ABSTRACT
The role of the football manager has been subject to research attention in a range of fields (Carter 2006; Carter 2007; Kelly 2008; Kelly and Harris 2010; Llewellyn 2003). However, despite the fact that football managers perform a lot of their professional duties through interaction, the discourse of football managers has received very little attention. In this chapter, I concentrate on the language professional football managers in England’s Premier League use when conducting media interviews-a largely discursive aspect of their role. In particular, I focus on questions regarding the referee and refereeing decisions, as these can pose a significant issue for managers to negotiate.
