THE MANAGING AND STAGING OF FOOTBALL MATCHES IN THE ENGLISH PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL INDUSTRY: AN EVENT LIFECYCLE APPROACH

Purpose: Although the English professional football industry has attracted considerable academic interest in relation to the tragedies and disasters which occurred at matches during the twentieth century, the bulk of this work has focused on the historical, social and economic factors which contributed to these events. As result a clear and coherent picture of the current state of event management practices in the industry is underdeveloped. This represents an important lacunae not least because of the identified health and safety issues but also for the effective and efficient development of the professional nature of English professional football. Such a model will be valuable for a range of stakeholders: stadium managers, security stewards, police authorities and not least fans and players. This paper aims to produce a clearer understanding of football match event management practices by developing and applying a Football Match Event Lifecycle Model. Design/methodology/approach: This paper adopts an interpretivistic approach to generate primary field data which complements secondary data drawn from relevant literatures to produce and develop a Football Match Event Lifecycle Model. Primary data gathered from semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation is used to develop the model. Findings: The results indicate that the Football Match Event Lifecycle Model is a potentially useful model and provides a valuable insight into the key processes involved in staging football matches. Moreover, it is an effective evaluative framework to explore and assess contemporary football event management issues. Originality: This paper initiates the process of addressing an under-developed area in football event management. It develops a football event lifecycle model which explores the processes and issues involved in the staging of English professional football matches.