ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the importance of understanding the particular, even unique, culture that exists within a professional football club, especially in the Premiership. Culture refers to much more than explicit processes, operational mechanisms and daily practices. It includes all these factors and others that are harder to identify clearly but which nevertheless have a significant impact on the working environment. Factors here include tradition, unwritten rules, precedents, values and patterns of belief. If some of these terms sound somewhat philosophical it should not surprise us. An organization’s culture is determined more by the ideals that govern it, the vision it pursues and values it adheres to. These ideas in turn are grounded in philosophy, whether overtly acknowledged or not.
