The ‘Europeanization’ of elite football. Scope, meanings and significance

Abstract:

This paper seeks to make use of Appadurai's characterization of the contemporary global condition in terms of the disjunctive flows of a series of related 'social scapes'. This categorization is applied to an analysis of key recent developments within elite professional football, together taken to represent the 'Europeanizaton' of the 'soccerscape'. The paper then goes on to consider possible meanings and significance of such developments, in particular whether it is possible to argue that they may contribute, or have the potential to contribute to the emergence of a sense of 'Europeanness' among followers of football, especially the young.