CFP: The Development of Football: Commercialization, Culture and Identity

The Development of Football:
Commercialization, Culture and Identity

Thursday, April 8 – Saturday, April 10, 2010

Department of Sport Science, Malmö University
Location, Orkanen


Ever since the revolutionary breakthrough of television and, a decade or so later, the infamous Bosman ruling, the world of association football has been divided into strong centers, less powerful semi-peripheries, and more or less marginalized fringes. Some national leagues have, in sporting and economic terms, left the others far behind. The same pattern is apparent in women’s football. What’s more, there’s a clear division within the national leagues as well, with the same handful of rich and famous clubs claiming top positions in the league tables. Is this the football of the future? Is the division into centers and peripheries beneficial for football? These are some of the themes and question that will be penetrated at Malmö University’s important international football conference.

The conference on football will have a number of interesting keynote speakers – with local, global and glocal focuses. Confirmed speakers are Richard Giulianotti (UK), John Hughson (UK), Hans Hognestad (Norway), Boria Majumdar (India), Torbjörn Andersson (Sweden) and Jesper Fundberg (Sweden).

The conference committee now invites participants to present PAPERS, preferably, but not necessarily, relating to the following themes:

• The Status and the Prospects of National Football Leagues
• Post-Bosman and the Development of Football
• The Globalisation/Glocalisation of Football
• Football and Local and National Identity
• Directions in Contemporary and Future European Football
• The Future Development of Women Football
• Sponsoring and Marketing of Women Football
• The Implication of the 6+5 Rule or the Economic Doping of Football Clubs

Please submit ABSTRACTS (250 – 400 words) electronically to

• Annika Larsson (annika.larsson@mah.se)

no later than December 15, 2009. Notification of acceptance will be given on January 11, 2010. Accepted articles must be submitted in full by March 15th, and will be considered for publication in a special issue of Soccer and Society, in 2011, or in Nordic Sport Studies Forum.

For further information, please contact Bo Carlsson, Malmö University (bo.carlsson@mah.se)


But Actually, It’s Two Conferences...

The Department of Sport Science is organizing two separate, and yet partly coinciding conferences, under the joint heading of ”Centers and Peripheries in Sport”. Both conferences are focusing on inequalities in the development of sport. The first conference, “The Development of Football: Commercialization, Culture and Identity”, commencing on the 8th of April, acknowledges the inconsistencies in association football between centers and peripheries in the European context. On Saturday the 10th a particular focus on women’s football will mark the end of the first conference and the opening of the second conference, “The Development of Women Sport: Separate but not Equal”, which concentrates on the development of women’s sports, with an emphasis on equality and differences. A separate Call for Papers for the second conference has been distributed, and can be accessed through the conference website, http://www.centersandperipheriesinsport (active from October 26, 2009).

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