International sporting events, including the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup, have experienced profound growth in popularity and significance since the mid-twentieth century. Sports often facilitate diplomacy, revealing common interests across borders and uniting groups of people who are otherwise divided by history, ethnicity, or politics. In many countries, popular athletes have become diplomatic envoys. Sport is an arena in which international conflict and compromise find expression, yet the impact of sports on foreign relations has not been widely studied by scholars. In Diplomatic Games, a team of international scholars examines how the nexus of sport and foreign relations has driven political and cultural change since 1945, demonstrating how governments have used athletic competition to maintain and strengthen alliances, promote policies, and increase national prestige. The contributors investigate topics such as China's use of sports to oppose Western imperialism, the ways in which sports helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, and the impact of the United States' 1980 Olympic boycott on U.S.-Soviet relations. Bringing together innovative scholarship from around the globe, this groundbreaking collection makes a compelling case for the use of sport as a lens through which to view international relations.

This is a multidisciplinary contribution to the burgeoning literature on and around mega-events in general and sports mega-events in particular. The volume is not specifically about mega-events or their management, but rather how such events act as a lens through which a number of important and critical questions about the decisions to host, the host nation, its society and the politics of culture, sport and leisure more broadly can be dealt with. In doing so this book seeks to build on, and out from initial work on (sports) mega-events by acknowledging the major shift towards 'emerging' states awarded such events since 2006 and incorporating the latest advances in research that have taken place in recent years. For example, debates about what constitutes a 'mega-event', what is meant by a 'legacy', what is 'soft power' and so on are dealt with from a team of leading academics from a variety of academic disciplines. This book was previously published as a special issue of Leisure Studies.

This empirically-grounded text examines the policy, planning, development and implementation of disability sport events. It draws insights from a major international comparative study of different types of large multi-national sporting events: integrated events where able-bodied athletes and athletes with a disability compete alongside one another, and non-integrated events where athletes with a disability are separated by time but occurring in the same location. Guided by a critical disability studies perspective, the book highlights the strategic opportunity of sporting events to influence social change around community participation, and attitudes and awareness about disability more broadly. It also challenges assumptions about positive event legacies and suggests a need for a multi-lateral approach to planning. An important read for students, researchers and scholars in the fields of sport policy, sport development, disability sport, sport management, disability studies and event studies.

Acknowledging China's established status as a global sporting superpower, this is the first book to systematically investigate sport policy in that country. With a focus on sport development in the most recent three decades, Sport Policy in China explores a wide range of topics in Chinese sport, including elite sport development, professional sports, major sports events, sport for all, the political context within which sport is interiorised and the distinctive sporting status of Hong Kong. It examines the debates around policy, globalisation, diplomacy and soft power, as well as the significance of the principle of 'one country, two systems'. With international appeal, this book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of sport policy, sport management, sport development and sport sociology.

Historical research on the Olympic Movement is highly valuable as it displays processes of continuity and transformation by which knowledge building processes on the Olympic Movement, its structure and on Olympic sport can be expanded. The Olympic Movement can be addressed from multidisciplinary perspectives, including management, sociology, education, philosophy and history. This comprehensive collection examines the multifaceted profile of the Olympic and Paralympic Movement and presents new insights drawn from a variety of research projects. Historical and political dimensions of the Olympic and Paralympic Movement are addressed, along with educational, ethical, commercial and sociological perspectives. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

Sport governance no longer stirs public opinion only when scandals surface; it has become a persistent concern for a number of stakeholders, such as the media, sport followers, and corporates that produce and sponsor sport. Contemporary sport governance is characterised by tension between sport's potential for commercial benefit on the one hand and moral education and social development on the other. The perceived incompatibility of these two aspects has led to intense conversations in the media, administrative circles, and the public sphere about the need for ethics to be the key element of governance. The chapters in this volume explore the contemporary forms of governance that is structured by sport's extensive transnational networks, shifts in what the stakeholders mentioned above understand by 'ethics', and the emergence of new stakeholders. They identify as the two major directions of contemporary sport governance the growing significance of the non-West, especially in relation to event hosting, and the need for controlling the behaviour of emergent interest groups. The latter is a complex constellation of athletes, officials, supporters, lawyers, and politicians who share power and collectively determine corporate and non-profit governance, legal aspects, and regulatory mechanisms from within their subjective locations. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in Sport in Society.

