ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter reflects on the analysis provided in previous chapters detailing research carried out in collaboration with an English Premier League football club during the first three months following the emergence of COVID-19 in the UK. It includes evidence provided by fans and staff of the case study club and those involved with its community trust as employees or participants in their community engagement programmes. Revisiting Ulrich Beck's ‘Risk Society’ thesis from earlier chapters within the overarching framework of Alasdair MacIntyre's understanding of virtue and the common good, a final attempt is made to understand how football at the service of humanity might be conceptualised. This is done by drawing on Lilie Chouliaraki's concept of solidarity in a post-humanitarian society and Bruni and Zamagni's ideas around civil responsibility. In combination with the response of the case study club in the form of the Blue Family Campaign, it leads to the proposition that the positive resources already in place could be reconfigured in order to move away from a ‘solidarity of pity’ towards a ‘solidarity of agonism’.
