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The aim of this article is to increase the understanding of the global and local contexts in football by finding out what social, cultural and economic dimensions seem to characterize ‘periphery’ football. This study applies figurational sociological perspective, which is applicable to the research on globalization processes and sport. The sources...
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The aim of this article is to increase the understanding of the global and local contexts in football by finding out what complex and interdependent social, cultural, and economic dimensions seem to have shaped ‘periphery’ football. More specifically, the professionalization of top-level football players in Hungarian and Finnish football cultures s...
This article aims to increase understanding of the global-local contexts in football by exploring the changing field of professional football stadiums in Finland and Hungary in the 2000s. More specifically, the cases of two clubs, HJK (Finland) and Ferencvárosi TC (Hungary) are studied. We employ concepts of sport and globalization. The research da...
The Institute of Sport Science at the University of West-Hungary, and the FH-Joanneum – together with students majoring in sport science – started a collaborative international research aimed at assessing the sport-specific skills of football players.
The study closely monitored football players – from leagues at different levels – in terms of choi...
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... Over the last decade, this was confirmed by other studies that showed many aspects of globalized spatiality and globalization in clubs' life are still present (Dehouche 2019;Millward 2011;Portet 2011) while some have even strengthened, i.e. the foreign investments in European clubs (Garcia and Amara 2013;Marin and Lee 2020). This globalization of football, and particularly football clubs, is generally understood within the literature as a process of glocalization whereby the local dimension of football clubs transforms, moulds and adjust to the global processes, to meet the expectation of both local and global needs, beliefs and customs (Giulianotti and Robertson 2009;Jijon 2017;Szerovay, Itkonen, and Vehmas 2017). Glocalization was described by Swyngedouw (2004) as a question of scaling since local and global processes of socio-spatiality go upward and downward to finally meet at the local level of body, organizations, urban or regional materiality, opening afterwards conditions of sub-national and national developments by hierarchical and nonhierarchical local, regional and national institutional arrangements. ...
Football clubs located within competitive metropolitan spaces and owned by local municipalities develop their socio-spatiality through strong multiscalarities. Drawing from the sociology of football, human geography, geopolitical economy and urban studies, our study reveals that, within the competitive metropolitan city-region space, politico-institutional actors may capture small football clubs and competition and exploit them through various scenarios that reflect the politico-institutional scaffolding of local, regional or national scales, or the political, social and economic imaginaries or practices of the politico-institutional actors. Our case study deals with the small clubs from Ilfov county in Romania, which is part of the city-region developed around the global city of Bucharest. Over the last two decades, the Ilfov county has become the most represented county in the first two tiers of the Romanian football league system. Prior to that, clubs from Ilfov were absent from the first tiers. To examine the scalarity of football clubs from Ilfov, we analyse the socio-spatialities of (1) their success in terms of investment, (2) their club identity and (3) the scalar networks involved in hosting international tournaments.
... . The 'world market outlines configurations that are inscribed on the terrestrial surface of changing spaces'(SSW, 201).'Social and political space on a world scale reproduces the local and national links'; it does not 'disappear in the course of growth and development: the worldwide does not abolish the local'(SSW, 218; PoS, 86).Globalising tendencies are well-recognised in sport (e.g.Giulianotti and Robertson 2007; even considered 'taken for granted': Maguire 2015, 519), football(Finn and Giulianotti 2000; Giulianotti 1999, xi) and Finnish football(Itkonen and Nevala 2007a, 18;Szerovay, Itkonen, and Vehmas 2015). The increased transfers of foreign players to Finland and a town like Seinäjoki represented by a young man from the north-east ofEngland (Jokiranta 2012;Naakka 2014;Tirri 2015), new international club ownership like the Chinese control over HIFK(Kylmänen 2019), and the change from Finnish public broadcaster YLE's single English Saturday afternoon match to the plethora of European leagues now available on television and online almost every day of the week(Tikander 2010, 5), are a few examples of the Finnish context. ...
