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 Routledge Handbook of Football
Business and Management

Football is the world’s most valuable sport, generating bigger revenues, as well as being watched
and played by more people, than any other. It is virtually impossible to understand the business
of sport without understanding the football industry. This book surveys contemporary football
in unparalleled breadth and depth.
Presenting critical insights from world-leading football scholars and introducing football’s
key organisations, leagues and emerging nations, it explores key themes from governance and
law to strategy and finance, as well as cutting-edge topics such as analytics, digital media, and
the women’s game.
This is essential reading for all students, researchers and practitioners working in football,
sport business, sport management or mainstream business and management.

Simon Chadwick is Professor of Sports Enterprise at Salford University Manchester, UK,

where he is also Co-Director of the Centre for Sports Business. He is also a Founding Director
of the China Soccer Observatory at the University of Nottingham, UK and regularly works
with organisations in football across the world, including clubs, federations, commercial partners,
event organisers, and governments. He tweets: @Prof_Chadwick

Daniel Parnell is Senior Lecturer in Business Management at Manchester Metropolitan

University, UK. Dan’s research is across three areas; policy and politics, management and change
(individual, community and organisational), across elite sport. He currently works with a num-
ber of professional sport clubs and national governing bodies in England and internationally.
He has worked with several English Premier League and Football League Clubs, the Premier
League, Football League, and the Football Foundation.

Paul Widdop is Senior Research Fellow in Sport Business at Leeds Beckett University, UK.
His research explores social and economic networks on the consumption and production of
Sport. He has published widely in areas of sport and popular culture including articles in Journal
of Consumer Culture, Cultural Sociology, Cultural Trends, Political Behaviour, Electoral Studies, and
Leisure Sciences.


Christos Anagnostopoulos is Assistant Professor in Sport Business Management at University

of Central Lancashire, Cyprus, where he also serves as the Co-Director of the Centre for
Entrepreneurship. Christos is also an adjunct Associate Professor in Sport Management at
Molde University College, Norway. His research interests lie in corporate social responsibil-
ity, governance, and more recently entrepreneurship and positive organisational behaviour in
sport. Christos serves as an elected member-at-large at the European Association for Sport
Management, as well as at the editorial boards of the European Sport Management Quarterly, Sport,
Business and Management: An International Journal, International Journal of Sport Communication,
Journal of Global Sport Management, and the International Journal of Sport Management.
 Routledge Handbook
of Football Business
and Management

Edited by
Simon Chadwick, Daniel Parnell,
Paul Widdop and Christos Anagnostopoulos
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Simon Chadwick, Daniel Parnell,
Paul Widdop and Christos Anagnostopoulos; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Simon Chadwick, Daniel Parnell, Paul Widdop and Christos
Anagnostopoulos to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders. Please advise
the publisher of any errors or omissions, and these will be corrected in
subsequent editions.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-57907-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-26280-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
 Contents

List of contributors ix
Acknowledgements xx

1 Introduction to the handbook of football business and management 1

Simon Chadwick, Daniel Parnell, Paul Widdop, and Christos Anagnostopoulos

2 A framework for diversification decisions in professional football 3

Sascha L. Schmidt and Florian Holzmayer

3 Global football: Defining the rules of the changing game 20

Remco M. Beek, Martijn Ernest, and Jos Verschueren

4 Structures and policies at the main European football leagues:

Evolution and recent changes 33
Juan Luis Paramio-Salcines and Ramón Llopis-Goig

5 Points, pounds, and politics in the governance of football 44

Hallgeir Gammelsæter

6 Contemporary issues in the management of grassroots football 56

Jimmy O’Gorman, Danny Fitzpatrick, Jonathan Sibley,
Matthew Hindmarsh, Zora Saskova, and Dan Parnell

7 Football law 71
Richard Parrish and Adam Pendlebury

8 Football and marketing 88

Argyro Elisavet Manoli and James Andrew Kenyon

9 Digital and social media 101

Alex Fenton and Boris Helleu

v
Contents

10 Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in football:

Exploring modes of CSR implementation 114
Geraldine Zeimers, Christos Anagnostopoulos,
Thierry Zintz, and Annick Willem

11 Agents and intermediaries 131

Giambattista Rossi

12 Managing performance in elite professional football 144

Barry Drust, Andy O’Boyle, and Mark Gillett

13 The sporting director: Exploring current practice

and challenges within elite football 155
Daniel Parnell, Ryan Groom, Paul Widdop, and Sara Ward

