emphasising once more the importance of club-owned assets as a criterion for successful club development. The idea of an own stadium was a constant theme and a key point when discussing the ultimate goal of creating a new home for a club’s members. For FCUM, the situation at Gigg Lane in Bury was quite similar to the one at AFCL. Located some twelve miles from the city centre, Bury is not part of Manchester in the narrower sense. Besides this geographical disparity, other problems emerged with regard to the sharing arrangement and several incidents soured the relationship and effectively forced FCUM to actively look for alternatives (Brown 2010: 171–172).8 The ambivalent

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feelings that the club’s fans have towards their old home—Old Trafford— and their hopes for a new ground, is manifest in a chant that is sung on the melody of Dirty Old Town by ‘The Pogues’: This is our club, belongs to you and me. We’re United, United FC. We may never go home, but we’ll never feel down, when we build our own ground, when we build our own ground.9

The actual process from planning to completion of this new ground and its financing has been described at length elsewhere (Porter 2019) and once more emphasises FCUM’s exceptionality among the PPFCs. However, since its completion, the club has suffered under the financial burden of the new ground and it remains to be seen for how long the commitment not to commercialise the property can be held up. Nevertheless, Broadhurst Park is remarkable in many ways and addresses FCUM’s fan identity as well as their initial concept of ‘punk football’ (see e.g. Colbourne 2013) and close relations to the DIY scene in various ways.10 For instance, the standing terrace is recycled from an old ground in Northwich and the motive of the ‘boardwalk’11 as it is addressed in the fan chant and in other aspects of FCUM’s fan culture is included in the architecture of the stadium. The German PPFCs find themselves in a comparable situation to AFCL. Like all newly founded clubs, HFC had to find a ground they could use. The people at the club, however, did not want to go the official route and were opposed to the idea of having a city-owned ground assigned to them. Instead, they went out and looked for possible collaborations on their own. The story of how they found their ‘home’ at SC Union 03’s Rudi-Barth-Sportplatz was featured on the website and gave an insight into the features that they were looking for: a grass field, sufficient capacities on the terraces, a certain ‘charm’, a club pub, public transport connection and central location. It must be noted to which extent the social and community-inducing assets were emphasised by the club. The architectural setting was described at length, drawing on tropes of ‘old-school’ football romanticism. Yet, after three seasons as a tenant at Union, in the 2019/2020 season the club moved to the Sportzentrum Steinwiesenweg, a municipal sport site where multiple teams play their matches. According to the club president, the rent at the old site was too high and did not leave funds for other investments. The club was not able

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to raise additional funds through catering since this was also run by the Union contractor during HFC matches. Additionally, the grass pitch was closed in the summer and the team had to play on a gravel pitch. Taken together, these conditions ran contrary to the club’s goal of promotion to the Oberliga (fifth level). The people in charge at HFC continue to be on the lookout for a ground ‘in a borough of Hamburg where it can play an active part. On the one hand, to offer the possibility to the youth to kick a ball in a focused manner and on the other hand to give something back to society and put forward social actions’ (HFC 2019, my translation). In a crowdfunding initiative they aim to raise e200,000 to get into a better negotiating position vis-à-vis the city’s authorities and thus be granted rights to an own stadium (NDR 2019). In the case of RSL, their growing youth branches as well as the club’s social work put them in a strong position in the competition of clubs who applied for new leasehold for a ground in Connewitz with extended facilities and a symbolic annual fee of one euro (Leipziger Volkszeitung, 8 December 2016). While the club was never far from Connewitz—in German slang, it’s ‘Kiez’), the move would put the club right in the heart of it. To reach this goal, the club launched a campaign, Kiezclub in den Kiez. The slogans ‘RSL in die Teichstraße’ and ‘Football is Coming Home’ were also used in the campaign geared towards acquiring public support for their application for the ground in the form of a petition. The list of 4502 signatures was handed over to the mayor of Leipzig in early 2017 and media reports suggested a sympathetic stance to the cause of RSL among a range of members of the city council. The initiative hosts a website featuring statements made by city council members from the Green, Social Democrat and the Left parties as well as representatives from a wide range of social work projects, clubs and venues and other football clubs (Kiezclub.com, accessed 10 October 2019). The application was also supported by sympathising fan groups of football clubs up to the first Bundesliga, most notably by Bayern Munich’s Ultra group Schickeria. The wide array of actors and supporters were definitely not a hindrance when the club was given the lease in the spring of 2017. The lease means long-term planning security however, as the ground needs significant development (Daniel 2018). All clubs investigated here had—or still have—problems with regard to their stadium—be it the sharing of grounds, ground ownership, or the relocation to a new stadium with the consecutive loss of place and the struggle to create this place anew. To have the club’s home in the heart of

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the community the club seeks to address is a crucial point on the agenda of most clubs investigated here. Furthermore, in many of the described cases, the club pub had or has a special meaning to both the clubs and the fans. They generate income and are a social meeting point for the fan community and dearly missed if lost. Usually, the pubs are leased to a pub landlord. In lower levels, the Vereinsheim—a club’s pub, usually on the premises of the stadium—is an integral part of football culture and a further point for the community to congregate, mix and socialise.12 At these lower levels, hospitality to the opposing team and a mingling of players and supporters in places such as a club’s pub is more natural— they are, after all, ‘guests’. In the upper levels such mixed fan crowds are not as common.

Admission Prices and Membership Fees The biggest advantage German first BL clubs have over their English PL counterparts is their comparably low admission prices. In Germany, pricing fans out is almost impossible or at least far less a problem since stadiums sill have low priced standing terraces (Merkel 2012; also Ziesche 2011: 134–135). This is also the case for lower league football in England where, in addition to the continued existence of standing terraces the demand for tickets is lower—and capacities are usually not used, see chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games”—so that clubs have necessarily set reasonable prices in order to attract a paying crowd. Even though they are theoretically allowed at this league level, neither CFFC nor MTFC accommodate standing terraces in their grounds. CFFCs Proact stadium was built in 2010, at a time when the club was still a championship side, and the architecture of the building reflects that fact. From a licensing standpoint this made it inevitable to build an allseater stadium. In the case of MTFC the situation is quite different since they still play in their more than 150-year-old stadium, Field Mill. The club has barred one end of the stadium, including a terrace. Plans to refit the ground and make this part of the stadium usable were already published in 2015, but there was no visible progress made with regard to this issue during the course of this study. While standing terraces would allow for less affluent people to attend matches, the price of around £20 for tickets purchased in advance in 2017 both at MTFC and CFFC is not significantly more expensive than the e20 that supporters have to pay in Essen for seated accommodation. LOK is cheaper, charging only e17 for

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a ticket in the same category. Tickets for the standing terraces are still considerably cheaper at LOK (e10) and less than half that price at RWE (e9).13 Prices for attending the PPFC games differ significantly between the English and German cases, with FCUM being the most expensive club, charging £9 for an adult ticket in the sixth league in 2017, a figure that went up to £12 for the 2019/2020 season at seventh league level. AFCL sticks to its ‘footy-for-a-fiver’ credo, that is, £5 tickets for a ninth and later tenth league match. At RSL, tickets are e3 in the seventh league. The club can thus be considered to offer the best football quality for the money. Admission at HFC was e2 for their first match in the ninth level. In sum, it can be stated that the PPFCs in England are cheaper in terms of membership—£12 annually, see chapter “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany”—but charge considerably more for admission than clubs on a comparable level in Germany. The domestic comparison is also consistent: both English PPFCs charge the same in membership fees while the German clubs are also on a comparable level at 60–75 euros.14 This is well within the average for membership in German football clubs. The exception here is RSL, with the club deciding to increase its minimum membership to e120 in 2016, which marks it not only the most expensive of all six clubs that take members under discussion here, but likely also makes it one of the most expensive clubs in Germany’s football landscape. That said, RSL’s understanding of club membership does not allow for a ‘passive’ membership—in the German sense, see chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”. The only membership available which does not include active participation in sport is called a ‘sustaining membership’ (Fördermitgliedschaft ) similar to the FMB membership at RWE, only without structural separation. This measure can be seen as an incentive for all members to actively participate in the club and thus avoid possible hierarchies between active and passive members. The higher membership fees in Germany mean that the German clubs generate around five times the income from their members’ fees than the English clubs—in the particular case of RSL even ten times more. While the intention behind the low fees in England can be attributed to regulations regarding the ‘no considerable interest’ clause of the CCBSA, membership fees are still a considerable income stream for English society clubs or football clubs owned by STs. That said, the low fees do not lead to higher membership numbers. In an attempt to increase income from memberships on the basis of a ‘pay what

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you can’ approach, AFCL introduced a ‘Gold, Silver and Bronze Monthly Membership Scheme’ comparable to the sustaining membership concept in Germany. The rate is £20—or more—for gold, £15 for silver and £10 for bronze. All memberships include the membership, a season ticket and some merchandise, while the gold and silver status also include a contribution to the AFC Community Fund which seeks to increase the outreach activities of the club.15 The three-step categorisation is an exact replica of the model practised at most PL-clubs for their ‘sham-memberships’. As clubs more or less struggle for the youth, it seems astute to examine reduced admission and membership rates as well. Reduced rates are available at all clubs. At CFFC, under 7s pay £2 and juveniles £5, while youth aged 17–21 and seniors over 65 pay £17. At MTFC, under 7s have free entrance, juveniles aged 7–17 pay £15, and seniors over 60 pay £16. According to Stevenson, the club was also one of the first to try an experiment of a specific kind: [About] five years ago we played a team called Gateshead in the Conference. And a couple of weeks before we said in the press—and it made national press—that anyone could come to this game and all they have to do is make a donation. So you could come and watch this game for a penny. And it was full. The stadium was packed. Not a spare seat. Which is interesting. And between you and me—we made quite a lot of money. Because some people would give in one penny. Other people would give in a fiver, tenner, fifteen, many people gave in a couple of quid, or whatever. So it shows that there is support out there, people are interested in going, maybe they don’t want to pay such high prices each week. Or what they consider to be high prices, we are one of the cheapest in the league. But still, twenty quid or 22 pounds is not cheap. (Interview Stevenson, 2014)

Perhaps as a long-term result of this experiment and in an attempt to increase affordability, MTFC launched a stand membership for £20 per season in May 2018 which allows for pre-match purchases of tickets for a particular stand at half the price. These limited ‘Quarry Lane memberships’ reduce adult ticket prices to £11, or roughly £12 if the membership fee is added. Tickets for juniors are at £6, young adults pay £8 and seniors £9, making this the cheapest match-day price for seated accommodation. However, their number is limited and the memberships sold out for both the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 season. A comparable measure could not be found at any of the other clubs investigated.

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At the German ETFCs, the pricing situation was as follows: At RWE, under 7s can attend for free, children aged 7–14 pay e6 as do those who qualify for reduced rates. At LOK, children and juveniles up to 16 years old are free if accompanied by a paying adult. The reduced ticket rate is e8. At the time of the research, under 18s were able to attend FCUM home matches for £2 and reduced tickets, for seniors over 60, students, and those receiving income support, were £5. These prices increased by £1 and £2 respectively with the 2019/2020 season. At AFCL, under 18s paid £2 and seniors were let in for £3. At both German PPFCs under 12s could attend for free. Further reduced ticket categories did not exist. In general, English ETFCs are more expensive than the German ETFCs, as are the English PPFCs. In the English case, reduced ticket rates are the most differentiated at FCUM, as students and people receiving transfer payments are included, thus underlining the club’s economically inclusive approach.

New and Old Identities How are the clubs’ new brand identities related to their older traditions and identities? How are these identities connected and communicated? At RWE, the focus is on a pro-active role to address the cultural heritage of the club with coal-mining symbols and rhetoric, a 1920slike, brushstroke-style, both on the website as on the sideboards in the stadium. The ‘Hafenstraße’ is the section the visitor needs to click to reach the ‘home’ area when entering the club’s website. All available categories refer to some part of or persons in the club history. These old anchor points can also be observed in the club’s fan culture. In a nostalgic reference to club history and the local identity of the Ruhr Valley region and its coal mining tradition, a famous fan chant of RWE goes: Steel and coal have formed this club To [Georg] Melches we will always be indebted We came into his inheritance; we will give all we have We are from the Hafenstraße. (my translation)

A project that focuses on youth players funded by one of RWEs offshoot clubs, FC Essener Jungs,16 uses a logo which combines the RWE club logo and the iconic Zollverein colliery tower, which is now

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a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Used in the logo, the image draws on both of RWE’s anchor points: cultural heritage as well as working-class authenticity. Lokomotive Leipzig has always had problems with right-wing ideology among its fans, as do a number of clubs from East Germany particularly (Kassimeris 2009). This has significantly affected the club’s image and still poses problems with regard to sponsorship acquisition (Fritz 2014; Lücker 2016). The new praesidium has addressed these issues directly, which has occupied valuable resources and delayed the realisation of many of the club’s ambitious goals, as Martin Mieth points out: This should have been long done but the problem is that you have an honorary office, and then there is the day-to-day business and then there are problems with the fans which again costs a lot of time and effort and so on, this is all difficult and we want to create a club that is open for all, for families, for normal fans, Ultras and so on. We want to do this on a peaceful basis because only then do we have a chance to survive. Does this approach appeal to those who like to misbehave now and then? Probably not. But this doesn’t matter because LOK needs a different image without betraying its values—values which are not written down anywhere but which are defined individually. (Interview Mieth, 2014)

In its guiding philosophy agreed upon by the members in 2015, the club tries to engage this issue and defines its values explicitly—perhaps at the risk of alienating some of its members. In this catalogue, beside a picture of fans on the club’s main stand, the club describes itself as charismatic, self-confident and indomitable, as well as down to earth and eager to keep its rough edges (LOK 2015: 4–5). This is, of course, a prime example of how to equivocate on a notorious reputation. Clearly, it is always a tightrope walk for clubs with a problematic fan scene to reinterpret these issues into markers of a club identity. On the next page of the brochure the club addresses what it calls ‘blue-yellow nest warmth’ and its commitment to its social responsibility: We stand for a familial setting and are a likeable, approachable club. We mediate values such as loyalty, respect, fairness and tolerance. We practice solidarity with people in need and are ready to help the underprivileged. We take an active and consequent stance against any form of discrimination. (LOK 2015: 8)

