Football and Community in the Global Context - Studies in Theory and Practice (Electronic book text)

Football clubs across the world continue to embody many of the collective symbols, identifications and processes of connectivity which have long been associated with the notion of OCycommunityOCO. In recent years, however, the very term OCycommunityOCO has become the focus of renewed interest within popular discourse and amongst academics, politicians and policy makers. It has become something of a OCybuzzOCO word, wheeled out as both a lament to more certain times and as an appeal to a better future: a term imbued with all the richness associated with human interaction.

OCyCommunityOCO has also been employed increasingly within football, for instrumental reasons concerned with policy and stadium redevelopment, and in broader rhetoric about clubs, their localities and fans.

This book brings together a range of key debates around contemporary understandings of OCycommunityOCO in world football. Split into four sections, it considers

political and theoretical debates around football and its connection with community;

different national and ethnic football communities;

instrumental uses of football to bridge gaps within and between groups;

future directions in the football and community debate.

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