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‘We are all Foxes Now’: sport, multiculturalism and business in the era of Disneyization

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posted on 2020-01-20, 12:35 authored by John Williams, Jack Peach
On Monday 2 May 2016, a little heralded, medium-sized, provincial soccer club, Leicester City, one with no record of league titles in 132 years of trying, no European heritage of any note, and no major expenditure on players, won the English Premier League (EPL) title. This astonishing outcome is at odds with the development of monetised late-modern European club soccer. A select group of clubs with a global ‘reach’, owned and funded by foreign capital, have increasingly dominated the EPL since its formation in 1992. Leicester City’s triumph was also notable because Leicester is regarded as a settled multi-cultural city. The title win was widely interpreted as a vehicle for promoting racial integration, as well as celebrating positive owner/fan identities, civic pride, and traditional sporting values over the ethos of business. This paper explores these issues and what the Leicester victory meant to local supporters, and to the city.

History

Citation

John Williams & Jack Peach (2018) ‘We are all Foxes Now’: sport, multiculturalism and business in the era of Disneyization, Sport in Society, 21:3, 415-433, DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2017.1346616

Author affiliation

School of Media, Communication and Sociology.

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Published in

Sport in Society

Volume

21

Issue

3

Pagination

415 - 433

Publisher

Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

issn

1743-0437

eissn

1743-0445

Copyright date

2017

Available date

2017-07-06

Language

en

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