14 Strategic management in football organisations 171

Mikkel Draebye

15 Finance and accounting in football 186

Rob Wilson and Daniel Plumley

16 Sponsorships, stadia, and naming rights 199

Leah Gillooly and Dominic Medway

17 Venue management in football 209

Eric C. Schwarz

18 Human resource management in football 220

Jonathan Lord

19 Fans, spectators, consumers in football 232

Petros Parganas

20 Sports business analytics: The past, the present and the future 246
Ian G. McHale

21 Leagues, tournaments, and competitions 258

Thadeu Gasparetto and Angel Barajas

22 Football, networks, and relationships 273

Anna Gerke and Hagen Wäsche

23 Leveraging football events 282

Vitor Sobral, Sheranne Fairley, and Danny O’Brien

vi
 Contents

24 The labour markets of professional football players 294

Jean-François Brocard and Christophe Lepetit

25 Value management in football: A framework to

develop and analyse competitive advantage 308
Harald Dolles and Sten Söderman

26 Supply chain management in professional football 319

Birnir Egilsson

27 Risk and crisis management 334

Dominic Elliott

28 Women and football 351

Sue Bridgewater

29 Managing match officials: The influence of business and

the impact of finance in an era of Premier League dominance 366
Tom Webb

30 Perspectives on ethics and integrity in football 376

Simon Gardiner

31 Talent management 388

Richard P. Bailey, Rob J. Bailey, and Nick Levett

32 Retailing in the football industry 400

Dimitrios Kolyperas and Leigh Sparks

33 Sport licenced products in the football industry 412

Dimitra Papadimitriou and Artemisia Apostolopoulou

34 FIFA 423
Tom Bason, Paul Salisbury, and Simon Gérard

35 UEFA 441
Kenneth Cortsen

36 CONMEBOL: South American Confederation of Football 459

Renan Petersen-Wagner, Alberto Reinaldo Reppold Filho,
Cássia Damiani, Felipe Magno and Felippe Marchetti

37 Asian Football Confederation 473

N. David Pifer

vii
Contents

38 Confederation of African Football 485

Michael M. Goldman and Mlondi Mashinini

39 CONCACAF 497
Dr Joel Rookwood and Dr Glaucio Scremin

40 Oceania Football Confederation 511

Geoff Dickson and Sean Phelps

41 Football in China 522

Simon Chadwick and Jonathan Sullivan

42 Business and governance of football in Qatar 539

Mahfoud Amara and Ahmed Al-Emadi

43 Football in Brazil 547

Leonardo José Mataruna-Dos-Santos, Daniel Range,
André Luiz Pereira Guimarães, Luis Antonio Verdini de Carvalho,
and Carlos Eugenio Zardini Filho

44 Football in Turkey 564

Cem Tinaz, Emir Güney, and Ahmet Talimciler

45 Management of football in India 577

Gautam Ahuja and Eric C. Schwarz

46 Soccer in the United States 590

Clinton J. Warren and Kwame J.A. Agyemang

47 The rise and rise of the world’s favourite sport 601

Simon Chadwick, Daniel Parnell, Paul Widdop,
and Christos Anagnostopoulos

Index 607

viii
 List of contributors

Gautam Ahuja is Research Officer with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports under the
Government of India. Gautam has been working on various projects dealing with preparation
of elite athletes for the major competitions including the Olympic Games.

Ahmed Al-Emadi is Dean of College of Education at Qatar University and Associate Professor
in Sport Management. Ahmed has taught many courses in his major such as sports management,
sports facilities, sport sociology, and research methods. He has contributed to regional and inter-
national publication in the area of sport in general and sports management in particular. He is
affiliated to a number of international and national associations related to his major.

Kwame J.A. Agyemang is Associate Professor of Sport Management at Louisiana State

University (LSU). His research attempts to better understand a range of issues related to how
social actors create, preserve, disrupt, and change institutions. His research has been published in
various sport management- and general management-related journals.

Mahfoud Amara joined Qatar University in the fall of 2015. He is currently Director of Sport
Science Program at the College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University. Before joining Qatar
University, he was Assistant Professor in Sport Policy and Management and Deputy Director
of the Centre for Olympic Studies at Loughborough University. Amara published a number of
papers and chapters on sport business, culture, and politics.