A fundamental component of the Olympic ideal is the concept of Olympic education. This is the notion that sport can help children and young people develop essential life skills. Olympic Education: An international review is the first book to offer a comprehensive survey of the diffusion and implementation of Olympic education programmes around the world. The book includes 28 chapters with 21 national case studies of countries on every major continent, including Australia, Brasil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Spain, the UK, the US and Zambia. Each chapter examines the cultural, pedagogical, political and societal challenges of teaching Olympic education, as well as the national, individual and institutional programmes that have emerged. It explores key practical and conceptual issues, such as the incorporation of Olympic values in PE curricula, sport coaching and coach education programmes, while also taking into account the collaborative efforts of the governmental bodies, sport federations and Olympic institutions responsible for policy and implementation. This is important reading for all students, researchers and professionals with an interest in the Olympics, sport education, sports coaching, sport policy or physical education.

Why is sport so important among participants and spectators when its goals seem so pointless? Stephen Mumford's book introduces the reader to a host of philosophical topics found in sport, and argues that sports activities reflect diverse human experiences - including important values that we continue to contest. The author explores physicality, competition, how sport is best defined, ethics in sport, and issues of inclusion such as disability sports, the gender divide, and transgender athletes. His book is written for anyone who is thoughtful, a sports enthusiast, or both, and will deepen our understanding of sport and its place in our lives. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.

Mega-events represent an important moment in the life of a city, providing a useful lens through which we may analyse their cultural, social, political and economic development. In the wake of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC's) concerns about 'gigantism' and wider public concerns about rising costs, it was imperative in the C21st to demonstrate the long term benefits that arose for the city and nations from hosting premier sporting events. 'London 2012' was the first to integrate the concept of legacy from the moment a bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games was being considered. London proposed an ambitious programme of urban renewal for East London. Subsequent host city bids have adopted the 'legacy narrative' and, as this book demonstrates, aligned this to major schemes of urban development and renewal. Bringing together scholars, practitioners and policy makers, this book focuses upon the legacies sought by cities that host major sports events. It analyses how governments, the IOC and others define and measure 'legacy'. It also focuses upon the challenges and opportunities facing future host cities of mega-events, looking at their aspirations and the intended impact upon their domestic and international development. It questions what the global shift in geographical location of mega-events means for sports development and the business of sport, what the attractions are for cities seeking to harness the hosting of a mega-event, and whether there may be longer term consequences for the bidding and hosting major sporting events in the wake of the widespread social unrest that accompanied the preparations in Brazil for hosting the FIFA World Cup (2014) and the summer Olympics (2016) and in Turkey, where there was significant opposition to bid for the 2020 summer Olympiad.

This open access book brings together oral histories that record the experiences of individuals with intellectual disabilities in Shanghai as they participate in their careers. Employees with intellectual disabilities describe their experiences seeking, attaining, and maintaining employment. Their managers, colleagues, and family members also provide keen insight into the challenges and opportunities these individuals have encountered in the process of securing employment. An appendix provides a compilation of employment policies related to people with intellectual disabilities, particularly with respect to Shanghai.

Sport has long been used as a tool for political gain and many major sporting events are now often framed as a panacea to help combat issues such as rising obesity rates, decreasing physical activity levels and wider urban decline. In reality though, fostering a temporary 'feel-good factor' is the most that many of these events can ever achieve even though a number are now sold on the popular rhetoric of legacy. Drawing upon a range of events and the work of international scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, this collection offers insights into the ways in which events outside of the big two are (re)positioned as part of the wider sporting landscape. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Sport in Society.

Since its emergence in Italy in 1968, one model of football fandom has become the most dominant in the world: the ultras. Producing complex choreography, chants, banners and pyrotechnics, ultras represent a highly organised style of fandom that has an increasing global reach and visibility. Over the last fifty years, ultras fandom has spread from Southern Europe across North Africa to Northern and Eastern Europe, South East Asia and North America. Their collective performance, unity and harmonisation not only distinguish ultras from other football fans, but from many other forms of group behaviour. By focusing on the common form of expression through the performance of choreographies, chants and sustained support throughout the match, this book shows how members build an emotional attachment to their club that valorises the colours and symbols of that team while mobilising members against opponents. This volume seeks to make a clear theoretical shift in studies of football fandom by asking fundamental sociological questions concerning group formation, collective performance and emotional relationships. As a collective that pride themselves on having a shared, coherent sense of identity based on an act of consumption, ultras represent an important site of enquiry into masculinity and nationalism in contemporary society. -- .

This book examines the gendered politics in the context of a merger of the women's and men's athletic departments at the University of Minnesota over a ten year plus span. Examining the athletic department merger helps us understand women's continual under-representation in University athletics despite Title IX legislation passing 40 years ago. Using interview with organizational stakeholders and archival document data, the book explores how organizational change in the form of a merger is gendered with relation to the premerger, merged, post-merger stages.

