Deborah Agostino*, Irvine Lapsley**, Gert Paulsson***, Anna Thomasson***
INTRODUCTION: Football is a significant activity in contemporary society. It has been described as the new religion of the 21st century (Foer,2005). This study examines Football in Cities. This study takes a city management perspective. This research reveals commonalities of framing and management action between these apparently different organisations and demonstrates the intertwining of the city and its social life.
RESEARCH CONTEXT: This research combines the study of city management and sports management. There are important links between these football teams and their cities. While the study of cities continues to grow (Lapsley et al, 2010; Agostino and Lapsley, 2013) the significance of sports within the city has been neglected in the public management literature. This study addresses this gap in the literature.
THEORY: This research draws on ideas of identity, performativity and branding. This study contributes to the theoretical pluralism approach to the investigation of complex phenomena. An important feature of the football teams selected is their adoption of the names of their cities for their clubs. The branding of cities and football teams overlap. This has the potential to forge a strong identity between the city, the football club and citizens. Performance management is critical for both cities and management teams. A distinct focus in this research is on the interactions between these football clubs and their host cities as represented by city managers and elected representatives.
RESEARCH DESIGN: This is a comparative case study. It focusses on three football teams (Bologna, Malmo FF and Edinburgh City) in the cities of Bologna, Malmo and Edinburgh). It examines the experiences of both the cities and their football teams. The research uses a variety of sources. These include interviews with key actors within city management and within the football clubs; media reports; publicly available documents from these study settings and documents provided by the organisations in this study.
RESULTS: Our key findings:
1. The centrality of calculative practice in discourse within and around these study settings. This applies to the performance of football teams and the urbanistics of city performance management
2. For well-established football teams there is a strong duality of identity : football clubs identify with their host cities and city managers identify with their city football team
3. For one team, Edinburgh City, there is a strong identity with its city. But this is not reciprocated by city management which has conflicting pressures and allegiances in a multi club city
4. All the football clubs have made strenuous efforts to connect with their cities to elaborate a narrative of being a fundamental part of the city.
CONCLUSION : Football is more than a sport. It has the potential to be an integral part of city life. It can project the city, enhance its reputation and intensify the sense of identity with the city.
*Politecnico di Milano, ** University of Edinburgh *** Lund University
Smart Cities – analysing rhetoric and reality from a public management perspective
