Categories
2006 Abstracts Stage 2

The Commodification of Football

Chris Stanworth, 2006, Stage 2

AIM – To examine the changes in English football in recent decades, which have led to increasing levels of commodification. I intend to discover the reasons increased commodification has occurred, at the impact of increased commodification on both big clubs and small clubs and I intend to see how genuine football supporters have been affected. TERRITORY – My territory is the English Football League – I will look at how several English league clubs have been affected by the changes, focusing on two clubs who have been affected very differently, Burnley F.C. and Chelsea F.C. CHANGE – English Football’s Rapid transformation from being a sport to being a profit-making business, which began in the 1960s, accelerated in the 80s and still continues today. SOURCES – I focused mainly on the theories of the Situationist International, in particular Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. I also looked at Karl Marx’s Capital. and other texts from the Situationists and Marx. I also used several texts that examined changes in English football, in particular Anthony King’s The End of The Terraces, which charts the transformation in English football in the last two decades in favour of big city clubs.

Leave a Reply