ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how the figurational concept of game models can be used in the study of sporting figurations. Drawing on interview data from a group of current and former professional footballers, we show how applying game models as a framework for analysing the data, we can provide a more nuanced, and object-adequate account of the contract negotiations that are a key feature of the professional game. Having outlined the basic concept, we provide examples of negotiating power balances in two-player ‘games’, more complex multi-player games and in the post-Bosman environment of player freedom of movement. The analysis shows how all social relations are contests of strength and entail the wielding of power, how as the complexity of the game increases, it becomes much more difficult for any single player or group to control the game and its outcome and consequently how a prominent feature of social life is the production, if not dominance, of unintended outcomes.