This thesis has two intertwined goals: to articulate a coherent approach to sport loyal to Lefebvre’s philosophy using the concrete case of Finnish football, and so to point possible paths for improving Finnish football using Lefebvrian theory. Based in the ‘Third Wave’ of Lefebvrian scholarship, I explore the humanism, critique, and urbanism in his physical, mental, and lived dialectic. I engage with the influences of Heidegger, Nietzsche, Hegel, and, most prominently, Marx on his expansive oeuvre and the arising concepts of: totality and the residuality of everyday life held together in a collective subjectivity; globalisation and the neoliberal and neomanagerial strategies of the state; metaphilosophy, transformative praxis, the bodily truth of poietic creativity, and mimetic repetition (as not always an empty copy); time, its moments, and its linear and cyclical rhythms; alienation and the romantic revolution against the fetishised concrete abstractions of the exchange value, ideologies (with a more inclusive definition of ideology than in which Lefebvre has usually been understood), and space, as well as the latter’s reimagining in utopias. Using these concepts, I describe some features of Finnish football and critically uncover problems in it. Beyond my own experiences, especially coaching, I describe the general capitalist mode of Finnish football under globalisation and the neoliberal and neomanagerial strategies of the Finnish national and municipal governments and sports associations (the democracy of the new Finnish Football Federation’s structure remains to be seen). I explore the alienation arising from the abstractions of the game by the federation-run ‘skill competitions’, the logic of the exchange value, and from both sides of the ideological clash between sport as achievement and the sport-for-all Kaikki Pelaa (Everybody Plays) programme. I set the task for all people involved in football to live a new praxis and imagine the possible futures of a disalienated game.
... Although football has become increasingly relevant as a terrain for sociological inquiry (Giulianotti and Robertson 2012b, 218), it has been observed that there is a lack of deeper analysis of the different aspects of football in less developed football countries, such as Finland and Hungary. Research on football and globalization so far mainly centred on core football countries (Szabados 2008, 60;Szerovay, Itkonen, and Vehmas 2017, 2) such as England, Germany, Spain, and Italy. In addition, until recent years stadium management within the study of the development of contemporary stadiums has received scant attention from scholars (Paramio, Buraimo, and Campos 2008, 518). ...
This article aims to increase understanding of the global-local contexts in football by exploring the changing field of professional football stadiums in Finland and Hungary in the 2000s. More specifically, the cases of two clubs, HJK (Finland) and Ferencvárosi TC (Hungary) are studied. We employ concepts of sport and globalization. The research data consist of semi-structured expert interviews with Finnish and Hungarian football practitioners, media and club documents, and data from observation. The results suggest that interactions of global and local forces are reflected in the development and operation of stadiums. On the one hand, international and national governing bodies have strengthened their control over the different aspects of stadiums, indicating increasing standardization. On the other hand, due to distinct local histories and conditions, the development and management of stadiums have shown dissimilar trajectories, as demonstrated in the Finnish and Hungarian contexts, therefore highlighting both homogenization and heterogenization processes.
Scholars have examined the political role of football for Qatari authorities, but what football means to citizens remains unexplored. This paper seeks to answer the question ‘what is Qatari football?’, through four parts: firstly, the introductory part identifies the gap in the literature and situates the paper in relevant academic discussions (in particular related to the concepts of glocal and modern traditionalism). The second part provides the historical and social context, while the fourth, empirical part reviews the history and development in football in Qatar and discusses and how traditional social markers and tribal identities is reflected in football in Qatar through interviews with young players and supporters. This part also highlights an ambivalence towards commercialization and politicization of Qatari football among supporters. Finally, the paper concludes that Qatari football is very much like the country itself; neither modern nor traditional, affected by both globalization, politics and distinct local features.
The aim of this study is to increase understanding of football’s global and local contexts. More specifically, the development paths of Finnish and Hungarian football are explored and compared in four research articles from different perspectives within a global framework. These viewpoints, in addition to a historical-sociological overview in the article I, cover closely interrelated phenomena observable in the landscape of top-level football: the organization of elite youth football, the professionalization of players and the development of football stadiums. The main research question of the study is as follows: In what way have glocal interactions in men’s football shaped the development paths of less developed football countries such as Finland and Hungary?
