New Article Published by 'Soccer & Society'

We are pleased to announce that our latest paper '‘Filip’ or flop? Managing public relations and the Latin American reaction to the 1966 FIFA World Cup' is now available online.

It is published by the journal 'Soccer & Society' and will when available in print it will be included in a Special Issue on the topic of 'Moments, Metaphors, Memories: Defining Events in the History of Soccer'.

First 50 readers using this weblink get FREE access to our article by clicking HERE

Thereafter you can find it by clicking HERE

ABSTRACT

The 1966 FIFA World Cup has become part of the iconography of its hosts and champions, England. Extant literature has tended to focus on the cultural and symbolic legacy of the tournament, or engaged with diplomatic relations between Britain and North Korea. Contrastingly, we use archival sources from footballing and government institutions to explore the less studied topic of how the tournament was reported and perceived in Latin America, where England had commercial interests and influence, but where there were allegations that FIFA, the FA and even the UK government manipulated the tournament to the advantage of England and other European teams. We provide fresh perspectives on the social and cultural significance of the 1966 FIFA World Cup by analysing how the tournament’s organizers attempted to manage the situation and resulting negative public relations, and how 1966 fits within longer-term footballing and diplomatic relations between England and Latin America.

Soccer Mad Boffins Summer Conference Activity: British Academy of Management Conference 2016, Newcastle

Having spent recent weeks/months being busy launching our new book, we realised it is now already November and that we've been a bit quiet on the blog lately.

So, better late than never, we thought now might be as good a time as any to provide a quick summary of our conference activities over the previous few months.

Following July's previously reported successful jaunt to the Management History Research Group's workshop in Sheffield (and the tie-in article that we wrote for Sheffield Star newspaper about that cities hosting of World Cup 1966 fixtures) in September we headed North, to the British Academy of Management's 2016 Annual Conference - this year hosted by Newcastle University Business School.

Our paper had received positive comments during the peer review process leading up to the conference and so we looked forward to presenting our work and discussing with other peers our research.

This year the business and management history track was particularly attended and there was a real buzz about the occasion - in attendance were a number of leading academics.  We had some really productive discussions afterwards, and also outside of the seminar room.  Thanks to all who were there and who we spoke to.   It is very encouraging to see our work garnering interest from such esteemed colleagues!

We also had a space on the 'Meet the Authors' desk where our book had a display. This was a really fun thing to do and we hope to participate in more of these at conferences in future. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and spoke to us, picked up a flyer, or had a look at the sample copy of the book.

All in all a really outstanding conference. We'll be back!

Information about next years BAM conference, which will be held at Warwick, is here.

Celebrating Sheffield's Part in The FIFA World Cup 1966

On Wednesday 12th July 1966, West Germany beat Switzerland by a whopping 5-0 at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield in the inaugural Group 2 fixture of that year's World Cup Finals.

Now, fast forward fifty years and one day to Wednesday 13th July 2016. For that was the day on which The Soccer Mad Boffins commemorated Sheffield's contribution to the tournament by making a presentation about WC'66 at a museum in the city.

The occasion was The Management History Research Group's annual workshop, which was held this year at Sheffield's Kelham Island Museum.

Our presentation was well-received and generated interesting discussion amongst the audience, which included leading business and management history academics from around the world.

To coincide with the event and the anniversary we also contributed a short feature to the 'Retro' section of top newspaper The Sheffield Star, which can be read here.

A Day at the NFM's 1966 World Cup Exhibition

Following our previous blog post about the launch of the National Football Museum’s 1966 World Cup Exhibition, which the Soccer Mad Boffins have contributed to, we decided to make a visit and take a few photos to show our readers what is on display.  

As well as enjoying reading the wealth of information and marvelling at the museum's exclusive artefacts, we also found time to have our picture taken with the England squad.....

.......and as the mascot, World Cup Willie!

The exhibition is fun as well as informative, and there is something for everyone, young and old alike. If you have not yet been to the National Football Museum then now is the time to go.  The exhibition runs until 23^rd April 2017 (St George’s Day!) and entry is FREE. In addition to the World Cup exhibition you will also discover many other treasures in the permanent displays.

Our book about the World Cup is out soon, published by Routledge as part of their International Studies in Business History series.

Come and see the Soccer Mad Boffins in Middlesbrough

We are pleased to announce that we will be presenting our research on Middlesbrough Football Club at the Urban Leisure Conference organized by the British Society of Sports History's North East and Yorkshire Network on Saturday November 14th, at Teesside University.  Our paper reports on the relationship between Middlesbrough FC and its local authorities in the 1980s and draws on previously unpublished archival sources as well as our forthcoming book chapter and world cup book. Registration will be at 10am and at 10.30am there will be a keynote by the esteemed football writer Harry Pearson.  Our presentation will be at 11.45am. The event is free to attend and you can book here - http://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/whats_on/events_details.cfm?event_id=7824 - We look forward to seeing you there!