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Between the two sections, the dichotomy between communitisation and societisation efforts becomes clear. Wider social values are not necessarily adaptable to internal community values, especially since the interpretation of the latter and the establishment of a hierarchy between the two is still down to the individual recipient. Fan groups as relevant stakeholders can significantly influence club policies and agenda setting, exerting pressure based merely on their numbers, the contacts they have and the positions they occupy within club structures. For lower league clubs, targeting these groups, their behaviour or their stance is even more of a risk since alienating them will affect the club financially, especially if initially uninvolved fan or member groups choose to support the fan group—despite possible political disagreement. Clubs at much higher levels do not necessarily provide good examples, as the continuing problems of clubs such as Borussia Dortmund show (Ruf 2016), to name just one of many examples. Despite the aspirations of football associations to rid football of right-wing influence, these issues are most often ignored rather than being addressed whenever they appear. Against this backdrop, Lokomotive Leipzig made particular efforts to change their image. This change becomes most evident in the behaviour of the club after a group of 250 hooligans, some of whom were associated with the hooligan group Scenario Lok, went on a rampage on a street in Connewitz on 11 January 2016. LOK reacted in various ways: initially, they phrased the usual and expected dissociation with the action, condemned it and announced that they would ban the fans involved from attending matches. A much more interesting and unexpected reaction, however, was the club’s public announcement of a campaign on its Facebook site titled ‘Solidarity with Connewitz’ some days after the attack. There, LOK announced three auctions of signed fan memorabilia, the proceeds of which would be donated to shops in Connewitz that had been damaged during the attack. In this post, the club also asked its fans for donations to support the affected shop owners. In doing so the club initiated a discussion within the scene but in the online comment section, the reactions were clearly mixed. The club was able to donate roughly e300 from the auctions. For the PPFCs, handling of old and new identities is not a significant issue. Rather, these younger clubs are more focused on developing their appeal in their respective communities, that is, establishing their brand and their ‘alternative’ identity in ways envisaged in club agendas, manifestos, constitutions, statutes and the like. A political, ‘punk attitude’

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driven atmosphere is maintained by FCUM as well as AFCL. It is rarely addressed directly by the club but hidden in the club’s media output. For instance, the membership section of the website addressing junior membership is headed ‘If The Kids Are United’, a clear reference to the ‘Sham 69’ song which is ‘audiographic’ for the—hardcore—punk and Oi-scene (Büsser 2006). These little references thus do not only point to a political but also a subcultural, music and lifestyle driven collective identity. Membership numbers for AFCL have dwindled significantly since the founding of the club in 2008. While it initially had over 1000 members, in October 2014, the number had decreased to around 200 and average attendance had dropped to 140. In a 2011 article in the magazine When Saturday Comes, gate numbers were already below 150 (Whalley 2011). Given the striking similarity in the clubs founding to FCUM—i.e. priced out or otherwise unsatisfied fans of a big mother club form their own— the question has to be raised why things have worked out so much better for FCUM than for AFCL. One suggestion already made by Whalley in 2011 is related to the problem of old and new identities: the club appears to have considerable issues in establishing their identity and what they want to be. Indeed, AFCL appears to have ‘fallen between the stools’ (ibid.). Founding a club that offered football for £5 and was called Liverpool does not appear to be sufficient, especially when it is still considered the original club’s ‘little brother’ rather than a valid alternative. As Chris Stirrup pointed out in an interview, the strategy to not form a protest club and oppose Liverpool FC by addressing the ownership issue—as FCUM did—was at the time considered to be the better long-term strategy: We might have got more publicity by being a protest club, but that’s not what we’re about. Our aim has always been to offer an affordable alternative to Premier League football. If you set yourself up as a protest club opposing an owner, what happens when that owner goes? (Chris Stirrup cited in Whalley 2011)

Simply playing lower league football is most likely not enough if the intention is to promote the core ideas of lower league football itself. Why not follow a ‘real’ lower league football club which does not just try to skim off the less affluent fans of a PL global enterprise and is even backed by prominent members of that respective enterprise? While AFCL have made a point of not antagonising its ‘big brother’, the club can still be

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considered a protest club: in the language used, both on the website as well as in interviews, it clearly addresses the problems of the game in line with FCUM, HFC and other clubs which are considered part of the AMF movement. Cutting the cord seems to be necessary in order to create a distinctive club identity. During my interview MacDonald said he was committed to improving their club’s performance, spread the word in the community and rely on the ‘natural shift’ of sympathies from Liverpool FC to AFCL with the growing disaffection between the old club and its fans: And so once we get to start getting a profile established, we can start getting members up, get the attendances up, brings finances in and that will then put us in a stronger position, to seriously look up, putting together some kind of business proposal that would enable us to then look at a stadium of our own which is our long-term desire really to get to. But I suppose in the first, you know, it’s baby steps really. And I think from my perspective since I’ve been here, I just think there’s some work to do to get the profile up. So that people understand AFC Liverpool, realise that AFC Liverpool still exists and that, you know, it’s something to be a part of. (Interview MacDonald, 2014)

According to Welling, the challenge for the clubs on the top as well as in the lower leagues is to establish the right balance between commercial success and community orientation, and to not disregard the function that clubs have for collective identity formation: I believe the challenge is that clubs have to become aware of their own identity and their identity-establishing function and they have to pay attention not to lose sight of this function and eventually cease fulfilling it. I think that is important. Because once it is only business and success and if many things become exchangeable, this identity-establishing function is reduced. […] Red Bull Leipzig or Salzburg—this is just an imposed identity and once the success that was bought with all that money is gone, then in my opinion, the identity will be gone as well. This really is just a product; it is indeed an external brand. In the case of Rot-Weiss Essen […] this is different, […] there is relevance. There is relevance for lives and there is no sporting success here. And despite that, 8,000 people come here. We do not have sporting success and it is the fourth league and we are twelfth in the fourth league. And people do suffer here each game, but they come anyway and they talk about it and they want to preserve this. This is why I believe that if clubs forget what contributes to their

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identity, what contributes to their relevance, then they will perish. And I do not believe that this will happen in Dortmund, neither do I believe that it will happen at Schalke, but the question is indeed if some clubs are not overdoing things? And this question has to be raised with a particular emphasis. (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

As Welling further elaborates, this intention to preserve these clubs as hubs of identity and community is only possible if there is access to decision-making structures: Different example: Manchester City vs. United. Once the sheikh takes out his money and City falls back to the state it had been in before, those fans that are going there regularly now? Will they stay with the club or will they turn away because it has just been an entertaining programme? This is the question. This is where I say things are difficult. By sporting success which you buy with enough financial means, you can surely buy fans, as well and you might even have some identity-establishing moments, fine with me. The question is: how sustainable are these in comparison? And this is why it is about relevance and in my opinion clubs have to be careful not to stretch it. But to avoid this you need to be aware of this fact and you need to know what do we actually stand for? (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

As shown throughout this chapter, the images constructed by the clubs and transported via the multiple channels can serve as anchoring points for the construction of identity, for example, by referring to place, nostalgic elements or the heritage of former players and staff with a local background and long-established, close ties to the club. Stadiums and assets are an important repository for the construction and enactment of identity. Still, the chapter has also shown how clubs struggle to create these anchoring points in their newly built environments, often detached from their community while still striving to be present within said communities. In the next chapter, one possible way out of this dilemma will be discussed, namely the ways in which clubs engage with their urban communities in the form of social and community projects.

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Notes 1. Previously, two former club fanzines, Under the Boardwalk and A Fine Lung were involved in the publication of a pamphlet which voiced accusations against the board and proposed an agenda on how the situation could be solved (http://www.afinelung.com/wp-content/uploads/Pam phlet_web.pdf). 2. Pöhler is the Ruhr-dialect word for ‘football’. However, this is not known to people elsewhere in Germany, so it is indeed a strong localism. This is even more interesting—or ambiguous—when considering that Klopp himself is not from the Ruhr area but from Baden-Württemberg, despite his image as an authentic, working-class Ruhrgebiet values and virtues representing Dortmund natural. 3. The reference in chapter “Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy” to Bayern Munich and the concept of the club as family is a common strategy for making global brands more attainable to its members. Citing Bavarian folklore by dressing players in Lederhosen follows the same vein. Interestingly, the NFL in the USA applies the same strategy—their slogan is ‘football is family’. Given the franchise character of the clubs and the seemingly loose fan-binding, nothing seems more absurd from a European perspective. In what could be called a Europeanisation process of the American sport landscape, the adoption of ‘United’ in the names of several Major League Soccer (MLS) teams is clear reference to the European heritage of the sport and moving away from ‘American-sounding names’ (Mather 2017). 4. This is comparable to Rot-Weiss Essen, which also took the brandawareness findings of a survey as the starting point for a ‘fresh start’ in terms of a new corporate identity and strategy (Interview Welling, 2014). 5. At the time, Barrie Hubbard was one of two local businessmen who were part of the aforementioned four-people owner consortium. He left the board in 2012 and died in 2015. 6. This title is also claimed by Sheffield United’s, Bramall Lane. But one could also argue that Bramall Lane has been used for football only as of 1862 despite being opened in 1855. The opening date for Field Mill is not recorded but assumed to be prior to 1850. While the ‘Stags’ moved to Field Mill only in 1919, the ‘Blades’ have been playing at Bramall Lane consistently since 1889. See http://www.mansfieldtown.net/news/ article/field-mill-history-now-known-as-one-call-stadium-2067243.aspx. 7. This is Essen’s communal fan project. These are jointly funded by the football authorities and communal and federal authorities and usually kept structurally separate from the club in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

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8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. 16.

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For further details on the structure of fan-related structures and representations at German football clubs see Ziesche (2017); see also: www.kosfanprojekte.de. FCUM shared grounds with several clubs before, among others, Bury FCs Gigg Lane and Stalybridge Celtic’s Bower Fold. After FCUM started building ‘their own ground’, the verse was changed to: ‘We may never go up, but we’ll never feel down. Now we build our own ground, now we build our own ground.’ DIY can be understood differently, my conception of it lies in finding simple but practical solutions without having to involve—professional— third party actors. The concept is a modus operandi in all kinds of subcultural scenes. All PPFCs described here share to some extent a DIY approach. The term is a cornerstone of FCUM fan identity and stems from a fan chant based on the song Under the Boardwalk by The Drifters. Under the Boardwalk was also the name of a FCUM fanzine published from 2005– 2011. Also, The Boardwalk was on the shortlist for the stadium name of FCUM (Stadionwelt, 15 April 2014). Unfortunately, a thorough study of the different types of pubs and how the club–pub community is perceived differently in England and Germany—if at all—is beyond the scope of this work. The club–pub remains one of the most under-researched fields within football studies, both in England as in Germany. Admission prices are taken for an average home game in the cheapest seated section of the stadium in the 2016/2017 season from the ticket shops linked on the respective club homepages. Chesterfield played at level three while all other ETFCs played level four of their league pyramid. While I have not systematically scanned all clubs across the leagues, the samples drawn ranged from e60 at Bayern Munich and e62 at Borussia Dortmund, to e72 at Dynamo Dresden and e78 at Carl-Zeiss Jena. Including the most expensive clubs found, the monthly fee range varies from five to ten euros. This information was taken from the AFCL website in mid-2018. Unfortunately, the page has not been available at least since early 2020. In this case, FC stands for Funding Club, not Football Club.

References Brown, A. (2010). ‘Come Home’: The Stadium, Locality and Community at FC United of Manchester. In S. Frank & S. Streets (Eds.), Stadium Worlds. Football, Space and the Built Environment (pp. 163–178). Oxon: Routledge.

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Büsser, M. (2006). If the Kids Are United… Von Punk zu Hardcore und zurück. Mainz: Ventil. Coates, D (2007). Stadiums and Arenas: Economic Development or Economic Redistribution? Contemporary Economic Policy, 25(4), 565–577. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.2007.00073.x. Colbourne, D. (Dir.). (2013). Punk Football. Documentary. https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=HrR5e9NtV68. Conn, D. (2005, September 28). Prison Finally Catches Up with Chesterfield’s Crooked Spireite. The Guardian. Daniel, M. (2018, December 12). Roter Stern plant die Zukunft an der Teichstraße. Leipziger Volkszeitung. https://www.lvz.de/Leipzig/Lokales/RoterStern-plant-die-Zukunft-an-der-Teichstrasse. Dieckmann, C. (2013, Ocotber 17). Heimat aus der Dose. Zeit Online. https:// www.zeit.de/2013/43/fussball-rb-leipzig-red-bull-bundesliga. FC United of Manchester. (2016). Rules of FC United of Manchester. http:// www.fc-utd.co.uk/docs/2016_10_03_FCUM_IPS_Rules.pdf. Fritz, T. (2014, November 18). Die rechten Fans sind immer noch da. Zeit Online. http://www.zeit.de/sport/2014-11/lok-leipzig-fans-rechtsext remismus. Giulianotti, R. (1999). Football. A Sociology of the Global Game. Oxford: Polity Press. Hamburger Fußball-Club Falke. (2015). Satzung des Hamburger FußballClub Falke e.V . http://hfc-falke.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Sat zung-HFC-Falke-e.V.-Stand-12.06.2015.pdf. Hamburger Fußball-Club Falke. (2019). Falke DNA. Infos zum Verein. https:// hfc-falke.de/falke-dna/infos-zum-verein/. Inglis, S. (1990). The Football Grounds of Europe. London: Harper Collins Willow. Kassimeris, C. (2009). Deutschland über Alles: discrimination in German football. Soccer & Society, 10(6), 754–765. https://doi.org/10.1080/146609709 03239958. Lokomotive Leipzig. (2014). Satzung des 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig e.V . http://www.lok-leipzig.com/fileadmin/user_upload/dokumente/201410-21_Satzung.pdf. Lokomotive Leipzig. (2015). Leitbild. https://www.lok-leipzig.com/fileadmin/ user_upload/dokumente/Leitbild_Broschuere_2019_Digital.pdf. Lücker, M. (2016). 50 Jahre Lok Leipzig: Die Sache mit dem Ruf. Taz. http:// www.taz.de/!5269027/. Mather, V. (2017). In Quest to Sound European, M.L.S. Displays a United Front. The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2lG4EC1. Merkel, U. (2012). Football Fans and Clubs in Germany: Conflicts, crises and Compromises. Soccer & Society, 13(3), 359–376.

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NDR. (2019, August 4). Jeder Gibt Was: HFC Falke kämpft für eigenen Sportplatz. Norddeutscher Rundfunk. https://www.ndr.de/sport/fussball/Jedergibt-was-HFC-Falke-kaempft-fuer-eigenen-Sportplatz,falke192.html. Porter, C. (2019). Supporter Ownership in English Football: Class, Culture and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Rossmann, A. (2013, May 16). Hier stirbt ein Stück Ruhrgebiet. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. http://www.faz.net/-gtl-796d4. Roter Stern Leipzig. (2001a). Satzung. https://rotersternleipzig.de/verein/sat zung/. Roter Stern Leipzig. (2001b). Selbstverständnis und RSL Thesen. https://roters ternleipzig.de/verein/selbstverstaendnis-und-rsl-thesen/. Rot-Weiss Essen. (2012). Satzung Rot-Weiss Essen e.V . http://www.rot-weissessen.de/alte-west/bekenner/vereinssatzung/. Rot-Weiss Essen. (2014). Essen. Meine Stadt = Rot-Weiss. Campaign clip. Western Star. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lae7-dLtYM. Ruf, C. (2016, November 17). Das hartnäckige Nazi-Problem auf der BVBSüdtribüne. Süddeutsche Zeitung. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/rec htsextremismus-im-fussball-das-hartnaeckige-nazi-problem-auf-der-bvb-suedtr ibuene-1.3252635. Siegfried, J. J., & Zimbalist, A. (2000). The Economics of Sports Facilities and Their Communities. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), 95–114. Siegfried, J. J., & Zimbalist, A. (2006). The Economic Impact of Sports Facilities, Teams and Mega-Events. The Australian Economic Review, 39(4), 420–427. Taylor, D. (2016a, March 31). FC United of Manchester: How the Togetherness Turned into Disharmony. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/foo tball/2016/mar/31/fc-united-manchester-broadhurst-park. Taylor, D. (2016b, April 28). Entire FC United of Manchester Board Offers to Resign After Calling EGM. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ football/2016/apr/28/fc-united-of-manchester-board-offers-to-resign-egm. Wahl, P. (2014, July 14). Das Georg-Melches-Stadion und der ‘Mythos Hafenstraße’. Waz. https://www.waz.de/staedte/essen/das-georg-melchesstadion-und-der-mythos-hafenstrasse-id9643423.html. Whalley, M. (2011, January). Reality Bites. When Saturday Comes, #287. http:// www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/101-Non-League/8188-reality-bites. Winter, H. (2000, August 17). Fans Charter Forces Clubs to Play Fair. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/ premier-league/4767344/Fans-charter-forces-clubs-to-play-fair.html. Ziesche, D. (2011). Reclaiming the Game? Soziale Differenzierung, Exklusion und transformative Prozesse in der Fußballkultur Englands. Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin.