Artemisia Apostolopoulou is University Professor in the Department of Sport Management at

Robert Morris University, USA. She conducts research on branding and brand extension strate-
gies of sport organizations, sport sponsorship, and the consumption and value of sport licensed
products. Her work has appeared in many peer reviewed journals including the European Sport
Management Quarterly, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Marketing Communications, and Sport
Marketing Quarterly.

Richard Bailey leads research at the International Council of Sport Science and Physical
Education, the worldwide umbrella body for sports science and education organisations. Before
this position, he was Founding Chair of Sport and Education at the University of Birmingham,
UK. He is the author/editor of 30 books and more than 120 research articles. His current
research focuses on exercise neuroscience, and theories of embodiment.

Rob J. Bailey is Director of Five Lines Consulting, which is a business consultancy that pro-
vides strategic, financial and commercial advice within the sport and leisure sectors. He has

ix
List of contributors

been an industry consultant since 1994. Rob was previously a Director at KPMG, and prior to
that he was a Senior Manager at Deloitte. Rob is a part-time football coach at a professional
football club.

Angel Barajas is Professor and Head of the Department of Finance at the St Petersburg School
of Economics of Management (NRU Higher School of Economics). Moreover, he is the
Academic Supervisor of the ID Lab (NRU Higher School of Economics – Perm Campus).
He was the Director of the MBA in Sport at University of Vigo from 2012 until 2016.
He is Researcher for the Spanish Economic Observatory of Sport. His research interests include
investment valuation, intellectual capital, and finance of sports.

Tom Bason is Lecturer in Sport Management at Coventry University and PhD candidate at
Manchester Metropolitan University where he is supervised by Professor Jonathan Grix. Tom’s
research interests relate to sport mega-events, and in particular the ways in which bids for such
events can be leveraged for positive benefits.

Remco M. Beek is Associate Professor at the Rotterdam University of Applied Science and
PhD-candidate at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His
research focuses on the impact of hallmark events on commercial partners, rights holders, and
society. Actual research topics cover the decision-making process of sponsorship relationships,
the legacy of hallmark events, and risk management of events.

Sue Bridgewater is Professor of Sports Marketing and Director of the Centre for Sports
Business at Liverpool University Management School. She is Non Exec Director of the League
Managers Association Institute, a member of UEFA’s Research Grants Jury, and researches the
role of women in football on behalf of Women in Football.

Jean-François Brocard (PhD Economics, University of Limoges) is Associate Professor of

Economics at the University of Limoges, where he’s a member of the Centre de Droit et
d’Economie du Sport (CDES). He is the Secretary General of both the International Association
of Sports Economists (IASE) and the French Seminar of “Dynamique Economique du Sport”
(DESport).

Luis Antonio Verdini de Carvalho is Professor of Football at the Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro (UFRJ). He has an MA degree in Physical Education by UFRJ. Specialised in soccer and
sports training. He has sports management degree by FIFA/FGV and football management by
National Football Federation – CBF. He was coach and physical trainer of the Brazilian National
Football Team U20.

Kenneth Cortsen co-founded of the Department of Sport Management at UCN in Denmark

and is a Visiting Professor at University of San Francisco and DIS, Copenhagen. Cortsen does
sports business research, lectures, and consults for organisations in Denmark and abroad. Cortsen
also coaches (UEFA A-license) in the Danish football club Aalborg BK/AaB.

Cássia Damiani is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Physical Education and Sports of the Federal
University of Ceará, Brazil. She was Special Advisor and Director of Planning and Strategic
Management of the Brazilian Ministry of Sports, from 2005 to 2016, and research member of the
Center for Olympic and Paralympic Studies. Her area of research is on sport policy.

x
 List of contributors

Geoff Dickson is a leading member of the Australian and New Zealand sport management
academic community. His research interests are expansive – interorganisational relationships and
sport governance, event impacts and legacies, volunteers, sponsorship, ambush marketing, and
consumer behaviour. He has supervised nearly 30 honours, MA and PhD theses.

Harald Dolles is Professor in Sport Management at Molde University College, Molde (Norway).
Harald is immediate past chair of the EURAM Strategic Interest Group on “Managing Sport”
and frequently contributes to the scientific development in the fields of sports management and
international business, most recently with Egilsson on “sports expatriates” (Research Handbook
of Expatriates, Edward Elgar, 2017).

