Racism and English Football: For Club and Country analyses the contemporary manifestations, outcomes and implications of the fractious relationship between English professional football and race. Racism, we were told, had disappeared from English football. It was relegated to a distant past, and displaced onto other European countries. When its appearance could not be denied, it was said to have reappeared. This book reveals that this was not true. Racism did not go away and did not return. It was here all along.

The book argues that racism is firmly embedded and historically rooted in the game's structures, cultures and institutions, and operates as a form of systemic discrimination. It addresses the ways that racism has tainted English football, and the manner in which football has, in turn, influenced racial meanings and formations in wider society. Equally, it explores how football has facilitated forms of occupational multiculture, black player activism and progressive fan politics that resist divisive social phenomena and offer a degree of hope for an alternative future.

Focusing on a diverse range of topics, in men's and women's football, at club and international level, Racism and English Football extends and expands our knowledge of how racism occurs and, critically, how it can be challenged. This is an essential read for scholars and students working on race, ethnicity, sport and popular culture, together with those interested in the social and organisational dynamics of English professional football more generally.

About the Author

Daniel Burdsey is a Reader in the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics at the University of Brighton, UK; and an Associate Professor (Status Only) in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. His previous books include British Asians and Football: Culture, Identity, Exclusion (Routledge, 2007) and Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues (Routledge, 2011).

Reviews

"[This book] points to all the complex, but very necessary, challenges in football developing a response to #BlackLivesMatter. Until these are faced a truly anti-racist football will remain as far away as before last year's explosion of black resistance."
-Mark Perryman, MorningStar Online

"This is an essential read for those interested in the social and organisational dynamics of (English, especially) football." -Mads Skauge, Nord University

Book Information
ISBN 9780367423766
Author Daniel Burdsey
Format Hardback
Page Count 132
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g