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Ziesche, D. (2017). Well Governed? Stakeholder Representation in German Professional Football Clubs. In B. García & J. Zheng (Eds.), Football and Supporter Activism in Europe: Whose Game Is It? (pp. 89–120). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions

The strategies of football clubs in the social sphere are aimed at a specific target group: those who are part of the urban community and not—yet— attached to the club, that is, part of the club community in any way. This is the peer group in which the measures taken in regard to confronting the social crisis of the institution should arguably have the greatest effect. In the logic of acquiring new members, potential talent, volunteer resources and sympathies in the long run, the main peer group are children and youth. The struggle for binding this group to the club is as evident on the talent market—as discussed previously—as it is with regard to reaching out in order to create emotional capital among possible supporter groups in the future. Especially in areas with a high density of clubs, the task to make a club visible, even if it is not part of top tier football is quite difficult. As demonstrated earlier, competitive youth teams level the perceived imbalance. School projects and a visual presence in everyday life also helps to establish a club as a ‘serious’ player and bind local loyalties at an early stage, as Welling exemplifies: [We know] from studies that fans become fans between 6 and 14 years of age either because of familial predilections, or because of their regional predilections, or because there is a club which is successful. And now the case is as follows: Those with familial predilections, they will always come to us. Those with a regional predilection, these are the ones we are fighting for. Those with different predilections, family-wise or regionally—we will © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_9

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not get those anyway. And those who follow the regional and successful path, well, in this regard the situation is of course that [Borussia] Dortmund and the colleagues in blue-white [Schalke 04] have a significant advantage in the way that they can ‘mop up’ target groups. (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

Thus, the community programmes that clubs run are effectively the only area where lower league clubs can successfully challenge the dominance of the big clubs.

Structures of CPs at Football Clubs In England, community programmes are set up as charities by football clubs since these alone can apply for NLT or FLT funds. This is to ensure that these funds are not used for purposes other than community work. The fields these programmes are active in are manifold. As is the case with all clubs at the EFL level, CFFC and MTFC have community programming schemes as well. At CFFC, the stadium serves as the basis for the community trust. The HUB, as it is called, is the central premises for all of the club community trust’s on-site projects and is based in the community stand of the Proact stadium since 2011. It includes a kindergarten—Chester’s Den Playcentre—a fitness club—Spireites Sport & Health Club—a café, different class and conference rooms for hire, as well as a martial arts hall—used by Mind, Body & Spirit Martial Arts—and a multi-purpose hall. It further houses the hydrotherapy pool which, according to Turner, is the only one within a hundred miles of Chesterfield (Interview Turner, 2014). Chesterfield’s structures are co-funded by the EFL, as are all the community schemes of the seventy-two clubs in the three EFL leagues. At MTFC, Mark Stevenson explains the setup as well as the field of activity in which the community scheme is involved, which is primarily school collaborations and entirely focused on the delivery of footballrelated activities. He also mentions the crucial status the funding of the schemes by the football authorities has for the existence and financing of such schemes at a lower league club: There is [sic] about eight staff, […] 30,000 kids get visited each year, and they’re all at schools within Mansfield, Ashfield and Balsover, so they’re

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probably going to about two schools a day. And they’ll take like the inflatable five-a-side-pitch out, you know, so that the kids can go on that. They got like a speed tunnel were [sic] the kids could get the chance to test out how fast their shot goes. And little things like that. How much money is spent on it? I am not entirely sure. I know that they don’t make a profit—if they do it, it’s very small. But of course most of these are funded by the Football League, the Football League Trust. They fund a lot of these community programmes. And that money is vital at this level to keep schemes such as ours going. (Interview Stevenson, 2014)

A further partner, especially in regard to school programmes and academies is SCL, a provider of education through sport, mainly active in football, rugby and cricket. Founded and working initially in London in 1999, it today operates all across England and primarily assists lower league clubs in the conceptualisation and realisation of their football academies. The organisation also offers apprentice- and traineeships. With regard to their football activities, the organisation has partners in fiftythree football club academies, among public authorities as well as third party providers. SCL is also a partner in FCUM’s youth academy scheme. In Germany, the ETFCs also established their community projects via public private partnerships and networks. In this regard RWE is particularly active and has, as have the English ETFCs, founded multiple Vereine and charities in pursuit of the club’s wide-reaching social goals. Welling explains the motivation behind the extensive CES programme and how it is part of establishing the club in the urban community: We experienced a lot of solidarity during the insolvency period; we received this positive feedback and it allowed us to put the club back on its feet. At the same time, we also followed the strategy to proactively approach the task of anchoring of the club in the city, this societal anchoring of the club and its protagonists in the city. We did this by moving beyond the mere business of football and doing what was necessary and in this envisaged networking we realised many activities. (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

A crucial part of RWE’s community outreach programme is Essener Chancen. The registered society was founded together with partners from multiple fields:

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Rot-Weiss Essen is a cultural asset since 1907 and a sporting brand of the city of Essen. The club does not just stand for its football tradition but is also a ‘social glue’ across all boundaries of age, education and culture. The club activates a multitude of fans, spectators and citizens in the region. RWE intends to make use of this potential in the interest of its social engagement and has therefore founded jointly with selected partners and personalities from the city the club Essener Chancen e.V. in March 2012. (Website RWE, my translation)

The club’s members are of different backgrounds, but they all have strong connections not only to RWE and football in general but also to the cultural, political and economic sectors. The leading actor and main element in this array remains RWE and the ‘charisma’ of football. That said, the club is a tool for realising RWE’s social goals: Primarily, Essener Chancen helps in utilizing the charisma of football. RotWeiss Essen is the city’s biggest club and can reach and motivate young people. Thus, we as Essener Chancen fulfil the social task which is met by RWE as the city’s biggest club. Football connects people of different social classes and contributes to integration within urban society. (Website RWE, my translation)

In 2017, Essener Chancen hosted eleven projects for children and young adults encompassing projects for kindergarten-age children to projects which assist in job orientation. The partners are diverse public and private entities, reaching from the communal building society, the employment agency, youth welfare services, the local university and schools, to private foundations, local companies and financial institutions (Essener Chancen 2016). The club also provides support for the projects of its partners and thus cooperates with social projects and foundations in its urban environment. In short, Essener Chancen is the—outsourced— roof under which all CP activities of RWE are realised and is shown prominently on the splash screen of the club’s website, thus emphasising the importance of the CP for the club. At AFCL, as openly stated by MacDonald in his interview, the club is not yet ready to establish a community programme on a larger scale than the individual efforts by the people involved: Well, [we do not have a CP] as a club. But there are members of the club who through their own activities engage with the community. So we

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got our coach Paul Mall who undertakes projects within the community to provide football to underprivileged kids, but that’s his own activities, that’s not through AFC Liverpool. But he obviously takes the opportunity to promote AFC Liverpool while he’s doing them. (Interview MacDonald, 2014)

One of the most extensive CPs I came across in this study is located at FCUM. The club is active in a wide variety of projects with different approaches and peer groups. The club’s community programme has seasonal contracts with a sponsor. The CP collaborates with local schools and welfare institutions, other educational institutions and third party sport providers such as boxing clubs and fitness studios. However, some of the projects from 2015 have since ended or are no longer receiving funding, especially in the educational field and wider social work activities. At HFC, as in the case of AFCL, no CP structures exist. Like their non-existent youth branches or associated activities this has to be seen as a result of the club being new. Likewise, at RSL, no CP structures such as those of CFFC, MTFC, RWE or FCUM exist. This, however, does not mean that the PPFCs and the one ETFC (LOK) are not active within their community. The specific areas the clubs are active in will be addressed in the following section.

Areas of CPs and Agenda-Setting at Clubs As the previous section has shown, only four of the studied clubs have CP structures. Accordingly, the following section will largely focus on these clubs without completely ignoring the activities of the remaining four clubs. Education, Social Work and Lifelong Learning CFFC and MTFC are both active in schools, providing football-related activities for children. Thus, they do what Taylor pointed out as ‘playing safe’—see chapter “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”—in terms of not moving beyond their ‘comfort zone’ when it comes to community work. It could also be argued that both clubs are simply doing no more than they are required to do. The involvement of players in social activities such as visiting hospitals or schools as well as the typical match-day programme of flag bearers and half-time activities is also part of the CP and is a prime

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example of classic CSR-strategies targeted at younger peer groups in order to attract them to the club, build a stronger audience and eventually increase gate revenues. Stevenson states the core of the wider strategic agenda of the club’s community department quite plainly: Our Football in the Community Department which is so vital to us, tries to mark our ground locally by going to all these local schools, promoting the brand. They have got, I think some functions on for kids like after school clubs, courses in the week where […] in the half term, in the school holidays, when the supporters come down to the ground, they have tours to the ground, they are training on the top pitch, games of all sorts, that type of thing. And then it’s from there where we try to lead them back into the match on Saturday. So it’s all about trying to get people back in and involved and connected with the club. And then, hopefully, they’ll see a good game and like it […]. And then come back. (Interview Stevenson, 2014)

In terms of the educational agenda, especially at MTFCs FITC scheme, the scope of their CP activities is almost entirely focused on schoolchildren and PE or HEPA-related activities and activities around match days or at schools; workshops on healthy eating are the exception to that rule. The scheme offers coaching courses for Futsal and other sport-related activities as well as summer courses for schoolchildren. At CFFC, the situation is a little different. While the ‘outbound’ activities indeed encompass the same fields as those at MTFC and focus on football-related activities altogether, the club is eager to present the facilities at its new stadium and open them up for social activities. Presumably, this is a strategy to make the new stadium part of the urban and club community. Moreover, the hydrotherapy pool in the stadium is also made available to therapy projects for disabled people. At RWE, the club has focused decidedly on social work in light of the stark social differences between the northern and southern parts of Essen. The city is divided literally and metaphorically by the A40, a motorway running through much of the Ruhr Valley. A number of sociocultural and sociopolitical projects work at bridging this social gap in the urban community (Weiguny 2013; also: Rösseler 2016). My interview partner at RWE also addressed the issue of this divide when describing the motivation behind the club’s community programming:

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We want to live up to our social responsibility—which we as a football club have—and we also want to throw the whole weight of the real meaning of this club behind it. So we said: This club should care about children and youth, especially about those from weak social structures where matters of education and vocational training are concerned. This is related to the fact that only 20% of the children starting school in north Essen complete their A-levels, whereas in south Essen this number is 80%. There are huge structural and socio-demographic differences and this is exactly where we want to become active: We want to give an educational impetus while using the inclusive power of football and the club. (Interview Welling, 2014, my translation)

This is exemplary for the different impact factors which influence the kinds of CP activities clubs may undertake. Naturally, regional and local socio-demographic challenges are the focus of these projects. As in the case of RWE, the aim of empowering vulnerable, socially disadvantaged communities especially in cities clearly is a sociopolitical agenda. As mentioned before, the variety of areas in which RWE is active is manifold. However, the club puts strong emphasis on its projects in education and lifelong learning and uses its youth training facilities in the Seumanstraße as well as the new stadium in the Hafenstraße to carry out the projects of Essener Chancen. The after school-care projects offer football but also help students with their homework and in completing job applications. The integration aspect is clearly prioritised. RWE additionally fields a third team, which can train under professional conditions—like the first and second squads. This Team III is made up of players from the milieu of Essen’s social service providers, that is, players with socially weaker backgrounds. In terms of education and social work, FCUM’s field of activity is broad but has recently experienced some cutbacks. Generally, the club offers projects in the fields of youth work, which involves raising youth awareness for volunteering, media and community project work as well as organising international exchanges. Projects in this field are also often either directly related to or involve football. That said, the Football, Young People and Democracy Project, for instance, was an international exchange project in 2013 in partnership with the German club SV Babelsberg 03 and focused on political education and understanding democratic structures, which clearly shows the political agenda of the club. Besides the ‘usual’ schoolwork, which involves FCUM players and is focused on PE and healthy eating, the club has projects for vulnerable

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people, for example, a project in collaboration with the local CARITAS caring for older people living alone. The adult education programme was cancelled due to the cessation of funding by Manchester College. Back in 2015, this programme ran five parallel projects. The same is true for CARITAS-project, which was active in four projects. Nevertheless, while actual traces of projects which clearly pursue primarily a societisation agenda over a communitisation agenda could only be identified in two of the studied clubs; it is noteworthy that the clubs doing so are a society club and a Verein, respectively. Community Activities at Clubs Without CP Structures As mentioned earlier, the absence of CP structures does not necessarily mean that the respective clubs are not active in the community. While the example of AFCL has shown that members can take matters into their own hands and promote the causes of the club to the broader public, the clubs still engage in activities which at least in part reach beyond the scope of football. Encouraging individual efforts and supporting external projects is a strategy also pursued at LOK (Interview Mieth, 2014, my translation). Of course, the range of a club’s efforts is largely dependent on its resources, both in financial as well as—in the case of voluntary staff— time-related terms, as both Martin Mieth at LOK and Wayne MacDonald at AFCL point out: As it stands the club does not embark on any outreach work with [the] community. And I think part of the limitations on that is simply because of resources—we don’t have the staff. We don’t have paid staff. So this running a team is difficult, running a club is really difficult. So to then start looking at some kind of community engagement or community outreach activities you need resources to do it, quite frankly. And we haven’t got that. (Interview MacDonald, 2014)

Accordingly, the community activity at both clubs is quite low. At AFCL, this might be due to the very low league in which the club is playing, while HFC is equally under-represented in the community, which is clearly due to lack of resources and attempts to establish the club on a firmer basis before starting any social ventures. Thus, even for more community-oriented clubs, the sporting business is prioritised over the

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social impact, the club community being seen as higher on the agenda than the urban community. And yet, regardless of the creation of CP structures remaining a future vision, at LOK, education is also a focal point. Here, again, the top apparently sets the standard which is then mimicked league after league below: We wanted to establish a learning centre, such as those which every Bundesliga club maintains today. The one in [Dynamo] Dresden is called Denkanstoß [transl. cause for thought]1 for example, but this is a question of finances. This can be funded by the Bosch Foundation, we have to look into that, but it consumes a lot of manpower to conceptualise such things, to provide a decent performance and to work out a solid concept. Day-to-day business is challenging enough, and we find little time to work conceptually and strategically. So we try to do this, we initiate different projects, but our day-to-day business is currently very time-consuming. (Interview Mieth, 2014, my translation)

