Book review “Football in neoliberal times: a marxist perspective on the European football industry”

Abstract

This review is about the book Football in neoliberal times: a Marxist perspective on the European football industry, published in 2016 by Peter Kennedy and David Kennedy. The guiding argument throughout the book has been that football is beset by a growing set of contradictions and conflicts stemming from its industry's inability to resolve disputes between those who own, control and consume the sport as a commodity and those who understand it as a community good. In this sense, looking at the whole picture, the authors point out that the struggle between club and player is intertwined with the struggle between fans and the clubs' private owners.  Finally, they warn that these conflicts suggest that the dominance of capital in football is speculative and completely unstable. The book therefore presents a counterpoint to the view that the football business is a fully-fledged capitalist industry.