The theoretical framework is formulated around the globalization of foot-ball within the social sciences of sport. The main approaches applied are fig-urational sociology and the concept of the duality of glocality. The research data consisted of thirty-six semi-structured expert interviews with Finnish and Hun-garian football practitioners, media and club documents and data from obser-vation. The data were transcribed, coded and themed according to the research questions of each article.
The results suggest that the player pathways and the financing of elite youth clubs differ considerably in the two settings. In the 2010s, for example, the main source of income for Finnish clubs is provided by households. On the other hand, Hungarian clubs earn the majority of their revenues through a cor-porate tax scheme and support from the Hungarian Football Federation. Simul-taneously, professionalization, growing amount of full-time coaches and ex-panding social networks are typical in both countries and suggest homogeniza-tion processes at work. Since the 1980s, football players in Finland have transi-tioned from amateur status into different levels of semi-professionals whereas in Hungary the movement has been from hidden professionals to professionals. The development of players’ unions has mirrored the professionalization of players. However, in neither of the countries have football players achieved the status of regular employees to date. Regarding football stadiums in the 2000s, international and national governing bodies have strengthened their control over the different aspects of stadiums, indicating increasing standardization. Importing knowledge, increasing specialization and the appearance of com-mercial elements have been typical trends in both countries. On the other hand, the size of the facilities and the types of playing surfaces have been adjusted to the given football environment. In addition, facility development and stadium management solutions have differed in the two countries.
The findings indicate that the interactions of local as well as global forces are reflected in the development paths of football. This means that the diverse roots and routes of football mirror the social, economic, cultural and political background of the given country. In Finland, it was a strong civil society and the amateur origins of football, while in Hungary it was the state socialist past and the strong national status of football. At the same time, however, both countries have been increasingly integrated into the global football system. Football practitioners can benefit from the understanding gained by discussing what the concepts of, for example, youth football club, football academy and profes-sional player represent in different localities. Further practical applications are provided by exploring the increasing commercialization of football as well as the ways of acquiring knowledge in the various segments of the sport.
Keywords: football, globalization, glocalization, youth football club, professionalization, football stadium, Finland, Hungary
The history of Hungarian sociology of sport can be divided to two periods, which are different in terms of conditions but show similarities in many other ways. In the period between the mid-1960s and 1989, the intensive development of the discipline was hindered by the repression of sociology and the lack of interest in sport on the part of social scientists. However, the unique social functions of (elite) sport still created a demand for scientific inquiry. In the second period, from 1989 to the present day, the conditions of research freedom were established; yet, sport as an area for research failed to attract the attention of social scientists. In this respect, today's scholars of sociology of sport face similar problems as the founders of the discipline, although the changing economic conditions in terms of research funding and institutionalization provide a more favorable environment for the scientific investigation of sportrelated social issues. As a result, the number of sport sociological publications has steadily increased in the past decade and Hungarian scholars have the opportunity to participate in international conferences and research projects. This chapter reviews sociology of sport in Hungary, with a focus on historical heritage, institutionalization, the current situation, and barriers to development.
The aim of this article is to increase the understanding of the global and local contexts in football by finding out what complex and interdependent social, cultural and economic dimensions seem to shape periphery football. More specifically, the differences and similarities of Finnish and Hungarian elite youth football clubs in the 2010s are discussed. The theoretical framework is formulated within the social sciences of sport around the globalization of football. The main sources of data are interviews with football practitioners as well as popular publications on Finnish, Hungarian, and international football. The data were analysed with thematic content analysis. It was found that the concept and organization of top-level youth football is different in these two countries. At the same time, homogenization processes related to professionalization and specialization were observed. It is suggested that in spite of their peripheral status, both countries have become increasingly integrated into the global football system. However, the results also indicate that it is highly challenging for these countries to compete on the global football market.
Keywords: periphery football, glocalization, youth football, Finland