Mikkel Draebye is SDA Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at SDA Bocconi School of
Management, Milan. He has been teaching Strategic Planning in Sports Organisation in various
MA programmes since 1998. He has been UEFA Kiss Expert since 2008 and has conducted a
variety of strategy workshops with federations, clubs, and leagues.

Barry Drust is Professor of Applied Exercise Physiology at Liverpool John Moores University.
He has published over 150 peer reviewed research articles associated with understanding high
performance in football. In addition to his academic background is his applied experience pro-
viding consultancy services to professional teams in both the UK and internationally.

Birnir Egilsson is PhD student and Lecturer at Molde University College, Specialised University
in Logistics, Molde (Norway). His main research interest is the operations management of pro-
fessional institutions in sports. His PhD thesis focuses on football, looking into the various
supply chains of professional football clubs with the purpose of understanding if, why, and how
football clubs utilise supply chain management strategies and practices. Other research interests
relate to migration and integration issues within the supply chain of talents.

Dominic Elliott is Professor of Business Continuity and Strategic Management at Liverpool

University. He is interested in how organisational success is achieved and, on the downside, how
organisations deal with minor and major interruptions that are an inevitable part of life. He has
worked with organisations including BP, Coca Cola, the Government of Lesotho, IBM, Merrill
Lynch, BNP-Paribas, RBS, ShopDirect, Speedyhire, Health and Safety Executive, Royal Mail,
and Emirates.

Martijn Ernest (Tongeren, 1993) is Head of Research and Development at the International
Football Business Institute (IFBI). Due to his academic background – an MA in History at the
KU Leuven and Postgraduate in Sports Management at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel – he has
the ability to process information in an unconventional way, adjusted to the high-demanding
needs of the football business industry. As Head of Research, it is his responsibility to guarantee
the quality of IFBI-related research and projects.

Sheranne Fairley is Senior Lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. Her
research interests include sport and event tourism, event leveraging, and volunteerism. She is an
Associate Editor of Sport Management Review and Leisure Sciences.

Alex Fenton is practitioner and researcher in the areas of digital business, social media marketing
and sport. His research primarily focusses on the use of digital technology for sports fans and fan

xi
List of contributors

engagement including digital media, digital business models, virtual reality, online communities,
and gamification. Alex has won numerous industry and teaching awards and has published in
some of the world’s top publications.

Alberto Reinaldo Reppold Filho is Professor at the School of Physical Education, Physiotherapy
and Dance of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where he also acts as
Coordinator of the Center for Olympic and Paralympic Studies. His area of research is on the
legacy of sports mega-events and policy for elite sport in Brazil.

Danny Fitzpatrick is a Lecturer in Politics at Aston University. Danny’s main research interests
are in the study of regulation, the politics of sport, and theories of state transformation. His book,
The Politics of UK Regulation: Between Tradition, Contingency and Crisis, was published by Palgrave
in 2016.

Carlos Eugênio Nardini Filho is a civil servant at the Brazilian Ministry of Sport. In 2016, as a
Chevening Scholar (UK Government scholarship for future leaders) he concluded an MA in
Sport Management at Coventry University. Carlos also holds another MA degree in Physical
Education from University of Brasília (2013)

Hallgeir Gammelsæter is Professor in Social Change, Organization and Management at Molde

University College – Specialized University in Logistics. Besides sport studies, he has published
research on organisation change, management in professional organisations, knowledge diffu-
sion, and innovation in private and public institutions. He has authored and co-authored several
Norwegian books as well as The Organization and Governance of Top Football Across Europe: An
institutional Perspective (2011, Routledge).

Simon Gardiner is Professor of International Sports Law and has been an active researcher in
the area of sports law for over 25 years. His particular research interests include sports govern-
ance and the regulation of sports-related corruption, racism in sport, and labour law issues
concerning athlete mobility. He has been involved in funded research projects including with
the European Union.

Thadeu Gasparetto has a PhD in Education, Sport and Health from the University of Vigo
(2017). Currently, he works as Senior Lecturer at National Research University Higher School
of Economics (St Petersburg, Russia). He has an MA degree in Sports Business Management
at University of Vigo (2014) and a BA degree in Physical Education at Federal University of
Juiz de Fora (2012). His research lines lie on Sports Economics and Management, focusing on
broadcast demand, competitive balance, demand for tickets, and design of sports leagues.