Analyzing how tennis turned pro The arrival of the Open era in 1968 was a watershed in the history of tennis--the year that marked its advent as a professionalized sport. Merging wide-angle history with individual stories of players and off-the-court figures, Greg Ruth charts tennis’s evolution into the game we watch today. His vivid account moves from the cloistered world of nineteenth-century lawn tennis through the longtime amateur-professional divide and the battles over commercialization that raged from the 1920s until 1968. From there, Ruth details the post-1968 expansion of the game as it was transformed by bankable superstars, a popular women’s tour, rival governing bodies, and sponsorship money. What emerges is a fascinating history of the economics and politics that made tennis a decisive, if unlikely, force in the creation of modern-day sports entertainment. Comprehensive and engaging, Tennis tells the interlocking stories of the figures and factors that birthed the professional game.

Corruption in the sport industry is a pervasive issue that threatens the integrity of sport as an institution. From doping and match-fixing to money laundering, corruption should be a concern to anybody interested in sport policy, management, governance, or ethics. This is the first book to explore the complexity of sport corruption in terms of its conceptualisation, causes, consequences, and reform. The first part looks at the concept of sport corruption, while the second examines the causes of sport corruption from individual, organisational, industry-wide, and longitudinal viewpoints. The third part discussed is the consequences of sport corruption and its impact on the global sport industry. Various approaches to regulatory reform are considered in the next part, as well as the challenges of combatting corruption in the sport industry. The final part assesses the current state of literature in this area and suggests opportunities for future research. Drawing on multidisciplinary case studies from across the world, this is a seminal contribution to the academic study of corruption in sport. It is important reading for all students and scholars of sport management, business, criminology, and law.

This book highlights the different roles of youth sport, from sport for all and community sport activities to elite sport and international competitions, to suggest significant new directions for youth sport research and practices. The collection addresses a range of prominent management and policy issues associated with the growing interest in research into youth sport. Major youth sport events such as the Youth Olympic Games and the European Youth Olympic Festival are included in this collection as important policy arenas. In addition, the collection addresses a series of under-researched topics including the welfare of young elite athletes, the process of talent identification and development in elite youth disability sport and how young athletes cope with emotional abuse. The contributors to this collection are drawn from a wide range of countries Canada, the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Norway. The book ends with an overview of the state of research into sport-based youth development and highlights trends and gaps in the literature suitable for further research. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in Sport in Society.

Public health is a key priority for developed and developing nations. Indeed, many countries have sought strategies to promote health and reduce health inequalities. A 'settings approach' to promoting health has been endorsed by the World Health Organization, which has seen settings such as workplaces, schools, hospitals and prisons utilised to promote health. Alongside this, sport has received increasing pressure to consider its social role within the societies and communities in which it operates. Healthy Stadia is a European focused initiative with lessons relevant for global audiences to develop: (i) healthier stadium environments for fans and non-matchday visitors (e.g. smoke-free environments), (ii) healthier club workforces (e.g. bike to work schemes) and (iii) healthier populations in local communities (e.g. child obesity interventions). This book outlines lessons and insight from practitioners and empirical research for those seeking to learn and research stadia as a settings approach to health promotion. The areas covered include: practical considerations for health promotion in sports stadia; empirical research on the sports stadia as a setting for public health promotion; research on physical activity and health promotion programmes delivered by the outward facing community trusts attached to sports clubs; an analysis of the policy considerations for health promotion by sports clubs in school based settings and critical insight and discussion surrounding the use of physical activity and sport interventions to promote physical activity and public health. The chapters in this book originally published in a special issue of Sport in Society.

In a world of competing public policy priorities, economic challenges and political uncertainty, sports development organisations and initiatives need to adapt to survive. This book makes the case for 'Sporting Capital' as a new conceptual model of sports participation with the potential to transform public policy and practice in sports development. The central argument presented is that a model of Sporting Capital - with its three domains of physiological, social and psychological attributes - provides a missing framework, creating a new impetus for sustained growth in community sport by joining up the levels at which sports development is planned and implemented. Touching on important issues such as youth sport, public health, volunteering, disability, ethnicity and social inequality, it examines patterns of sports participation in relation to age, gender and social class and offers recommendations for strategic policy improvements that can be implemented by practitioners working on the frontline of community sport. Sporting Capital: Transforming Sports Development Policy and Practice provides valuable insights for all those interested in sports development, youth sport, community sport, or sport and social policy.