Thus, both in England and Germany the external funding of these projects by trusts and foundations is crucial to their initiation in the first place. Clubs also place different emphasis on fields they want to cover in terms of their social efforts. Education is clearly high ranking, as well as collaboration with local schools. CSR measures, which are low-threshold are, of course, popular. In Germany, inviting refugees to matches as well as involving schoolchildren or refugee children in the pre-match rituals is a popular measure taken by clubs across the country and in all leagues. The activities of RSL are harder to pinpoint. The club is itself a presence within the community, not just on match days but in everyday life. The club has its ‘branch office’, the Fischladen (transl. fish shop), right in the centre of Connewitz. It is used for events of various kinds, such as concerts and readings. During the attacks on the borough in 2012, this locality was attacked as well. The club is also used as a political forum and calls for fans to partake in demonstrations are a regular occurrence during RSL matches. On the Inclusion of Women’s Teams It is notable how much emphasis English funding authorities put on the creation of women’s football teams. While the women’s game is booming and the fastest growing sport in the country, facilities explicitly for girls

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and women to participate in football clubs are rare. In 2015, a partnership was agreed upon between CFFC and the LFC Chesterfield Ladies FC, which was founded in 1991, separate from the CFFC. In the partnership, the LFC has now been more closely connected to the CFFC. The vicechairman of Chesterfield Ladies, Keith Jackson, was optimistic: Chesterfield FC now has a women’s team as well as a men’s team and younger age groups as well. Chesterfield Ladies get to be part of Chesterfield Football Club. They get to wear the kit, have the club branding and receive social media support, which is tremendous. The players are also able to use the gym in The HUB at the stadium. (Website Chesterfield FC, 11 July 2015)

The partnership was renewed in October 2016 to run for a further five years. The ‘being part’ of CFFC obviously does not include a link to the team or the players or even the fixtures on the website of CFFC. Instead, the LFC can only be reached via the community trust website. It is also made clear that funding by the community trust—and thus, the partnership—is made possible by a grant from the women’s football development programme (cf. ibid.). MTFC also has a women’s team whose fixtures and results are made available over the club’s main website. Still, here as well, women’s football is organised in an independent LFC with its own website. The first team was launched under the umbrella of MTFC in 2013 and is headed by Carolyn Radford, who is CEO at MTFC (The Chad, 16 August 2013) and married to John Radford, the owner of the club. As with CFFC and MTFC, the FCUM women’s team is also part of the club’s CP activities. In Germany, many clubs endorse women’s teams as a branch within the club, although those branches were usually formed much later than the club itself—also because from 1955 to 1970 the DFB forbade women’s football for its member clubs. Women’s teams have only begun to be formed since the late 1960s. In the GDR, the first women’s team was formed in 1968. Still, as no state endorsement of the sport existed, they played mostly regional level competitions and one championship in 1979. That said, many of professional clubs today do not field a women’s team or have a women’s football branch. As mentioned earlier, LOK separated its women’s teams. In September 2014, RWE formed a women’s football branch, adopting the two teams from local rival Schwarz-Weiss Essen, which had just disbanded its women’s branch. In March 2019, the club

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did not register its first ladies’ squad due to issues finding enough players. The women’s teams do not have an individual section on the website of the club, unlike all the male teams of the club. At RSL, a women’s team has existed since 2002, three years after the club’s foundation. As of early 2020, no women’s team has yet been established at HFC Falke.

Note 1. Denkanstoß is an idiomatic term including the word Anstoß which, in a football context, means kick-off. The literal translation would be ‘kick-off for thinking’.

References Essener Chancen. (2016). Rot-Weisser Einsatz für Bildung, Teilhabe und Integration, leaflet. http://www.essener-chancen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/2016/ EC_Flyer_2016.pdf. Rösseler, M. (Dir.). (2016). A40 – Eine Autobahn trennt arm und reich. Documentary. WDR. http://www1.wdr.de/fernsehen/die-story/sendungen/a-vie rzig-essen-100.html. Weiguny, B. (2013, January 14). Essen. Die gespaltene Stadt. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. http://www.faz.net/-gqg-75j8s.

One Size Does Not Fit All: Comparison and Results

Having examined and described the case studies, it is time to draw more general conclusions. In the following I will compare the results in multiple dimensions: domestically, cross-structurally, cross-nationally and ‘crossculturally’ in terms of the orientation of the clubs between market and community, that is, the community or entrepreneurial character the structural setup prefigures. Thus, the following part focuses primarily on the ways in which the structural prefigurations manifest themselves in terms of ‘paths chosen’ at clubs in order to meet the challenges posted by the three crises described in chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games” to “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”.

Differences in Adaptive Capabilities as a Result of Differences in Structure Whereas the German Verein is deeply interwoven with civil society and thus the default structure for the competition in the football system, the English system requires clubs to be set up as companies if they want to compete in the professional levels of the football league. The data on membership numbers in the ETFCs in Germany suggest that both are—in their own specific way—on the right path and fare rather well as both have managed to increase these figures quite significantly. As mentioned in chapter “Qualitative Case Studies from England © The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_10

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and Germany”, attendance numbers are too volatile and dependent on the sportive performance of the team in a given season—and the league level—as to allow for general conclusions regarding the overall effectiveness of measures taken at clubs to improve this income stream. Still, MTFC managed to increase its numbers by a margin that seems sustainable. The ETFCs in England pursue a market-oriented agenda largely employing CSR measures in order to strengthen their standing in the community. Their financing model is strongly dependent on their owners and relies heavily on their continued investment. Both clubs showed the same structures in almost every regard which is, in part, due to league regulations, thus an example of the coercive incentive for isomorphism in DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) sense. Partly, these structures also follow a normative and mimetic incentive with regard to developments such as youth academies. In Germany, the situation is more diverse, due to different structures in the two ETFCs investigated. The German Verein+X structured LOK clearly followed a rationalisation and professionalisation agenda after the new praesidium took over in 2013. This also meant a decoupling of parts that hitherto belonged to the immediate club community, namely the women’s teams and the first squad, the latter which was separated into a capital company. The rebranding strategy, the new corporate identity and the active anti right-wing agenda the club pursues can either be read within this logic of competitive adaptation or as a form of normative isomorphism and mimicry. The club is the only German club featured in the study that owns its stadium, which will potentially give it a chance to further develop the ground and sustain its sense of place. Also, the club’s guiding philosophy suggests a stronger community orientation, though, at the moment, this is more focused on the club community. While a wider agenda for the urban community is planned, the current priority is on developing the sporting performance of the first team. On the other hand the other German ETFC, RWE, is a classical Verein. Since escaping administration, the club has employed a wide range of strategies to achieve more stability: first of all, the club created professional structures in the form of full-time positions on the operational level and established a youth academy which meets the standards of accreditation by the DFB. The club then launched a new image campaign and created a far-reaching network with social and cultural as well as private institutions to realise its social agenda. As the new stadium offers few

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anchor points for particular identity formation, the club seeks to play out its card as a socially active underdog, as a ‘rough-around-the-edges’ but likeable club where grassroots matter and solid and honest football is delivered—fully in line with what is perceived to be essential to the ‘Ruhrpott ’ mentality. With regard to network establishment and adaptation to an increased number of actors, RWE has a far better standing than LOK in its communal setting and was able to acquire a wide and effective network of cooperation partners. However, one of the main advantages RWE can play out is that they are unrivalled in their position as the largest civil society institution in the city—a position that LOK has yet to achieve. Nevertheless, both clubs have been able to increase membership numbers constantly since 2014. While CFFC and MTFC hold the same status as RWE within their cities being the only larger football clubs, their audience is considerably smaller since the towns are much smaller and, additionally, better performing and more popular teams can be found in close proximity. What is especially noteworthy and much in contrast to both German ETFCs in this regard is that little to no efforts are made to create a club brand or a specific club identity in order to position the club in contrast to others in the area and create a specific club identity. While MTFC can count on the effect of its old stadium and the place that is created there in terms of community connection, the new CFFC stadium does not offer such possibilities. This is why the club has based parts of its community department in the stadium, among others, a hydrotherapy pool. It is quite exemplary for the role such clubs play as social welfare institutions when the only therapy tool for use in work with disabled people in the city is in the stadium of a fourth league football club. It is especially noteworthy that the most extensive community programmes exist at FCUM and RWE. While FCUM has had to suffer some cutbacks in recent years, the number of projects is still impressive. One reason for the activity at FCUM and REW could be the high legitimisation pressure that rests on these clubs as they have received far-reaching support both from the local authorities—in the form of stadiums—as well as, in the case of RWE, the urban community in terms of solidarity during the time of administration in 2010. It seems that both clubs indeed tend to ‘give back’. With regard to their community programmes it is further obvious that German ETFCs at lower league level are able to follow their own agenda whereas the English ETFCs follow the blueprint given by the EFL trust and adopt measures by

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following a path of mimetic isomorphism. The relatively meagre output of these programmes casts doubt on whether the approach pursued is in fact beneficial to the community. While matters might be handled differently at other clubs, Taylor’s (2004) and Giulianotti’s (1999) scepticism holds true with regard to the ETFCs investigated here. It then seems that the Verein and the Verein+X ETFCs in Germany are much more flexible in terms of finding adaptive measures and pursuing new strategies than the English company clubs. This is perhaps surprising when thinking of the ‘laggard’ member association and its comparatively long decision-making processes with a dynamic, top-down organisation with short paths of communication and clear hierarchies (Mack 1991; Zimmer 1996; Anheier 2014). Of course, the research presented here does not allow for a definite conclusion on the operational level, but in terms of networking activities and agenda setting, the German ETFCs appear much more dynamic and adaptable compared to their English counterparts. This is striking as both German interviewees complained about long decision-making processes and the slow pace with regard to the daily operational business. The company model seems better suited to deal with complex issues since the steering of a club remains in the hands of a comparably small number of individuals. At the same time, the Vereine are forced to be more ‘inventive’ in terms of the acquisition of third-party support and volunteer resources. Not all of the strategic decisions taken then allow for a direct translation into processes of mimicry or isomorphism as there is also evidence of genuine innovation at clubs in both national contexts, such as RWE with its Team III and extensive programmes to include the socially underprivileged and facilitate access to education and qualification in northern Essen. And while those programmes in general follow the examples of bigger, financially more potent clubs, RWE goes far beyond what can be seen at clubs at the top level. Via these measures, RWE has established itself as a societal factor in the city. Structurally, the club has with its many programmes, charities and feeder clubs become the very epitome of a hybrid club. The political stance of RSL has become common, and many clubs have a similarly radical attitude and pursue comparable longterm goals. That the club was able to create the largest football branch in the city with competitors like BSG Chemie, LOK and RB Leipzig is impressive proof of the attractiveness of the club’s concept. The strategy of club branding seems to be far more popular with German clubs, especially with the ETFCs. This branding creates new

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identity anchors to fill the gap created by the vanishing of older anchoring points as a result of regional, economic or political transformation, as has been the case both in the Ruhr Valley and the greater Leipzig region. While the two German ETFCs presented in the case studies can only in part be seen as representative of ETFCs in Germany, the direct link to strategies carried out at clubs from the upper leagues suggests that the findings here can be regarded as symptomatic for the German system as a whole. Branding is indeed thought of as a means to address and connect with the local community and to communicate local identity to a nonlocal audience. It is interesting that this strategy cannot be found at the English ETFCs. This suggests that it is linked to the structural setup, namely the bottom-up character of the clubs in Germany. It appears that a group identity is hard to maintain and communicate from above and might be considered inauthentic. The community-based clubs can agree in an AGM on a shared—however arbitrary or superficial—version of local identity and communicate this consensus outwards. That said, a comparison with the alternative model clubs in England where the democratic bottom-up structure is less successful in a general competitive dimension does not verify this conclusion. It appears that the degree to which this is an advantage or disadvantage depends on the field of competitors. The German Vereine in the lower leagues are currently still competing in their majority against other Vereine. As the evidence fielded suggests, this environment is changing rapidly and if more and more clubs follow the separated model in the future, the comparably slow-paced structure might lead to a competitive disadvantage and in turn lead to a general adaptation of the more entrepreneurial, for-profit focused model in line with Schlesinger’s (1998) findings, that non-profits will behave more like for-profits if those enter the field and thereby alter the norm of competition. It must also be said that it remains doubtful how deeply ingrained the democratic element in these clubs is. The demand for democratic participation is definitely not as high as football idealists would like it to be. The number of SOFCs in England has remained constant since 2017, whereas in Germany, large proportions of the membership have voted in favour of separations in recent years—with an average of 90% in favour in the past fourteen cases where AGMs had to decide about separation—my data collection. In all likelihood, the trend for separating capital companies from the Vereine will continue in Germany and the Verein+X structure will become even more dominant in the upper four

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levels than it already is. While these separations do not mean an end to democracy at the respective clubs, they limit the influence the Verein and thus the members have in decision making—and in some cases might end member ownership altogether in the foreseeable future. The decision in favour of separation can be read as a collective will to direct responsibility into more professional structures and reduce membership to a more passive, supervisory function. This is also supported by the fact that while several SOFCs have returned to ordinary company club structures or changed from majority to minority ownership of the supporter’s trust, none of the German Verein+X configurations have changed back to the simple Verein model. Furthermore, this indicates that the idealistic, or ‘traditional’, parts of the supporter community are, in fact, a minority, or at least among the members who turn up in AGMs they are. And supporters are not automatically members of a club. It remains to be seen how eventual fault lines between member and supporter interests develop. While German football enjoys a wider autonomy and is effectively less regulated by political intervention, the character of its business model is still based on social-market economy principles, despite the profitmaximisation shifts made in recent years. This has both historic as well as institutionalist reasons. In England, it seems instead, a social readjustment of liberal–economic principles which have ruled top football has been taking place in recent years. Still, central government has not yet found a way to rein in the clubs at the top where issues of fan participation are concerned. Instead, the effects and changes took place in the lower spheres. In both systems, ETFCs adjust their business models to fit the demands made from both within as without the clubs, with fundamental, cultural resistance coming in the form of PPFCs. That said, the variations from club to clubs are enormous and, in the end, ETFCs and PPFCs are merely ideal categories. The clubs need still to be considered case by case, even if general tendencies can be defined. For example, market orientation in structure will facilitate other structures that further the goal of financial stability whereas a community orientation in structure will lead to community-oriented programmes at the club. Nonetheless, all these steps require additional resources and the basic function of football clubs—to provide football—needs to be fulfilled first. The weighing of priorities is directly related to the general club strategy and the available resources. The community work of RWE compares to that conducted at FCUM as both clubs consider this essential to their self-understanding, whereas the projects at AFCL are barely more than the community work of LOK,

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the former because it lacks the resources and must focus on providing affordable football, and the latter because its strategic orientation does not prioritise an extensive community programme.

