Supporters Direct and supporters’ governance of football: a model for Europe?

Supporters Direct, a sports policy initiative launched by the British Labour government in 2000, has consolidated its position in the intervening decade and experienced considerable success in setting up supporters’ trusts. This success has encouraged the European football governing body, UEFA, to give its backing to the establishment of the Supporters Direct model across European leagues. This chapter develops a broadly Marxist political economy of football to explain how and why, despite the increasing pressure of commercialization, the football business remains founded on an unstable commodity structure in which the motive forces of exchange value and profit ultimately fail to dominate football as a community asset.