Governance Models Across Football Leagues and Clubs

Building on its first governance study about national associations and leagues (Boillat & Poli, 2014), CIES has published a second book that analyses the league-club relationship and issues around internal club governance. This research project, started in late 2014 and now published in the wake of ongoing FIFA governance reforms, studies the variety of models that exist at both league and club level. In this vein, the authors draw on core areas of club licensing as a basis for an exploratory global comparative analysis of a sample of eighteen leagues and one hundred and forty-one clubs spanning all six confederations. Covered in the book are topics including ownership requirements, political representation and decision-making, financial rights and obligations, players’ status, infrastructure, promotion/relegation and the disciplinary process. The authors outline the limits of where league responsibilities end and club ones begin. At the club level, the study explores the questions of legal form, political representation and management, administrative structure and the role of supporters and links with the community. The authors highlight the variety of league-club relationships and internal club governance models across the globe. In general, the book argues that clubs have a strong voice in the management and governance of their leagues. However, the club-league relationships are far from uniform around the world and cannot be categorized as simply either ‘horizontal’ or ‘vertical’. Clubs themselves have diverse internal structures, even if there are some common practices across continents. This book serves as a first step towards a blueprint for possible global benchmarking across leagues and clubs and argues for the necessity of ongoing empirical analysis of professional football.