Stadiums and Club’s Assets The analysis has shed light on a significant difference with regard to the status of stadium ownership among lower league clubs in England and Germany. Whereas among the English cases, three out of four clubs own ‘their ground’—both ETFCs and one PPFC—three out of four German cases—both PPFCs and one ETFC—find themselves as tenants while ‘their stadiums’ belong either to the municipality or third party owners. This situation strongly reflects the findings from chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games” and confronts the clubs with severe issues on various levels. The strategies of all clubs included in the study are directed to shaping their ‘homes’ as best as they can and to have them positioned as close to their communities as possible. This is first to be seen in physical terms, clubs’ grounds ideally being in the middle of the community. This poses a larger problem for the financially weaker PPFCs which are comparably young actors without any own assets and are thus dependent on what is offered to them in terms of grounds available for leasehold. The desired case is, of course, that the club find something within the perimeters of the city, which is not always possible, as the cases of AFCL and FCUM show. At HFC the club executives are searching intensely for a suitable ground and, following the example of FCUM, are looking to build a stadium with the help of the city of Hamburg based on capital raised via a crowdfunding project. Interestingly, the issues the tenant clubs had were only in part financial. Instead, their sportive goals seemed unrealistic under the existing conditions and triggered the search for alternatives. All of the investigated English clubs sharing grounds had negative experiences: FCUM’s arrangement at Bury became unbearable and AFCL was detached from its community during their time at Prescot Cables. Generally, the case of FCUM, with its long-term goal of building an own ground, appears to be a point of orientation for other SOFCs and PPFCs. It remains doubtful whether the clubs can muster the resources needed as the situation and development—at least until the inner-club turmoil in 2016—certainly posed an extreme case in comparison to other SOFCs.

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An own ground offers a wide array of possibilities for a club to progress. Owning the ground definitely eases the situation with regard to long-term planning and stability as clubs are not in danger of being evicted nor do they face the financial pressure of high rents. Importantly, clubs who own their stadium have far greater possibilities to create a sense of place. Still, stadiums are also a financial burden as they need investment or refinancing, as in the case of FCUM. At lower league levels, these costs are a greater burden on the clubs than in the upper leagues where gate revenues and other match-day income streams are more opulent. Other assets such as pubs and additional locations where the community can gather and which are in close proximity to the club’s ground, or ideally, a part of it also contribute to club identity. These social places help create a wider club culture and embed the club deeper in the daily lives of the club’s and local community. It is thus no surprise that clubs seek to establish such a foothold even on grounds where they are tenants. As with the stadiums, these assets are financially more profitable and of greater efficacy for the club’s identity, when they are owned. Also, it appears easier to motivate members and fans to invest their own energy and funds into stadium development projects if they truly feel ownership; that what they are working on and help finance actually belongs to the club. That said, for this feeling of ownership to emerge, clubs do not necessarily have to own the grounds. Long-term leaseholds which include development rights can also facilitate this development of a sense of ‘home’ and thus provide access to fans’ and members’ resources for the purpose of ground development projects, as could be seen in the case of RSL.

Political and Protest Football Clubs: A Dream Come True for Football ‘Traditionalists’? The processes described at length in chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games” have in their sum led to a widespread alienation of large parts of hitherto loyal parts of the fan base in England and Germany (King 1997). Being mostly related to fan structures, they have led to a politicisation of fan culture, both in England and Germany (King 1998; Giulianotti 1999; Webber 2015; Ziesche 2017). Supporters Trusts (STs) in England exist at numerous clubs at all league levels; protest and political clubs such as FCUM, HFC and AFCL, but also, to a certain extent, RSL, are direct consequences of this process, as are numerous campaigns by football supporters’ federations and the AMF movement.

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Generally, PPFCs share an ideological outline that is clearly centred towards the community and they often have ties with larger social movements; within football these are taken together as part of what is called the AMF movement. This movement is focused on returning to what football and football clubs used to be. It is highly critical of the excesses at the top level, the ‘customerisation’ of supporters and the commodification of football culture. For the fans who turn to clubs which are part of this movement, or in some cases found these clubs, it is a decided move to more privacy, more comprehensibility, greater affordability and greater credibility. It is a step towards a romanticised ideal of what football should be and is reflected in other societal fields, be it urban gardening, de-growth, deceleration, sustainability and even communitarianism (Götz and Mittelstrass 2011). Of course, in the football world, there exist many smaller football clubs which are just there for their community to play and enjoy football with no higher ambitions. However, the fans who joined or founded the clubs presented here as PPFCs decided explicitly not to join one of these clubs. They chose to join clubs like those presented here that were founded as political reactions to the processes in the broader world of football, materialising an opposition to the excesses of commercialisation and commodification and the disregard of fan interests. The most political of these clubs, RSL, goes so far as to position itself against a perceived ‘mainstream’ of right-wing ideological, discriminatory influence in football culture and everyday football practice. All of these clubs mark a certain stance at odds with the system in which these clubs are situated. In the English cases this is due especially to their structural setup in the form of IPSs. In the case of HFC, fans of a moderately successful club left the club in protest of being—factually—overturned in a vote based on democratic principles. While this is legitimate, it is hitherto unheard of in football. In the case of RSL the club—due to its ideological core—is confronted with the everyday practice of the sport system. While the club maintains a principle of ‘not playing against fascists’, it must also answer the question as to whether it would be prepared to give the points away to teams who field players with such convictions when they refuse to play. How do they reconcile their political and sporting goals? That said, the club—and others like it—puts their finger in the wound of a football system that publicly professes to be against racism and discrimination but fails to implement even the most basic of measures to enforce this anti-discriminatory agenda.

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PPFCs are not equally political. RSL is openly left wing while the AFCL is foremost about ‘protest’ and football politics. Still, fans do not necessarily regard their status as fans as an act of protest. Rob, a white, male fan in his late 50s, explained his perspective on the driving factors for the founding of AFC Liverpool and the repeated problems he and fellow fans and members encounter when confronted with misunderstandings relating to the idea behind the club: I am just a fan of AFC Liverpool. Basically, […] since 2008 when we were formed, we had to stress on numerous occasions that we weren’t a protest club. Like FC United of Manchester are a protest club against the owners of Manchester United. AFC Liverpool are by no means a protest club against Liverpool Football Club. At all. In fact, some of our honorary board members are ex-Liverpool players, the likes of John Aldridge, Vegard Heggem, et cetera. And as I say, we have to drum it into people ad nauseam at times that we weren’t against Liverpool. We were just about making affordable football for five pounds which is our little mantra—‘Footy for a Fiver’—we used to say. And that’s what it is, basically, affordable football, for people who can’t get to Anfield or only very infrequently get to Anfield because of the ticket prices but we’re in no way against Liverpool FC. (Interview Rob, fan of AFCL, 2014)

The need to distinguish AFCL from FCUM is clear and maybe not really surprising, given the rivalry of the ‘mother clubs’. What is more important to Rob, though, is pointing out and stressing the fact that the ‘affordable’ in AFC stands for something unique; a club solely about making football available would indeed be something new within the SOFC framework. Of course, all these clubs tend to be affordable and it is often an explicit strategy in their attempt to establish and legitimise the SOFC model and clearly there is more to AFCL than just affordable football. In the ninth or tenth leagues their price policy is par for the course, if not on the high end at £5. Rob’s refusal to admit that setting up a club with a clear reference to another club and promoting its affordability and accessibility view is also surprising as it is surely a form of protest—namely against the price politics at Liverpool FC. While AFCL members might be hesitant to point the finger at the mother club to which they, like Rob, still maintain a strong connection—as do many FCUM members—this is not just a protest and critique directed at the commercialisation and exclusion of less affluent fans from top football in general but it is also directed at Liverpool FC.

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The scene at AFCL is highly political, and not only in terms of ticket pricing and accessibility. The club also addresses broader political issues. The Hillsborough catastrophe is omnipresent both in displays of fan culture as in the club itself. The logo of the Justice 96 campaign for example, a campaign which promotes the full clarification of the disaster, was present both on fan banners and on the jerseys in the 2014/2015 season. Chris Stirrup, chairman and founding member of AFC Liverpool referred to both a vertical and horizontal mimicry effect both ‘global’ and lower league clubs had when talking about how AFCL came to its supporter-owned structure: Well, I mean you look at the way things operate and lot of the clubs now across Europe are all owned by multi-millionaires and they use it as a bit of a plaything. But then you look at other clubs who are successful across Europe and a lot of them are fan-owned, so, the easiest thing to do, we followed their lead. There are some other clubs in this country doing the same, and we followed that and they’re being quite successful in what they did. Couple climbed well as well so, now it’s proven to work, you know? Bayern Munich, [FC] Barcelona, you know, FC United [of Manchester] […], AFC Wimbledon, there’s plenty of clubs who are fan-owned and who are doing quite well. And, you know, that works across Europe so there’s no reason why it can’t work here, as well. (Interview Stirrup, AFCL, 2014)

While this can clearly be regarded as a mimetic isomorphism process, Stirrup’s remarks on supporter-owned structures in Europe and that he sees no reason why they should not work in England are especially remarkable. Stirrup counters what seems to be a sort of ‘English exceptionalism’ among the established clubs: the structure of the league system in England and the dominance of the entrepreneurial approach in the competition are generally viewed as being the main hindering factors for a long-term success of the supporter-owned, charitable approach. At RSL, club structures have an extremely flat hierarchy where everybody can participate in a weekly open plenum. In these plenums, decisions have to be reached unanimously which is analogous to leftist political culture and what is established decision-making practice in social centres, squats and similar projects transnationally. Adopting these principles is a signifier to the political–ideological origin of the people behind the club, but it also breaks with traditional club structures and paths of development with their strong internal hierarchy and modes of oligarchic differentiation (Schimank 2005).

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In general, PPFCs share the same anti-commercial agenda, even if it is not embedded in an ideological–political framework as is the case of RSL. Commercialism is seen as playing too great a role in the football business and a threat to football culture. The alternative model of a decommercialised, mutually beneficial, community-focused football club is thus a form of cultural resistance as described in chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”. The clubs’ aspirations to gain a strong foothold in specific areas of their city is part of this return to the ‘premodern’—in AMF movement terms—era of football. RSL’s strong foothold in Connewitz and the Teichstraße grounds can be regarded as the most successful attempt at achieving this, while FCUM had to waive its stadium prospects in Newton Heath. But clubs need not necessarily be PPFCs to be part of this resistance. German teams in particular, RWE among them, draw in this football romanticism into their agendas. While gender issues were not focused on within the scope of this study, it is noteworthy that only the German PPFCs have broken the— unwritten—tradition of male-only boards. Both at HFC and RSL board and president positions have been held by female members; the boards of AFCL and FCUM have been all-male since their foundation. These issues, that is, in how far the political agenda combined with alternative structures facilitates greater diversity—and why it does not—need much more academic attention. Current developments at FCUM question the sustainability of protest clubs when they reach a certain status or a specific level within the football system. How long can these clubs resist the market forces that gradually take a hold once a certain level in the pyramid is reached? The study has delivered three processes of politicisation within lower league football: (1) exogenously, clubs are co-opted by political actors, mainly in the social service and educational sector. At the same time, (2) endogenously, clubs become increasingly political actors as they seek to define their role as an integral part of civil society. Furthermore, as shown in the cases of PPFCs both in England and in Germany, (3) clubs are founded as a political symbol with a political agenda, often comparable to single issue political movements and as direct expressions of a politicised and in many cases alienated fan culture. At the same time, within their new political roles, clubs try to find the right balance between communitisation and societisation. Particular vs universal identities and the expectations of different stakeholders—members, fans vs the wider local community and

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political actors—are at odds with each other and drive clubs into conflicts of institutional legitimisation. The PPFCs show a trend back to Schimank’s (2005) internallyoriented consumerist ethos in terms of self-sufficiency and their character as value and identity-driven communities instead of the post-traditional interest communities found in ETFCs (Klein and Meuser 2008). The focus in these clubs on particular communities shows a countermovement to the general trend of societisation processes, a form of cultural resistance. This, in part, can also be applied to the space/place discussion: While mid-league ETFC clubs find themselves under more pressure from football authorities regarding safety standards and licensing requirements, as lower level clubs the PPFCs enjoy more freedom to create ‘place’ in their stadium environment and to allow for a less regulated and more ‘traditional’ social practice of fan culture.

Hybrid Organisations and Sectoral Shifts While English top league football has a hegemonic status with regard to the entrepreneurial formation of club structures and serves as a point of orientation for leagues abroad, in Germany it is the communitarian formation of its Vereine that has hegemonic status at grassroots level and which serves as a point of reference with regard to building structures which include the fans in decision-making processes. The Verein+X and the IPS or IPS+PLC models seek to imitate their respective role models abroad. Verein+X is the best German clubs can do within the framework of the German football system in their pursuit of entrepreneurial success, while the IPS model is the best form available for English clubs in their attempt to mimic the German Verein. From the FL level upwards, English clubs need necessarily to be modelled in the IPS+PLC model, which—as it is conceived by Supporters Direct—mimics the German 50+1/Verein+X model. The Verein+X and IPS+PLC model are thus closest in terms of finding a way between the community and entrepreneurial forms. The introduction of both alternative models in their respective system constitutes a tendency for institutional alignment and isomorphism on different levels. First, the Verein+X formation came about in an attempt to allow for more market orientation, that is, it follows the company club example of England as a result of a mixture of mimetic—because of the success story of the PL—and normative—because of the dominance of English clubs in Europe’s football market—incentive for isomorphism. The incentive

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followed by the development of IPS and IPS+PLC models was mainly of a mimetic nature, as the German case was seen to be successful in terms of member participation, relatively high financial stability and an authentic football culture. This shows that the institutional guidelines of the league and football associations in both cases predetermine and limit the options on the structural forms on the table and thus prefigure the functional alignment of their respective system. Internal pressure by German clubs—and in mimicking orientation towards the English model—has led to an alternative configuration which enables a stronger entrepreneurial formation away from the community focus. In England, external pressure from supporter initiatives and the government has created a pool of football clubs where the entrepreneurialism is of secondary importance and community orientation is primary. The question of ownership is thus pivotal for the societal relevance of a club, as all clubs with a clear community orientation and successful, extensive community programmes are fully supporter owned. Put in terms of sectoral dimensions, the Verein+X and IPS configurations align with the formation opposite and thus shift the default positions of football clubs in their respective system. This means that the German system is slowly moving towards more market orientation as more and more clubs have to be placed in the market sector instead of the third—non-commercial—sector. In England, on the other hand, a converse process is taking place with an increasing number of third sector clubs in the form of IPSs competing in the football system. This alignment of both football systems towards the respective opposite is a case of isomorphism on two different levels. These processes of isomorphism thus do not create a homogenous pattern of clubs but—because different paths are pursued in each process of isomorphism and combined with the limits of the respective system in which they take place—rather create a more pluralistic, heterogeneous field of football club structures. It has become apparent that clubs are developing increasingly as hybrid organisation forms. Attached to the core club or Verein are companies, academies, charities and trusts funded to varying degrees as private and public ventures. Via these formations clubs are able to fulfil various functions and roles as educators, healthcare providers and providers of communal infrastructures which strengthen their embeddedness in the local community and make them almost indispensable societal actors, thus strengthening their bargaining position with local authorities. While

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increasing hybridization is also a process visible in other non-profit organisations and is at least partly the result of a dwindling welfare state, it can itself be seen as an adaptive response to a changing and challenging environment (Billis 2010; Smith 2010). It is remarkable how easily clubs seem to be able to move into those fields and fill the gaps present there. Clubs and Vereine are becoming jack-of-all-trade organisations, the borders between the fields in which they are active are dissolving—or rather ‘liquefying’, according to Bauman (2007)—which makes tracing their organisational structure increasingly difficult. It also makes it highly problematic in terms of governance, accountability and transparency (Billis 2010). These issues pose a rich field for future studies.

