ABSTRACT
Through a series of critical discussions of various social, cultural and political changes in the relationship between British football and society from the 1950s to the formation of the global premier league in 1992, this essay explores the conditions which have facilitated the transition of footballers from local heroes to global celebrity stars. The paper specifically notes how the emergence of post-Fordism and the early Europeanization of British football alongside the abolition of the maximum minimum wage set the context for an acceleration of late modernity, whereby through the advancement of television and sponsorship within free market hegemony, football’s ‘star’ players and clubs have become incorporated more deeply within the wider commodification of popular culture. Finally, the paper concludes that formation of the Premier League in 1992 perhaps acting as the optimal ‘commercial, economic and global entertainment miracle’1 and the acceleration of new media have created a hyperreality in which we are now more often concerned with stories of ‘empty stars, cod personalities and celebrities whose fame is largely self-referential’.