Scoring from the sidelines: advertising and the world cup

The FIFA World Cup, and the associated excitement around it, has been a tool for marketers almost as long as the competition has existed.  Since the 1982 FIFA has had official commercial partners, usually ‘global brands' - not surprisingly Coca-Cola has been the longest serving of these, supporting FIFA for every world cup since 1982. Some, such as McDonalds, came later, in their case from 1994 onwards.  Others, such as FujiFilm, supported the organisation and the world cup loyally, but not even the world cup was exposure enough to save them from decline - technological in the case of Fuji, which supported FIFA from 1982-2006.    For the 2014 tournament there are six ‘FIFA Partners’, eight ‘World Cup sponsors’ and six ’National Supporters’, brands better known in the home country.  

Increasingly, FIFA and national organisers have insisted that stadiums and other activities organised to coincide with the world cup are kept free of any advertising or marketing activity from non-sponsors. Before FIFA did this, television authorities insisted that advertising be kept away from the pitch area, where it might easily be seen on TV. This has meant that ambush marketing as a tactic has a long history associated with the tournament, going back at least to the 1966 competition when Swiss fans carried banners advertising Swiss co-operative stores at Hillsborough stadium, in Sheffield (Chisari, 2007).  More recently, at the 2006 world cup, 1,000 Dutch fans watched their country’s match against Ivory Coast in their underwear after organisers confiscated their orange trousers, which had the logo of a Dutch brewery on them (Anheiser Busch’s Budweiser was the official beer - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5091154.stm).

This world cup has already seen a stream marketing and advertising campaigns related to to the world cup.  One of the most tangental has been Listerine who seem to be claiming that their product can deal with the damage to football fans’ teeth caused by the FIFA World Cup. On the other hand, Kia’s campaign for the USA would seem entirely tangential to the product being sold.  More local businesses have also attempted to take advantage of the world cup for marketing purpose;

the Frenchgate shopping centre in Doncaster offers a ‘World Cup Lounge’, which they claim allows shoppers to ‘cheer on England’, although presumably the shopping centre was not open for England’s 11pm BST kick-off against Italy on Saturday.   Perhaps this oversight is why England didn’t win.

Have you seen any tangential, esoteric, or otherwise strange world cup related marketing or advertising?  Let us know by commenting below.  More on this as the tournament progresses...

What would your Brazilian nickname be?

To get into the Brazilian spirit, here is an entertaining website which allows you to generate Brazilian football names.  Just for fun, we 'Brazilled' a few famous management gurus:

Micheal Porter = Michea
Gary Hamel = Hamito
Peter Drucker = Druckinho
Stephen Linstead = Claudio Linsteito
Bill Cooke = Felix Cookardo
Jay Barney = Barnito
Michel Foucault = Foucaimo Pau
Peter Starbuck = Petisco






Try converting your own name here: http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml

Soccer Mad Boffins Comment on the FIFA 2014 World Cup in Brazil - Part 1

Football is never far from the headlines at the moment thanks to this year’s FIFA World Cup tournament in Brazil, and controversies surrounding the 2018 and 2022 competitions, to be hosted by Russia and Qatar respectively.

Academics in The York Management School, University of York, who have been conducting a pioneering management history research project of the 1966 FIFA World Cup believe that the game and its governing bodies could do well to heed the lessons of history.

Dr Kevin Tennent and Dr Alex Gillett, editors of the ‘Soccer Mad Boffins’ blog site, which will be launched this summer to coincide with the tournament in Brazil, identify that such controversies over the organisation of sports tournaments with international participation are not new for the sport.

According to Dr Tennent, “This is about cross-cultural management. How do cultural and language barriers effect the success – or otherwise – of tournaments like the FIFA World Cup?  We have seen innovations introduced as a result of such misunderstandings  -  the red and yellow card system was, for example, introduced as a consequence of problems of language and understanding during the 1966 FIFA World Cup when it was hosted in England.”

Dr Gillett adds: “We are told that we live in an increasingly globalised society, but as new ‘markets’ open up – or are opened – by industries including sport, the financial stakes as well as expectations, are raised.  This means that problems are closely scrutinised. Perhaps sport has never before been quite so under the microscope in terms of its accountability and transparency.  The question is, how will its governing bodies adapt?”

Dr Tennent and Dr Gillett’s year long study is supported by FIFA and the Centre International d’Etude du Sport in Switzerland through the João Havelange Scholarship scheme.  They are particularly interested in the organisation of the tournament in the years running up to 1966, the day to day management of the tournament itself, and the management of legacy after the tournament.