References Anheier, H. K. (2014). Nonprofit Organizations. Theory, Management, Policy. Oxon: Routledge. Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid Times. Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Billis, D. (2010). Towards a Theory of Hybrid Organizations. In D. Billis (Ed.), Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector: Challenges for Practice, Theory and Policy (pp. 46–69). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. J. (1983). The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160. Giulianotti, R. (1999). Football. A Sociology of the Global Game. Oxford: Polity Press. Götz, E.-M., & Mittelstrass, B. (2011, April 28). Was kommt nach der Wachstums-gesellschaft? Deutschlandfunk. http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/was-kommt-nach-der-wachstumsgesellschaft. 1148.de.html?dram:article_id = 180759. King, A. (1997). The Lads: Masculinity and the New Consumption of Football. Sociology, 31(2), 329–346. King, A. (1998). The End of the Terraces. The Transformation of English Football in the 1990s. London: Leicester University Press. Klein, G., & Meuser M. (2008). Fußball, Politik, Vergemeinschaftung. Zur Einführung. In G. Klein & M. Meuser (Eds.), Ernste Spiele. Zur politischen Soziologie des Fußballs (pp. 7–16). Bielefeld: Transcript. Mack, C. S. (1991). The Executive’s Handbook of Trade and Business Associations. How They Work—And How to Make Them Work Effectively for You. New York, Westport, and London: Quorum Books.

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Schimank, U. (2005). Der Vereinssport in der Organisationsgesellschaft: organisationssoziologische Perspektiven auf ein spannungsreiches Verhältnis. In T. Alkemeyer, B. Rigauer, & G. Sobiech (Eds.), Organisationsentwicklungen und De-Institutionalisierungsprozesse im Sport (pp. 21–44). Schorndorf: Hofmann. Schlesinger, M. (1998). Mismeasuring the Consequences of Ownership: External Influences and the Comparative Performance of Public, For-Profit, and Private Nonprofit Organizations. In W. W. Powell & E. S. Clemens (Eds.), Private Action and the Public Good (pp. 85–113). New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Smith, S. R. (2010). Hybridization and Nonprofit Organizations: The Governance Challenge. Policy and Society, 29(3), 219–229. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.polsoc.2010.06.003. Taylor, N. (2004). ‘Giving Something Back’: Can Football Clubs And Their Communities Coexist? In S. Wagg (Ed.), British Football and Social Exclusion (pp. 47–66). Oxon and New York: Routledge. Webber, D. M. (2015). ‘Playing on the break’: Karl Polanyi and the doublemovement ‘Against Modern Football’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport (pp. 1–19). https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690215621025. Ziesche, D. (2017). Well Governed? Stakeholder Representation in German Professional Football Clubs. In B. García & J. Zheng (Eds.), Football and Supporter Activism in Europe: Whose Game Is It? (pp. 89–120). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Zimmer, A. (1996). Vereine – Basiselemente der Demokratie. Opladen: Leske und Budrich.

Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organisations and Supermodern Football

What counts in any attempt at social prognosis is not the Yes or No that sums up the facts and arguments which lead up to it but those facts and arguments themselves. They contain all that is scientific in the final result. Everything else is not science but prophecy. Analysis, whether economic or other, never yields more than a statement about the tendencies present in an observable pattern. And these never tell us what will happen to the pattern but only what would happen if they continued to act as they have been acting in the time interval covered by our observation and if no other factors intruded. (Schumpeter 1942 [1994]: 59)

Football is a sport of enormous social and cultural efficacy, at the global, national and local levels. This study has shown how central the concept of community is to the sport and, at the same time, the multitude of possible approaches towards this elusive concept. The goal was to identify the situation in which lower league football clubs find themselves and investigate which strategies clubs have taken to adapt to it. I followed several graduations at the meso level, approaching the institution of the club from the discourse on its functions (chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations”), the overall situation in the lower leagues (chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games” to “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”), to the individual club level (chapters “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany” to “Social

© The Author(s) 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_11

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Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions”). In chapter “Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy” the main concepts of glocalisation and institutional mimicry as well as the principle of legitimisation were laid out. Considering their significant resource limitations, lower league football clubs have limited options for dealing with the pressures they are facing. Finding the right balance between market and community orientation will ensure the legitimisation needed for survival. Chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical Considerations” described football clubs as social, cultural and political actors, contributing to community formation and identity-building by offering symbols around which such formations can take place. Two communities were identified as relevant for lower league clubs: the club community and the urban community. The chapter continued by identifying different roles clubs have held within the framework of community and society and how the meaning of clubs for their respective communities has developed. The potential of clubs to deliver non-monetary forms of capital was of special importance with regard to increasing thirdparty interest in football clubs. Examples of regulatory measures taken by political institutions were then taken as a basis to describe a threedimensional process of politicisation in and around football clubs. These different conceptual and theoretical threads were then bound together and synthesised in a dual function of football clubs—communitisation and societisation. Differing in the way they address collective identities— particular—or wider social values—universal—the current dilemma these clubs find themselves in was deemed to be grounded in a shift in the prioritisation of the latter over the former. The main reason for this imbalance was seen to be the co-opting of clubs by third-party and political stakeholders on whose legitimisation lower league clubs depend. In the second part of the chapter I analysed and compared the league structures of both countries. In doing so two structural models were identified, one in each country, one of which allowed for stronger community orientation and one which allowed for stronger market orientation. Chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games” to “Social Crisis: Building Bridges” presented to a large part, original data on the specific situation and challenges of lower league football. The data showed the increasing gap between the topflight and the highly competitive midleague level football. Furthermore, the cultural impact of the economic

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crisis in football was visualised. Among the most revealing findings were the high number of insolvency cases in both countries, the increasing structural changes in the lower leagues as well as the stark discrepancies in stadium ownership between both countries and, consequently, the strong dependence of German clubs on local authorities. The case studies in chapters “Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany” to “Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social Institutions” expanded on the understanding of adaptive strategies and the measures preferred in specific structures. In their specific outcomes, these adaptation processes can be read within the logic of glocalisation. In Germany, lower league football Vereine have taken up their ‘new’ social role as a result of their own identity and legitimacy issues—e.g. their need to access public funding— as well as in response to shifting societal and political challenges. The impetus of lower league football clubs in England is similar, although in this case in response to political pressure. Via processes of mimicking, lower league clubs both in England and Germany adapt practices from the ‘global’ football world and ‘glocalise’ their efforts. At the same time both in Germany and England, clubs are increasingly finding open doors for the public programming ambitions among local political authorities looking to fill gaps in a gouged welfare state. Thus, both on their own initiative and because they are required to do so, clubs embark on types of work which were not part of their core business. This has a direct impact on the organisational character of football clubs and their positioning within the triangle of state, market and society. It can be argued that in both England and Germany, football clubs are becoming increasingly corporatist organisations, that is, increasingly less third-sector organisations. The dissolution of functional boundaries between societal institutions mirrors Zygmunt Bauman’s (2000) ‘liquid modernity’. As the comparison in the previous chapter has shown, the English ETFCs have proven to be the least flexible in terms of adaptation and seem intent on doing business as usual, as the main directive is always a sporting—i.e. entrepreneurial—agenda. Decision-making in the PPFCs is based on member’s interests. In many regards, the way clubs act in both countries is determined by the political systems and prefigured structures in both contexts. English ETFCs have been more responsive to government initiatives to get them involved in the community. In Germany, the government has not seen the need to get involved as a regulator in this

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regard since the clubs have themselves shown the initiative in community work, network-building and entering public-private partnerships at the local level. The increasing number of society clubs competing in the English system is a sign of increased cultural resistance, as is the AMF movement out of which these aspirations have been born, crystallising in the wake of the financial excess of the past two decades. It remains to be seen whether these organisational forms are compatible on a larger scale with the current de-growth discourse, sustainability movements and a wider communitarianist agenda. In both national frameworks, clubs have always filled gaps. In the past these gaps were the lack of identity in a new, working-class urban population. Today they have in part become social welfare institutions, as was originally envisaged by philanthropists during the time many clubs were founded in England. This adaptive capacity is one of the reasons for their resilience. In the shift to fill this niche comes a shift in from communitisation to societisation. However, while clubs act as mediators of universal values, the addressing of a particular collective identity is not abandoned. Were this not the case clubs would become interchangeable and indeed only be separated by their colours. And the differences in quality extend to the relationship between clubs and their communities, which is largely dependent on the people in and around the club. The trends in club development—increasing numbers of SOFCs and thus society-club structures in England and ever more separated capital companies and thus Verein+X structures in Germany—suggest an institutional organisational alignment of both football systems—the great divide is narrowing. In England, ever more PPFCs and other SOFCs have been emerging as a consequence of government intervention and supporter activism for quite some time. The current halt in this progress might not be the end of this development. While the reduction in insolvencies identified in chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games” points to the fact that the owners of football clubs have become active and now do much more to secure their ownership so as not to be forced to offer the club to an ST, recent cases of administration might yet trigger a further ‘wave’ of supporter-ownership takeovers or phoenix clubs founded as society clubs. In almost every aspect examined on a larger scale in chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, a considerable time lag between processes in England and those in Germany could be identified, roughly six to eight years. This might underline the role model status English football occupies, or it might be that it takes time for the economic effects in English

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football to produce perceived and ‘real’ results. However, as pointed out previously, in the leagues below the topflight there are comparably few directly traceable effects of international competition. Nevertheless, both in England as in Germany, the respective ‘other’ scenario is referred to both as best practice as well as worst-case scenarios.

Supermodern Football The research design of this study as a bi-national and cross-structural study was complex in itself, difficult in its conceptualisation and challenging in its execution. It has brought forth multiple insights and findings relevant for the general as well as the interdisciplinary academic understanding of football clubs. The ambitious scope of the project with its eight qualitative cases can be regarded as its greatest limitation, as the cases are extremely heterogeneous and only allow for limited conclusions. At the same time, this scale made it possible to show the social, cultural and political dimensions as well as the structural differences, which in turn made it possible to identify cultural differences within the institutions. That said the explanatory potential of each case remains limited. There are best practice examples and worst-case scenarios for almost all the aspects investigated, especially with regard to community projects, their agenda and their effectiveness. Despite these limitations, both in practical and theoretical terms this research was able to contribute to debates both within football and within wider society. It is relevant for the discussion of processes of cultural resistance in other fields and provides a broad set of data, both quantitative and qualitative, to the further understanding of the specific situation and challenges of lower league football. It has been shown how locally established norms and values shape the image and identity that clubs want to promote, not only how aspects of these identities are constantly renegotiated and reconstructed in order to meet demands made by business mechanism but also by the community these clubs represent. Moreover, the study provided substantial data on the economic, cultural and sociopolitical pressure to which lower league football clubs find themselves subjected. Fulfilling expectations, and thus internal and external legitimisation, is a core task for all clubs. As the study has shown, even on lower levels of the football pyramid, football clubs are today functionally highly differentiated entities, regardless of their structural setup or national framework. Networking strategies

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are a suitable tool positioning the club to be perceived as being indispensable in a variety of areas in the greater community and securing its support by a variety of actors in the multi-actor system. Along with their increasing fields of activity, professionalisation processes are inevitably necessary to meet the requirements made of the clubs. How some requirements remain unchanged while new ones are added becomes apparent when comparing Taylor’s account formulated in 1988: Today’s sport, after all, often seeks to serve many functions and many masters. In the case of soccer, a universally played game, the governors of the sport have to try to ensure that it is a satisfying game for the amateur and school players from whose ranks the professionals are drawn. It must also be entertaining for the spectators, whether at the ground or in their homes watching television. The individual clubs must make enough money at least to survive and many aim to make profits on their capital and turnover. Sponsors whose names appear on players’ shirts and elsewhere want to be associated with a successful and socially acceptable activity. (Taylor 1988: 539)

Taylor diagnosed large parts of the space football clubs still move in today. His account, which mainly focuses on sportive and entrepreneurial elements, is complicated and complex. It is so differentiated, that ‘it is impossible to sketch, in functionalist terms, how these interests interact to preserve some imagined social order’ (Giulianotti 1999: 16). However, today, we might add a whole additional field to Taylor’s list of functions, namely the cultural and social functions inherent in communitisation and societisation. Combined with their stadiums, which are increasingly becoming space more than place, clubs which are active in fields beyond their core business and are part of an ever-growing societal network, football has not only entered what Baumann called liquid modernity— in line with Augé’s (2008 [1995]) notion of supermodernity—it might even be that, extending Giulianotti’s (1999) model of traditional, modern and postmodern football, the sport has entered a period of supermodern football practised by supermodern clubs. The more clubs that claim this field, the more school collaborations and peripheral activities and projects become part of the clubs’ agendas, the more the question of institutional overstretch will become relevant. Are football clubs really the right institutions for such a crucial role in the realisation of social policies? What does the fact that a fourth league football club owns the only hydrotherapy pool within a radius of a hundred

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miles say about the state of the social welfare system? These are questions which need to be addressed. The third chapter has shown that there are specific national trends in club ownership and the development of club structures. In England, the alternative IPS model of mutual ownership is gaining a foothold, although to date exclusively in lower league clubs. While some of these have been climbing up the leagues in recent years, it remains to be seen where the ‘glass ceiling’ for the SOFC model is, where the system makes the structure inefficient. In Germany ever more capital companies are being founded by traditional members associations. As the data has shown, this process is also taking hold at the lower level and it remains to be seen whether the effects of this process will lead to a de facto ‘two-class’ system in which capital companies and ‘pure’ members associations compete separately. Regardless of community or market formation, clubs today have to be conceived as hybrid organisations, active in a multitude of fields with various trusts, initiatives and programmes attached. This might well serve to stabilise and (re)legitimise football clubs as an institution, but the boundaries between club, business and social welfare provider become increasingly blurred. This status as hybrid organisations needs to be included in future research and play a major role in studies on club structures. As regards the wider football world, new problems lie on the horizon. League and football officials as well as the media have voiced the first doubts about continued growth in the football market, both in financial terms as well as in viewership. First signs that the bubble might soon burst came in 2016 as lower viewership numbers were released for English football for the first time (Gibson 2016). The sport might indeed see a collective returning to what it used to be all about. American Football is facing a similar issue, with domestic viewership decreasing between 2015 and 2019, especially among the youth (Berr 2018). While numbers have meanwhile increased again in both cases, given the enormous sums of money invested for broadcasting rights, even a minimal decrease in popularity raises attention. Football decision-makers have taken notice and have looked to update the game and make it more entertaining. Technological novelties like goal-line-technology, which are now part of the English and German professional game, or the additional video assistant, which was first introduced in the World Cup in Russia in 2018, are testimony to efforts to

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make the game ‘fairer’. Other new technologies have been introduced to add to the viewer experience. It will be interesting to see how these developments shape the game at lower levels. In a more sceptical reading, these measures might be seen as just another means to create a sanitised, controllable and accountable ‘space’ on the field in an effort to minimise chance and human error as far as possible from a business into which billions are invested. Still, the pace in which new technologies are being introduced into a game that has refused these ‘advancements’ for so long is certainly noteworthy. Especially since, until recently, football praised itself for its authenticity, simplicity and practicability where underdogs still have a fighting chance on the pitch.1 In the wake of new technologies entering the game, the amount of data transmitted during a match is also increasing and football is joining the ranks of the ‘hi-tech’ spectator sports such as American football. The question remains if the limits for growth, expansion and so-called progress have been reached. The trend in international competitions seems to know only one direction: growth, both in the number of teams and the length of the tournaments. Both FIFA and UEFA are facing much criticism for their governance of the game, not to mention the debates that have ensued in recent years after decisions on host nations for MSEs such as Qatar were announced. Football is ubiquitous today. As Welling pointed out, the question needs to be asked at what point the line will be crossed and this omnipresence becomes oversaturation. In this respect, PPFCs pose an alternative, a withdrawal from the economic excesses of the game at the top. They might indeed be facing a bright future, as Chris Stirrup at AFCL hopes. At these levels, and even in the fourth and fifth league, a different, local football world exists; yet one that is inextricably linked and subject to the same mechanism as the global one. A message this study might deliver is that it is mid- and lowleague football that future research should attend to as it is in these levels below the topflight, where the true drama of football takes place and the future of the game will be negotiated. The topflight of football can also learn of the processes it has triggered in the leagues below. The sincerity of the community work carried out by lower league clubs is the basis on which their legitimacy as social institutions is built. It is of utmost importance for the longevity of the sport that professional football remains connected to society in the broader sense and that professional clubs retain close links to their communities so that the sport is not reduced completely into a consumer good.

