Football and British Society

1. Introduction

In recent years, millions of people coming from over the world spend a lot of money on tickets and travelling costs to go to soccer stadiums to see their favorite team and billions of others watch football matches on TV every week. In Britain, currently, soccer is one of the most popular sporting activities for people (Oakland, 2006: 285). As Brimson (2006: 196) said, ‘each week, millions of Britons both male and female will play it, watch it, listen to it and read about it. Media empires are founded on it, weddings, christenings, funerals and even births are arranged around it and children name after those who play it’. Because of soccer’s attraction and benefits, today, many public companies have been created from football clubs (Oakland, 2006: 286). Economic benefits created by football are considerable. However, some problems appeared. Oakland (2006) showed that 80 percent of England’s football clubs lost money in 2001. Moreover, soccer is also criticized because it relates to racism and hooliganism. This report will illustrate that while football can be seen as big business, this type of sport has also created social problems due to hooliganism and racism. This report, firstly, will summarize the history of soccer then it will examine the impact of football on the British economy, youth styles and social issues associating with football culture, before giving some recommendations.

2. History

Football matches with fairly sufficient rules started to be popular in the middle of 19th century in some universities in England. According to FIFA, in October of 1863, Cambridge Rules, the oldest football rules, was re-written in order to create the Football Association (FA). Dobson et al (2001) reveals that this event was also the beginning for the modern football. Five years later, in 1888, the Football League, the oldest professional football league over the world, was established (Williams and Wagg, 1991). The first FA cup was organized...