Football and Supporter Activism in Europe

This book is the first to explore and compare football governance, fandom culture and supporter engagement in Europe. With a specific focus on supporter activism and campaigning, the collection provides a comparative study of several European countries. The authors argue that supporters, despite being the pillar or the 'lifeblood' of their club, see their role in football governance marginalised. The volume is unique in that it challenges the widely accepted assumption that membership football clubs encourage the democratic participation of supporters.

Covering football fandom in both the traditional 'big five' leagues and non-'big five' countries such as Portugal, Turkey, Croatia, Poland and Czech Republic, the volume will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, history, sport management, sport governance and political science.

Borja García is Senior Lecturer in Sport Management and Policy at Loughborough University, UK. He is an internationally renowned expert in the study of the European Union sport policy, the governance of football and the political activism of football supporters. He is one of the founders of the Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union. He was one of the leaders of the ground-breaking FREE Project.

Jinming Zheng is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Global Sport and Recreation Studies, Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University and he has published widely on a variety of topics relating to sport.