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The drainage effect the topflight has on the leagues below also demands a burden-sharing via a better—or any—system of solidarity in terms of a distribution of the enormous revenues at the top. The fact that only the topflight has managed to substantially increase its revenue while all leagues below in both national contexts have remained at the same level over the past twenty years speaks for itself. This inevitably hinders competitive balance and exciting competition and facilitates a football class system, the topflight existing as a class in itself and for itself. Whereas the Verein is deeply interwoven with civil society in Germany and is historically and traditionally a place of democracy and the enactment of democratic processes, the English club is not similarly rooted. Its societal connections can instead be found in its logical continuation of the British liberal market philosophy. These different historical roots prefigure the divergent path-dependent development until commercialisation took hold of football in the 1990s. This change in the game forced German clubs to find more entrepreneurial models in order to be able to compete at international level—a process which then caught on in the lower leagues—while in English clubs it provoked a counter-movement of disillusioned and alienated supporters who founded clubs opposed to pure market orientation that met demands for supporter involvement hitherto absent in the dominant club model. The externally imposed answer was the installation of CPs at professional clubs as a tool for healing the rupture between clubs and their communities and add a civil society component to them. The Verein remains more adaptable to changing community demands despite the long decision-making processes inherent to this institution. These processes are managed differently at the company clubs, most following a minimalist philosophy. The English company clubs thus lag far behind in their community outreach, focusing instead on their core business of delivering the best football they can. This goal, which is often reached at great financial risk, dominates the operational agenda—that of ambitious German Verein+X clubs like LOK too. Conversely, RWE has chosen instead to focus on establishing a strong relationship to its community in the belief that the positive long-term effects will add to its competitive potential on and off the field and help it confront the three crises it and others face as well as increase its credibility and thus legitimacy. As it stands, both German ETFCs have, in their own way, been successful, at least during the period of this investigation study. Their

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fortunes, as football fans in general and especially those who follow lower league clubs well know, can change quickly. The current decline of FCUM might prove to be short-lived. The clubs RWE and LOK might reach their respective goal to compete in the third level soon and then face renewed financial troubles. Football is a too short-lived business to make credible, mid- to long-term prognoses or predictions. That said, at the moment, the situation at FCUM and the stagnation in SOFC development is symptomatic for the difficulties these social enterprises face when their philosophy and modes of decision-making are put to the test in a highly competitive football environment that is as yet not truly interested in these slower-paced but more holistically acting models. Perhaps it is folly to think that there can be a ‘right’ club in the ‘wrong’ system after all. Porter also pointed out the fact that the social enterprises the SOFCs constitute largely carry on to follow the systemic rules in which they are embedded (2019: 296pp.). It seems inevitable that for the SOFCs to make a real change and not eventually fall in line with the clubs they stand opposed to, the conditions of competition, that is, the football system as such, have to be changed profoundly. The German configuration in general has those features that ‘traditionalists’ seek, but it currently finds itself transforming into what could be called an ‘English model light’. While exceptions to the general rule were tolerated for a long time, the massive increase in Verein+X formations and the changed rules for club ownership might prove to be real game changers. Renewed and repeated commitments to the 50+1 rule by the clubs of the first two leagues are of little value if it is not enforced or is constantly undermined by those who seek to abolish it. The economic wheel that propelled football to where it is today will not be turned back entirely, nor will the manifold transformations the game has experienced in the past thirty years or so be reversed. This is not the goal of the AMF movement either. Codes of conduct have helped football to become more inclusive and in wide parts reduced the amount of hatred and bile coming from the stands. It is not the goal to turn back the wheel either. The PPFCs presented in this study put their finger in many wounds, and in doing so shape the discourse on football and contribute to resolving the threefold dilemma of legitimacy described in this study. This critical contestation of the status quo is urgently needed and justified, as are the demands for a better system of solidarity and redistribution between the leagues and better accountability and transparency via better governance practices. This study has also made clear that social enterprises and the

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hybrid organisations they often form today make for better football, if societal and community matters are indeed put first and demands for football ‘to give back’ are taken seriously. The question remains whether the system is truly reformable. Doubts are more than justified. But if so, then the pressure from below needs to be far stronger than it is currently. A few PPFCs will not make the vast majority of fans question the sport or their clubs, a few SOFCs competing in the lower leagues are a mere ripple against the tide of the PL. Perhaps then, RWE’s credo needs to be adopted by football as a whole: ‘cultural heritage worth protecting’. An effective preservation scheme requires a clear idea of what it seeks to protect. Then it needs to create an environment where it can be protected and establish authorities that legitimately and effectively enforce its protection. Unfortunately, football lacks all three.

Note 1. This applies to individual matches only. For an underdog to win a championship is even more spectacular, as the examples of Leicester City in 2016 or 1. FC Kaiserslautern in 1998 show. The latter won the championship in its first season after promotion to the first Bundesliga.

References Augé, M. (2008 [1995]). Non-Places. An Introduction to Supermodernity. London and New York: Verso. Baumann, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berr, J. (2018, August 28). The NFL’s Rating Probably Will Continue To Decline. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanberr/2018/08/28/ the-nfls-ratings-probably-will-continue-to-decline/#3bd198d66666. Gibson, O. (2016, October 24). Is the Unthinkable Happening—Are People Finally Switching the Football Off? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2016/oct/24/sky-sports-bt-sport-people-switching-footballoff. Giulianotti, R. (1999). Football. A Sociology of the Global Game. Oxford: Polity Press. Porter, C. (2019). Supporter Ownership in English Football: Class, Culture and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Schumpeter, J. A. (1994 [1942)]. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Routledge.

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Taylor, T. (1988). Sport and World Politics: Functionalism and the State System International Journal, 43(4), 531–553 (1988). https://doi.org/10.2307/ 40202562.

Postscript: The End of Football, or: Football in the Time of Corona

On Friday, 13 March 2020 the PL and FL as well as the DFL and DFB interrupted the ongoing season in their respective competitions. The escalating Covid-19 crisis forced Europe’s national governing football bodies to hit the pause button. The French association announced its own decision to do so on that day as well. After the leagues in Spain and Italy had called a halt a few days before, live football—medially the most ubiquitous popular cultural phenomenon on the continent—had suddenly stopped. For the first time since WWII, European league competition was suspended. What follows is a rather essayistic account of my thoughts on football during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and might not necessarily meet the standards of academic scrutiny. Given its topicality and the tremendous effect this crisis has had on football, this seems to be the right way to go forward at this point, in the knowledge that some of the statements I make here might already prove to be incorrect next week. I also apologise in advance for the slightly cynical undertone here and there, but what has unfolded in terms of football with the pandemic hitting Europe was both unexpected and unbelievable in many regards and still leaves me speechless here and there. I expect this extreme case of an external shock to make the multiple schisms that exist within football—and anywhere else—even more visible and test the resilience of the system as such. I will try to go about this in a way similar to how I have structured the © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0

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book, meaning to recount the ongoing processes in the top sphere of football, describe its repercussions on the actual object of study—lower league football—and consider the effects on the specific clubs in the case studies. Finally, I will apply what I learned in the field during the years I have kept myself occupied with football to make some predictions on what might be forthcoming. This account will be as balanced as possible, but I am closer to the German case by mere geographical vicinity, so this will be presented here in more detail. When after weeks of no live football, German league play resumed, nobody even pretended that this was about the sport and the need to conclude an ongoing competition in a fair manner. Any attempts to hide the true intention of the relaunch as anything other than an attempt to meet the contractual requirements to obtain the last instalment of TV money for the ongoing season had been abandoned. The relaunch itself then was carefully prepared. While football never really left the news headlines during the weeks of restrictions on public life, officials repeatedly stated that while the situation for football was indeed dire, there were of course more pressing matters requiring attention; there were more important things than football, after all. After a hygiene concept for a relaunch without a stadium audience and including a strict code of conduct for players was drafted, state interior ministers sanctioned it as viable. This was the political backing required to present the national government with the plans. On 6 May, German chancellor Angela Merkel allowed the season to continue. The whole decision-making process was accompanied by voices from the media which argued for a sign for a return to normalcy as represented by the commencement of the football season; as a bit of distraction for the weary German soul. With nine match days to go and excluding live audiences from the stadium, football in the first and second Bundesliga resumed on 16 May. The 3. Liga resumed on 30 May with eleven match days to go. For a few weeks in May and June and much to the delight of officials, German football lead the world football market since other leagues, including the English league, were far from relaunching. Schedules were extremely tight, with two games a week until the season was due to be finished by the end June/early July. The German cup semi-finals were also scheduled in this period. In England, football resumed on 17 June, almost precisely a month after the German top leagues resumed play on similar terms.1 The Championship continued its season on 20 June, with League 1 and 2 voting to end the season by

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determining the final league table on a points-per-game—PPG—basis and only play the play-off matches. The mode in which football was continued was nothing short of a travesty of ‘the beautiful game’. Perhaps the significance of the supporters in the creation of the cultural good that is a football match has now become clear once and for all, and perhaps this is also part of the answer to the question of why they still call it ‘the people’s game’. Because in the end, it is the people around the pitch that create the spectacle, who comment on every move on the pitch and create atmosphere where otherwise there is just the hollow thump of a ball being kicked around and the occasional shout from the sideline. This way of playing and presenting the game has truly ripped the heart and soul out of football. The German word Geisterspiel to denote matches behind closed doors resonates the eerie atmosphere in the empty stadiums. While every decent training pitch would suffice for playing these matches and might make the lack of a crowd less apparent—and, moreover, save a lot of costs—the clubs for some reason still use their gigantic, empty stadiums. In both countries in the leagues below, the third tier clubs voted in favour of a termination of the season and to determine the final league standings on a PPG basis. There is no reason—except TV revenue—that this should not have worked for the top leagues as well. In fact, one might argue that out of all the possibilities for ending the season, the calculation on a PPG basis is perhaps the least unfair, especially regarding the competitive fairness on a European football level. There exist all sorts of issues arising from the unilateral decision-making with regard to resuming national league competitions. The break in playing practice might be a crucial factor once UEFA resumes its competitions in the CL and EL over the summer. Differing regulations regarding promotion and relegation might cause a wave of lawsuits which could spill over to the European level if clubs feel they might have been defrauded of a lucrative CL starting position. The time of growth seems over for now, as the most recent selling of PL rights has already indicated. The untimely sale by auction of the German national TV rights for the seasons 2021/2022 to 2024/2025 was delayed by a month. Still, the price finally agreed upon fell short of the envisaged increase from e4.64 to e5.2b n made earlier in the year (Kicker 2020c). With some e240m less in TV revenue and the first decrease in twelve years, a more balanced distribution down the leagues becomes even more unlikely. In England, the BBC reported a loss of

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£340m per club for the current season even it being continued behind closed doors (Roan et al. 2020). In Germany, too, the TV money for the 2020/2021 season has already been reduced from e1.35bn to e1.2 bn due to a fallout of payments from various DFL contractors, among them Eurosport (Kicker 2020a). The systemic mid- to long-term repercussions are even harder to foresee. How widespread rebates for sponsors and TV broadcasters will be treated is hard to say at the moment but will surely have a significant impact on the clubs; newly negotiated contracts might raise much less in actual revenue. Still, my best estimate is that clubs at the top will largely be spared any significant losses, they are simply too big to fail. While the financial severity of the situation in the top two leagues in Germany has been talked up quite a bit—perhaps in order to raise pressure for a continuation of league competition—I doubt whether there would have been actual cases of insolvency, especially of clubs in the first Bundesliga. The numbers presented in this study speak for themselves: no first tier club in Germany has ever filed for administration, while England has only had one—see Chapter “Economic Crisis: Number Games”. Even if some risk financial trouble, private and public sponsors and investors will help to get them through. Thus, while the e380m instalment of TV money is surely needed to stabilize the situation at individual clubs, the top clubs were never the ones in real trouble in the first place. This assessment changes dramatically when looking at the situation in the leagues below. As opposed to the clubs at the very top, gate and match-day revenues contribute much more to financing lower league clubs, as this study has also shown. Since playing in front of a crowd was out of the question and TV money was not a significant issue, clubs in most leagues below the second tier voted to suspend the season to keep expenditures as low as possible. The German 3. Liga is an exception in this regard—and the restart of the season against the will of a significant number of clubs is likely to have dire consequences (MDR 2020a). On 17 June 1. FC Kaiserslautern was the first team from this league to file for administration with FSV Zwickau on the verge of doing so. In both cases it is evident that the Covid-19 crisis was not the only reason for this step, but it certainly sped up an inevitable process. The DFL and DFB knew what to expect from their clubs and announced early on that clubs filing for administration this season would not suffer the obligatory nine-point deduction (Ruf 2020). In any case, far-reaching fallout for clubs from the third tier down is certainly to be expected in the months to come.