The untold story of the most contested fixture in world football.

Liverpool and Manchester. Two gloriously independent-minded, eclectic, culturally vibrant places. Yet the inhabitants dislike each other with a passion that is visceral. It is a divide that spans generations, across class, gender and ethnicity. And it has grown over the years, largely driven by one thing: football.

The dark, malignant loathing shared by the followers of Liverpool and Manchester United has seeped into every aspect of life in the two cities. Football is not a barometer of disdain, as it is in places like Glasgow or Istanbul or Moscow. In northwest England, it is the engine of animosity.

How did it come to this? Why did things turn so nasty? And what does it say about the two cities in which the clubs are based?

Written by a Scouser and a Manc in a rare collaboration, Red on Red addresses the divide by talking to those involved in ten seminal football matches. It speaks to the characters who patrolled and provoked the rivalry: Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish, Steven Gerrard and Gary Neville, among many others. Also questioned are the fans, the administrators, the referees, the police, and politicians. And through each legendary game, its authors tell the full story of the most extraordinary division not just in football, but in modern Britain.

This is Red on Red, a rivalry like no other.

Taking part in a sport means that one must acquire the relevant skills: mental, physical and strategic. This book presents a new perspective on the role of skills, knowledge and intentionality in sporting contexts, examining how these skills and practical 'know how' can be perfected to a level of expertise. Contributors study broader trends of how we can best understand the role of skills, as well as using case studies of expertise to add depth and nuance to existing scholarship. This book was originally published as a special issue of Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.

This book offers a rare chance to understand how sport and architecture come together to create an outstanding building type - a symbol of our times. Rod Sheard shares the experience and expertise of HOK LOBB in this beautifully illustrated book, offering practical advice and guidance on commissioning, designing and managing sports venues around the world. The award-winning work of this firm includes the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, the Wembley National Stadium, London and the Stadium Australia in Sydney, commissioned for the Olympic Games 2000.

Managing Football is the first book to directly respond to the rapid managerial, commercial and global development of the sport and offers a thorough analysis of how the football industry can meet the challenges that flow from these developments. Expertly edited by two well known specialists in football business management, it draws together the work of a world-class contributor team to form a comprehensive analysis of the most important issues facing the managers of football businesses across the world. The cutting edge analysis examines all the important business challenges in the football industry and the management of football businesses and covers all of the key football markets including England, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, North America, China, South Africa, South Korea, the Netherlands and Belgium, and Mexico. Managing Football is simply a must-read for anyone studying or working in football business management and is set to be an important landmark in this rapidly moving and globally expansive field.

Sport is a global business. Now more than ever, sport communication professionals need to understand sport's global reach in order to develop their full potential. This is the first textbook to introduce the fundamental principles and practice of sport communication from an international perspective. Combining business strategies with insights into social issues such as gender, disability and national identity, this is an accessible, practical and engaging guide to the essentials of sport communication. Aimed to enhance learning at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, each chapter contains special features tailored to meet the needs of students and instructors. These include learning objectives, chapter summaries, activities, reflections, discussion questions, recommended resource lists and original cross-cultural case studies that demonstrate sport communication theories put into practice. Its twenty chapters explore communication in sport across all levels, from interpersonal communication and team building to strategic communications, and in all forms of media, from print and broadcast to social media. Sport Communication: An International Approach is an essential text for any course on sport communication, sport business or sport management.

This book brings together many new and exciting international approaches to sport heritage. It provides a thought-provoking sport heritage case study that would be of interest to students and researchers in history, geography, anthropology, marketing, and industry practitioners at sporting events.

The book highlights 'new perspectives' on volunteerism in sport, covering frameworks, methods, context and variables on several levels from community sport clubs to international events. In analysing the processes of control within voluntary sport clubs, a new theoretical framework - critical realism (CR) - challenges how we think about theory and how scientific inquiry should proceed. Further themes raised are: Should sports clubs be viewed as a crossing between a traditional volunteer culture dominated by collective solidarity, and a modern volunteer culture focused on the individual benefits? Are former athletes a new group of possible volunteers? Can personal narratives of experiences of being a volunteer in a big international event provide us with new insight that has not previously been considered? Identity is suggested as a motive for understanding volunteers at sporting events. Two new theoretical models are presented, one on the development of volunteer commitment and the other on a framework that incorporates both individual- and institutional-level variables. All chapters have recommendations for future research. The testing of these theories and influencing factors will provide new directions in the research of sport volunteerism. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Sport Management Quarterly.