ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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	Abstracts

Defense or attack? Can soccer clubs help tackle social exclusion?
by
Philip R Holden
The Business School, University of Greenwich UK
Coauthors: Nick Wilde

In 1999 the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sports expressed its belief that sport (along with arts, cultural and recreational activity) “… can contribute to neighborhood renewal and make a real difference to health, crime, employment and education in deprived communities.” (DCMS, 1999) Sport, in particular, has been identified as a means of tackling social exclusion, particularly of young people both in the UK and in other countries (see, for example, Hartmann, 2001). Famously, in the US, participation in sport and leisure pastimes has been identified as an indicator of social capital (Puttnam 1995 and 2000).

In the UK, thinking on social capital and social exclusion has led to the targeting of funds through the Government’s (lottery funded) New Opportunities Fund (NOF, 2003) and such sport umbrella bodies as the Football Foundation which has set aside £53m for communities and, of that, £7.5m specifically for ‘community and education’ projects.

This comes at a time of increasing uncertainty in the finances of soccer clubs of all sizes. Whilst soccer clubs have been urged to embrace marketing techniques and undertake sponsorship and fundraising activities, they have also depended on benefactors and been offered other sources of funding, often tied to the creation of community facilities. The consequence is that government in the UK has become identified, particularly by smaller clubs, as a source of money that may help ensure survival.

The extent to which soccer clubs are involved in their communities already (and hence might be supposed to be appropriate vehicles for specifically ‘social’ projects) is known to vary considerably (Bale, 2000). Some anecdotal evidence suggests that large clubs are keen to use the PR value of community involvement whilst smaller, local clubs are less aware but often suffer, for example through vandalism, at the hands of the very socially excluded and disaffected young people that they may be urged to involve.

Clubs however are principally focussed on their own continued survival, as well as aims and values concerned with the game itself and success in competition. Watson (2000) suggests that to expect otherwise might be overly optimistic. But clearly Government thinking identifies sporting clubs as already embedded in the community, enable to enlist support and to act to change their environment.

Hence grant funding from the Football Foundation aims at broad issues or themes such as racial and sexual discrimination and the disengagement of young people and invites bids for funding in these areas. But the bid process also carries with it requirements to address such issues as the constitution of the club, its policy on discrimination and, at the very least, to pay lip-service to a particular discourse about the use of sport to tackle social issues. Clubs are thereby encouraged to present themselves as willing and knowledgeable agents of social change.

In this paper the theoretical and empirical basis of this assertion is challenged and by comparison between the UK and Spanish experience the actual role of soccer in social inclusion is assessed. Little literature has been found to explain how sport in general and soccer in particular is suited to countering issues of social inequality. Moreover, the lack of any shared understanding of the term ‘social exclusion’ or its antecedents in various dimensions of deprivation (CASE, 2002 or Hills et al, 2002) in issues of consumption, production, political activity and social engagement, suggests that policy is far from uncontroversial. It is unclear, for example, whether exclusion from sport is universally seen as a symptom of social exclusion or is itself, a form of exclusion.

One recent UK case study (Wainwright, 2003) suggested that a football tournament was an important ingredient in a wider social regeneration project, and that certain outcomes could be ascribed to it. However, the same case suggests such outcomes may not be long-lasting. Indeed some theoretical work hints at the intractability of some of the fundamental inequalities that beset society (see, for example, Piketty, 1998 and his review of Bourdieu’s concept of ‘persistent inequality’).

This paper reports on the initial findings of research based on interviews in a number of soccer clubs in the UK and in Spain. The clubs are of varying sizes, varying levels of resource and have varying levels of involvement in their local community. It compares the rhetoric regarding sport’s role in the community with the reality.

The interviews explore the extent to which concepts of social exclusion are understood and used in the clubs and, in particular, how social objectives are incorporated into the existing objectives and values and thence into action.

The importance of funding being made conditional on social outcomes is also investigated attempting to understand what happens when clubs enter into the grant application process with the Football Foundation. It explores the clash in cultures between various stakeholders in the club upon the introduction of a new, potentially major, actor – the grant maker.

The research argues that the success of soccer clubs as actors in combating social exclusion may depend on pre-existing factors, such as the culture of the club, as much as incentives from government. Furthermore, the process of application may actually reward those clubs whose key stakeholders already have a high degree of social capital, and discriminate against others, often those located in disadvantaged areas with, arguably, the greatest need for external funding.

A tentative conclusion discusses the possibility of exploring the application procedure for funding in order to more accurately analyse the dimensions of social capital that exist in clubs. ‘Seed funding’ could then address these fundamental building blocks of social capital before project funding is allocated. A possible outcome may be support for the recruitment of volunteers or, more commercial, partners from different parts of the community to increase the ‘linking’ and ‘bridging’ ties of the club. However such a process would, itself, have to be sensitive to the widely varying values, objectives and levels of understanding, amongst soccer clubs.

Keywords: social exclusion, social capital, soccer, sport, voluntary sector, UK, community involvement References Bale, J. (2000) “The Changing Face of Football Stadiums and Communities” in The Future of Football: Challenges in the Twenty First Century, Cass Publishers, London CASE (2002) CASEbrief 23, June 2002, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion DCMS (1999) Policy Action Team 10: Report on Social Exclusion UK Department for Culture Media and Sport Hartmann, D (2001) “Notes on Midnight Basketball and the Cultural Politics of Recreation, Race and at Risk Urban Youth” Journal of Sports and Social Issues Vol 25, No 4 pp 339-375 Hills, J., J. Le Grand and D. Piachaud (2002) Understanding Social Exclusion OUP NOF (2003) “Sport can tackle social exclusion” newsletter feature accessed online 24 September 2003. www.nof.org.uk Piketty, T (1998) “Self-fulfilling beliefs about social status” Journal of Public Economics 70 pp115-132 Puttnam, RD (1995) “Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital”. Journal of Democracy 6 pp65-78 Puttnam, RD (2000) Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community Simon & Shuster Wainwright, S (2003) “Assessing the impact of regeneration projects” in The UK Voluntary Sector Research Group Measuring Impact, Case-studies of impact assessment in small and medium-sized voluntary organisations, NCVO Watson, N. (2000) “Football in the Community: What’s the Score?” in The Future of Football: Challenges in the Twenty First Century, Cass Publishers, London

Date received: October 6, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # camm-26.