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It cannot be foreseen how the clubs will react and whether those who feel disadvantaged by their respective governing bodies’ decisions will quietly accept their fate. It is not unlikely that some clubs will seek compensation in one form or another; a long list of lawsuits in this regard is not an unrealistic scenario. The case of the German second Bundesliga side Dynamo Dresden is exemplary. The team had two players test positive for Covid-19 shortly before the restart of the season, which meant that the whole team had to remain in quarantine for fourteen days (Wilson 2020). While plans for the relaunch were not interrupted by the incident—or other such occurrences such as violations of the hygiene rules at other clubs—Dynamo started late into the remainder of the season on an even tighter schedule than the other teams while trying to fend off relegation on the basis of a significant team training deficit of two weeks. The clubs dealt with in this study—and I will only include the ETFCs in the following—are affected by this gap in different ways. Of the English teams, MTFC have secured a place in League Two and finished in position twenty-one of the league table. On the other hand, CFFC have barely managed to stay in the National League, finishing nineteenth, only two positions short of relegation and only two points more than the first relegated team. While salaries where paid in full in March, the players and staff have accepted a twenty per cent reduction in wages and have been furloughed (Reid 2020). In Germany’s Regionalliga West, RWE had a chance at promotion this season when the table’s current leader, SV Rödinghausen, announced that they would not apply to start in level three, even if they won the championship. This means that the secondplaced team would enter the play-off, a position RWE—as the team ranked third at the time of suspension—might have reached if the season had continued uninterrupted. This was why RWE was the only team to vote against a termination of the season: a PPG decision would not help them. That said, the team in second place, SC Verl, was unsuccessful in its first application for a licence for the third tier since its stadium does not meet the minimum requirements (Wozniak 2020). It is, however, likely that Verl will gain a licence in a second application. In any case, they have been declared the team to play the play-off against the champion of the Regionalliga Nordost. In this league, LOK was declared champion after the final league standings were determined by a PPG calculation. VSG Altglienicke, the team in first position and Energie Cottbus, ranked third, opposed the PPG solution. Altglienicke proposed a championship final

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against LOK, while Cottbus wanted a play-off solution (MDR 2020b). The regional football association NOFV decided in early June for PPG. Thus, LOK might look at promotion to the third tier by the official end of the season and, in a slightly different scenario, might have faced RWE in the play-offs. Generally, it is noteworthy that PPG-decisions will have much more severe effects in the German lower leagues as the schedules are more irregular than in England. Whereas in England games played differ by a maximum of one—League Two—or two—League One, National League—games respectively, in Germany, the difference is up to four games in the Regionalliga West and Nordost. Furthermore, structurally, it will be challenging to manage the competitions from the lower league levels up to the European level and manage promotions, relegations and starting positions in the competitions fairly. Structural changes are also being discussed: there are plans to create a two-division third tier in Germany next season. One tier below, the Regionalliga Nord will definitely be split into two divisions and together field four more teams than currently (Kicker 2020b). In Germany, the relaunch requests were accompanied by solemn oaths that the sport would be reformed and provide its clubs a financially more sustainable basis. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christian Seifert, CEO of the DFL said that it was ‘not easy to have a discussion on negative developments in a system which has been so successful in recent years’ and that it ‘perhaps took a real crisis to come to a halt and to introspect’ (cited in Horeni 2020, my translation). He also announced a task force on the future of football and the possibility of salary caps on players’ wages (ibid.). By the time of the interview, it had become clear that—unexpectedly—the public backing for a resuming of league play was limited. According to a Yougov poll, only thirty-four per cent wanted to see a restart behind closed doors, while forty-six per cent were opposed to continuing the season at all (Schneider 2020). The organised fan scene also criticised the DFL’s course in the crisis in no uncertain terms, calling a return to play an ‘unadulterated mockery towards the rest of society’, there should be no ‘Lex Bundesliga’ (Fanszenen Deutschlands, cited. in Faszination Fankurve 2020, my translation). The communique also called for greater solidarity and a distribution of TV revenues down the leagues. Both the opposition of the fans to the relaunch as well as the well-known tendency of supporters to show up in front of stadiums despite a match being

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played behind closed doors, sparked fears that larger crowds might gather in front of stadiums in order to purposely violate the hygiene concept and force a termination of matches. Britain’s sport minister Nigel Huddleston said that these gatherings would ‘threaten football’s culture’ (cited in Ingle 2020). It is reassuring to hear that playing a total of ninety-two PL matches behind closed doors and limiting the contact between players on and off the field poses no such threat. As mentioned, this current crisis has made the prevalent, severe fragility of the system as outlined in this volume all too clear. A few days or weeks in which business is not as usual and the first major cracks appear. Although this is true for the top, it is all the more true for the lower levels where—as this study has shown—club finances are especially imbalanced with regard to the amount of the budget swallowed up by player wages. No business can be kept afloat on such a basis if the only continuous income stream ceases to bring in fresh money. Many fans want to see the current crisis as the herald of a long overdue, impending end of football as we know it and as a chance for fundamental renewal. I am sceptical. I believe that an outcome where the system as such returns to old habits once the current shock is over is much more likely. The system would have to truly renew itself from bottom up, if major changes are to be expected. A wide-reaching collapse of clubs throughout the leagues—the top ones included—could bring about such revolutionary change. However, I do not see a fallout on such a scale is imminent at the top. In the past weeks, football once more fell short of showing true solidarity, the topflight still exists in and for itself alone. The abandoned plans of Liverpool FC to follow the examples of Newcastle United and Tottenham to put staff on furlough on the basis of the UK government’s job retention scheme speaks for itself (Hunter 2020). The vast majority of players did not accept actual cuts to their salaries in support of ‘their’ clubs. In England at least, clubs managed to reach agreements with their players on wage deferrals. To my knowledge, a meaningful discussion on a fairer—or more solidary—redistribution of TV money has not taken place, neither in England nor Germany. Despite all the calls for and claims of solidarity and of football as community, it seems to be pretty much every man for himself. It is a strong display of the ties between football, politics and economy in Germany and England that the top leagues were able to continue their competitions when the top leagues of other sports could not. Moreover, the special status football enjoys becomes apparent as top football can

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now claim to be officially ‘system-relevant’, as it was allowed to continue its business at a time when only sectors attributed such status were kept running. It will remain to be seen what changes this current crisis will bring about to this relationship and the system itself. Lower league football, as the study has shown, has already faced a number of crises. This further challenge—for now—only makes these more apparent. There is still a beauty to the game itself, but I see little beauty in the conditions in which it is currently played. Whether this crisis heralds the end of football as we know it remains to be seen; it certainly meant a pause and thus, for once, a time to think on it.

Note 1. In Spain, La Liga and La Liga 2 had already resumed play on the weekend of 10–12 June. In Italy, Seria A and B relaunched on 20 June.

References Faszination Fankurve. (2020, April 16). Fanszenen Deutschland: ‘Geisterspiele sind keine Lösung’. Faszination Fankurve. https://www.faszination-fan kurve.de/index.php?head=Geisterspiele-sind-keine-Loesung&folder=sites& site=news_detail&news_id=21677. Horeni, M. (2020, April 28). DFL-Chef Seifert im Interview: ‘Es muss möglich sein, Gehälter von Spielern zu deckeln’. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. https://www.faz.net/-gtn-9yx4z. Hunter, A. (2020, April 6). Liverpool Reverse Decision to Furlough Staff After Fierce Criticism. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/ 2020/apr/06/liverpool-reverse-decision-to-furlough-staff-after-fierce-critic ism-coronavirus. Ingle, S. (2020, June 16). Government Warns of Neutral Grounds in Premier League If Fans Go to Matches. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian. com/football/2020/jun/16/government-warns-of-neutral-grounds-in-pre mier-league-if-fans-go-to-matches. Kicker. (2020a, June 21). Sky bleibt wichtigster DFL-Partner - SamstagabendSpiele der 2. Liga im Free-TV. https://www.kicker.de/778014/artikel. Kicker. (2020b, June 17). Regionalliga Nord plant Aufteilung in zwei Staffeln. Kicker. https://www.kicker.de/777717/artikel/. Kicker. (2020c, January 13). Neuer TV-Vertrag: Die Bundesliga braucht 5,2 Milliarden Euro. Kicker. https://www.kicker.de/767041/artikel. MDR. (2020a, April 13). 3. Liga tief zerstritten—Sollen Vereine in die Insolvenz gezwungen werden? MDR. https://www.mdr.de/sport/fussball_3l/grosser-

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streit-in-der-dritten-liga-sollen-vereine-in-die-insolvenz-gertrieben-werden100.html. MDR. (2020b, June 5). NOFV: Tag der Entscheidung für die Regionalliga Nordost. MDR. https://www.mdr.de/sport/fussball_rl/regionalliga-nofv-ent scheidung-100.html. Reid, N. (2020, April 7). Chesterfield FC Puts All Players and Staff on Furlough Due to Coronavirus. Derby Telegraph. https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/ news/local-news/chesterfield-fc-puts-players-furlough-4027337. Roan, D., Stone, S., & Scott, L. (2020, May 11). Premier League Clubs Facing £340m TV Refund Even If Season Resumes. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/ sport/football/52579299. Ruf, C. (2020, 17 June). 1. FC Kaiserslautern in der Insolvenz: Goldener Rettungsring. Der Spiegel. https://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/1-fc-kaiser slautern-beantragt-in-der-3-liga-insolvenz-pfaelzer-sauplan-a-69b7ee5a-5cc84f8c-9f67-c5f455a3ec9f. Schneider, P. (2020, May 11). Zu früh oder überfällig? Wie die Deutschen zur Fortsetzung der Bundesliga stehen. YouGov. https://yougov.de/news/2020/ 05/11/zu-fruh-oder-uberfallig-wie-die-deutschen-zur-fort/. Wilson, J. (2020, May 10). Dynamo Dresden Positive Tests ’Not a Setback’ to Bundesliga Restart. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foo tball/2020/05/10/dynamo-dresden-positive-tests-not-setback-bundesligarestart/. Wozniak, K. (2020, April 24). Keine Drittliga-Lizenz für den SC Verl. Reviersport. https://www.reviersport.de/artikel/keine-drittliga-lizenz-fuer-den-scverl/.

Index

A Academy, football, 251 Administration, 10, 50, 98, 99, 101, 103–108, 110, 159, 180, 183, 185, 191, 199, 200, 204, 210, 211, 231, 262, 263, 280, 292 Against Modern Football (AMF) (movement), 6, 60, 125, 226, 242, 268, 269, 272, 280, 286 All-Party Parliamentary Football Group (APPFG), 125, 154–156 Annual general meeting (AGM), 35, 188, 189, 191, 205–207, 211, 223, 225, 265

B Big society, 155, 163 Branding, 15, 191, 221, 264, 265

C Civil society, 27, 36, 46, 47, 49, 56, 60, 155, 157, 168, 261, 263, 272, 285 Coalition government, 163 Collective identity, 13, 18, 53–55, 131, 220, 241, 242, 278, 280 Commercialisation, 4, 9, 98, 117, 122, 124, 134, 146, 220, 224, 269, 270, 285 Commodification, 4, 9, 58, 117, 124, 269 Communitisation, 17, 62–64, 67, 120, 123, 170, 240, 256, 272, 278, 280, 282 Community engagement, 153, 160 Community programme (CP), 17, 18, 153, 165, 168, 169, 171, 181, 207, 221, 250, 252–258, 263, 267, 274 Company club, 35, 37, 38, 41, 56, 106, 110, 164, 165, 169, 180,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis, Football Research in an Enlarged Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0

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INDEX

182, 184, 201, 220, 264, 266, 273, 285 CSR, 165, 166, 168, 257, 262 Cultural capital, 49–51, 58, 59, 86, 106, 159, 185 Cultural resistance, 266, 272, 273, 280, 281

D Democracy, 189, 215, 224, 226, 266, 285 Do-It-Yourself (DIY), 233, 245

E English football league (EFL), 27, 32, 33, 38, 41, 83, 94, 99, 163, 209, 221, 250, 263 Established traditional football clubs (ETFC), 9, 179, 200, 253, 262, 267, 273 Etzioni, A., 2

F Foreign Investment, 86, 87, 89, 90

G Globalisation, 6, 13, 14, 19, 36, 46, 54, 222 Glocalisation, 11, 13, 18, 19, 222, 278, 279 Governance, 6–8, 27, 202, 275, 284, 286 Ground moves, 137–138

H Human capital, 14, 211, 212 Hybrid organisations, 274, 283, 287

I Institutionalism, 13 (Institutional) mimicry/mimicking, 12, 15, 64, 128, 208, 278 Intervention, 99, 124, 155, 162, 266, 280 Isomorphism coercive, 12, 208, 262 mimetic, 12, 262, 264, 271, 273 normative, 12, 208, 262, 273 L Labour Party, 37, 156 Ladies football club (LFC), 168, 205, 258 Legitimisation, 11, 12, 17, 170, 193, 220, 221, 263, 273, 278, 281 Liberal market, 128, 285 M Members, 35–38, 40–42, 45–47, 50, 52, 55–57, 61, 65, 66, 81, 82, 91, 98, 107, 118, 119, 127, 128, 169, 180, 185–191, 200, 204, 205, 207, 212, 215, 220, 223–226, 231, 232, 234, 236, 239, 241, 244, 249, 256, 266, 268, 270, 272, 274, 279, 283 N National League (NL), 27, 29, 33, 60, 94, 163, 291, 293, 294 Neo-liberalism, 60 Network(s), 60, 251, 263, 282 O Ownership, 7, 8, 27, 38, 40, 41, 85–88, 90, 106, 109, 118, 127, 141–143, 155–157, 180, 182, 188, 227, 231, 234, 241,

INDEX

266–268, 274, 279, 280, 283, 286 P Player wages, 98, 220, 295 Political and protest football clubs (PPFC), 10, 18, 179, 180, 187, 200, 205, 212, 220, 226, 233, 236, 238, 240, 245, 253, 266, 267, 269, 270, 272, 273, 279, 280, 284, 286, 287 Politicisation, 57–60, 125, 153, 161, 268, 272, 278 Premier League (PL), 6, 27–29, 33, 36, 38, 41, 66, 82–86, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 103–105, 109, 110, 125, 139, 140, 142, 147, 160, 162, 163, 168, 170, 187, 206, 215, 221, 235, 241, 273, 287, 289, 291, 295 Protest, 86, 157, 179, 188, 242, 269, 270, 272 Punk football, 233 R Resilience, 11, 168, 280, 289 S Sense of place, 132, 134, 230, 262, 268 Separation of structures, 180 Social capital, 49

301

Societisation, 17, 58, 62–64, 67, 120, 122, 170, 240, 256, 272, 273, 278, 280, 282 Society club, 35, 40, 47, 56, 164, 165, 169, 187, 188, 236, 256, 280 Stakeholders, 56, 165, 170, 240, 272, 278 Supporter ownership, 6, 8, 155, 156, 169, 180, 183, 203–205, 215 Supporter Trust (ST), 4, 40, 50, 125, 183, 188, 268 T Taylor Report, 66, 139, 158 Third sector, 46, 47, 274 Third way, 18, 162 TV rights (revenues), 82, 91, 93, 95, 98, 105, 109, 110, 291 V Values, 2, 8, 12, 48, 52, 56, 61, 63, 81, 88, 89, 91–93, 95, 120, 122–125, 128, 133, 135, 136, 142, 145, 154, 155, 212, 225, 239, 240, 273, 278, 280, 281, 286 Volunteers, 42, 47, 81, 213, 249, 264 Y Young talent, 169, 204, 207, 208, 211, 214, 215