ABSTRACT
In recent years soccer (i.e., European football) has experienced rapid globalization, primarily due to increased integration of sponsorship agreements, foreign investment, private equity, digital media technologies and effective executive leadership. Manchester United, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, and other high-level European soccer clubs are now owned or managed by investors, with the ostensible objective of generating ancillary benefits or significant profits. Historically, however, the ownership of unprofitable and often relegated soccer clubs was overwhelmingly in the hands of wealthy sport enthusiasts as sole proprietors. Given the recent and often dramatic changes in the business of soccer, the primary purpose of this chapter is to present a new management-focused conceptual framework, which identifies six business imperatives that have import for managing soccer clubs and business enterprises. The secondary purpose is to describe how selected key management concepts and strategies from the domain of European soccer may be applicable to managing business enterprises worldwide.
