Overview
Despite thirty plus years of rampant commercialization and marketization, football and football clubs remain central to many communities: sources of solidarity, civic engagement and national and international pride. This book explores the history of the peopleās game, looks at how it has become less and less the province of the people andĀ more and more the plaything of oligarchs, billionaires and commercial interests, and explains why and how we need to take it back.
Football's importance not just to local communities but to local and national economies is used as the jumping-off point to argue for a new economic model for the sport, one based on the idea of the public-commons partnership. These partnerships and the reorganising of production around them offer a theoretically grounded and fully worked through alternative to current models and propose an entirely different set of relationships between citizens, the state and each other, one more in keeping with the principles that underly the traditions from which football and its deeply felt and lived allegiances belong.
As neoliberalism continues to exploit English fandomās love for the game, loading up clubs with debt, hiking ticket and shirt prices, blasting them with adverts and exposing them to unscrupulous gambling companies, Football, the People's Shame seeks to be a clarion call to the fans to break out of their passivity and fatalism and begin to demand something new, offering a workable set of progressive alternatives while also daring to dream big about a complete transformation of the current depressing reality. Football is more than just a sport. Itās a way of life, a vital social, political and economic dynamo and fanās deep and abiding passion for the game can and should become the engine through which society is reorganised.
This book title, Football, the People's Shame (How to Revolutionise a National Sport), ISBN: 9781915672551, by Micky Kerr, published by Watkins Media (December 3, 2024) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
Unlike Amazon and other retailers who may also offer Football, the People's Shame (How to Revolutionise a National Sport) books on their website, we specialize in large quantities and provide personal service, from trusted, experienced, friendly people in Portland, Oregon. We offer a Price Match Guarantee, and QuickQuote form, to make purchasing quick and easy.
Prefer to work with a human being when you order Football, the People's Shame (How to Revolutionise a National Sport) books in bulk? Our Book Specialists are standing by Monday-Friday 8-5 PST, ready to help!