Anna Gerke is Associate Professor at Audencia Business School in Paris in the department of
management. Her research focuses on organisational theory, innovation, and economic geog-
raphy notably in the context of sport organisations. Anna is head of the Specialised Master of
Management of Sport Organisations.

Simon Gerard is Lecturer in Sport Management at the Coventry University in the UK. His
research interests relate to sport governance, institutional change, and disability sports. Simon
is also a research associate in the Olympic Chair in Management of Sport Organisations
(Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium)

xii
 List of contributors

Mark Gillett has extensive experience in sports medicine both as a clinician and as head of
performance at a football club. Expertise developed in both elite basketball (British basketball)
and elite football (Chelsea FC and West Bromich Albion FC) have provided Mark with a unique
skill set that supports the leadership of a multi-disciplinary high-performance team. Mark is cur-
rently the Director of Performance at West Bromich Albion FC.

Leah Gillooly is Senior Lecturer in Sports Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Her research interests focus on the brand-building effectiveness of sports sponsorship, brand
image transfer, and sponsorship activation. She has published her work in journals including
Urban Geography, Journal of Marketing Communications, and Journal of Marketing Management.

Michael Goldman teaches, researches, and consults within a number of marketing-related

themes, including marketing strategy, sport marketing, sport business development and sales,
branding, and sponsorship. He is based at the University of San Francisco, while also working
with the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science in South Africa.

André Luiz Pereira Guimarães is Associated Professor of Didactics in UFRRJ (Universidade

Rural do Rio de Janeiro) and Sports Training Methods in UNIABEU (Centro Universitário
Abeu). He is also a PhD candidate in sociology and sport management at ULISBOA
(Universidade de Lisboa).

Emir Güney is a graduate of Global and International Affairs Dual Diploma Program co-owned
by Boğaziçi University and SUNY Binghamton and a PhD candidate at Marmara University
Sports Management Program. Since 2010, he has worked as Director of Sports Studies Research
Centre at Kadir Has University.

Ryan Groom is Program Director for the MA/MSc Exercise and Sports degrees at Manchester
Metropolitan University. His research focuses on the use of social theory to explore power,
identity, and interaction in elite sports contexts. Ryan was a co-editor for Research Methods in
Sports Coaching and Learning in Sports Coaching.

Boris Helleu recent research deals with digitalisation of fan experience. On a daily basis, he
shares his international sports marketing and economy press review on his twitter account
(@bhelleu). He also runs a blog dedicated to sports marketing (Hell of a Sport).

Matthew Hindmarsh is a PhD student undertaking research into the practice of sponsorship
within grassroots football. His scholarly interests are wide-reaching and include all things foot-
ball and sport business related, but more specifically focus on the financing and development of
non-profit sport clubs and the promotion of small businesses.

Florian Holzmayer is a doctoral student and research assistant at the Center for Sports
and Management (CSM) at WHU since 2016. One of his key research areas is “Corporate
Diversification in Professional Football.” He studied business administration at WHU, ESADE,
and LSE followed by several years at Simon-Kucher & Company.

Jamie Kenyon is a Lecturer in Sport Management at Loughborough University. His research

interests include managing community and volunteer sports organisations, marketing and rela-
tionship management in sport, and the impacts and legacies of sports mega-events.

xiii
List of contributors

Dimitrios Kolyperas is Lecturer of Sport Marketing at Stirling Management School, University

of Stirling, UK. Dimitrios holds an MBA from Cardiff University and completed his PhD at
University of Stirling in 2012. Dimitrios is Program Director of BA sport studies and Marketing
in Singapore Institute of Management.

Ramón Llopis-Goig is Senior Lecturer at the University of Valencia, Spain. He has been Visiting
Scholar Research at the University of Leicester (UK), at the European University Institute
(Florence, Italy), and at the International Olympic Committee for Olympic Studies Centre
(Lausanne, Switzerland).

Christophe Lepetit is Head of economic studies and partnerships of the Centre de Droit et
d’Economie du Sport (CDES). He is specialised in economic impact analysis of mega-sporting
events about which he has written several articles in national and international reviews. He is
a member of the board of the French financial monitoring of professional football (DNCG).

Nick Levett is Head of Talent and Performance for UK Coaching, helping to develop coaches
at all levels in the player pathway up to international youth teams. He previously worked at the
Football Association for 14 years and was National Development Manager for Youth Football
and Talent Identification Manager.

Jonathan Lord is Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Employment Law. He

has previously been HR Director, Manager, and Consultant, working across all three sectors.
Specifically, Jonathan has worked within the transport and construction industries, as well as car-
rying out HR projects within the public and voluntary sector. Jonathan has a Doctorate qualifi-
cation, which involved researching the purpose of employment tribunals and their effectiveness.

Felipe Magno is a Bachelor of Physical Education and Sport and Master in Human Movement
Studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, where he is currently a PhD
student in production engineering at the School of Engineering. His area of research is on the
social impact of sports mega-events in Brazil.

Argyro Elisavet Manoli is Lecturer in Sports Marketing and Communications at Loughborough

University. Her research interests include marketing communications management practices –
such as IMC, branding, and CSR promotion in football – and, match-fixing and economic
mismanagement in Greek football clubs.

Felippe Marchetti is a Bachelor of Physical Education and Sport at the Federal University
of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and Master in Sport Management at the University of Oporto,
Portugal. He is currently a PhD student in Human Movement Sciences. His area of research is
on the economic sustainability of football stadiums.

Mlondi Mashinini operates at the confluence of sports, business, and technology. He is a found-
ing partner of FanBase Analytics, a leading data insights and sports business consultancy. He has
worked across Europe, the US, and Africa, including with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and
Real Madrid’s football and basketball clubs.

Leonardo Jose Mataruna-Dos-Santos is Assistant Professor (College of Business Administration,

American University in the Emirates – Dubai) and Associated Research at Coventry University –

xiv
 List of contributors

CTPSR (Marie Currie Fellow – EU/FP7/UK). He has a PhD from Gama Filho University
(Brazil) focusing on innovation in sport. He is commentator of SPORTV Channel and Physical
Education Teacher.

Ian McHale is Chair in Sports Analytics at the University of Liverpool Management School.
His research interests include statistics in sport and the analysis of gambling markets and various
gambling issues. He was founding Chair of the Statistics in Sport Section of the Royal Statistical
Society, and was co-creator of the EA SPORTS Player Performance Indicator, the official player
rating system of the Barclays Premier League.

Dominic Medway is Professor of Marketing in the Institute of Place Management at Manchester

Metropolitan University. His research focuses on the complexity of interactions between places
and spaces and those who produce, manage and consume them. Dominic has published in lead-
ing academic journals, including European Journal of Marketing and Marketing Theory.

Andy O’Boyle has over ten years of experience working in professional football. During this
time his roles have ranged from the day-to-day planning and delivery of high-performance
programmes for elite players (both senior professionals and young players undertaking develop-
mental programmes) to the strategic leadership and management of sport science programmes.
He is currently Head of Elite Performance at The Premier League.

Danny O’Brien is Associate Professor, Sport Management, in the Bond Business School, Bond
University, Australia. He is Visiting Scholar at both the Center for Surf Research at San Diego
State University and the Plymouth Sustainability and Surfing Research Group at Plymouth
University, UK. Danny’s research interests are in sport-for-development and community-build-
ing through sport.

Jimmy O’Gorman is Senior Lecturer in Sports Management, Development and Coaching at

Edge Hill University. Jimmy’s main research interests are on the enactment and implementation
of sports policy, the welfare and wellbeing of sports workers, and the development of youth
football. Jimmy has undertaken consultation projects with the Football Association and local
authority sport development organisations. He has edited a special issue titled: Junior and Youth
Grassroots Football Culture published by Routledge in 2017.

Dimitra Papadimitriou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Administration

at the University of Patras, Greece. She conducts research on service quality management,
destination brand management, and sport consumer behavior in the sponsorship and licens-
ing domains. Her work has appeared in many peer reviewed journals including the European
Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Journal of Travel
Research, and Sport Management Review.

Luis Paramio-Salcines is Senior Lecturer at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain. His prin-
cipal scholarly interest includes sport facilities and event management, commercial development
and accessibility provision of stadia, the economic impact of sport events, and corporate social
responsibility in sport.

Petros Parganas holds an MBA and DBA from the Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt
University, UK, and currently leads the digital analytics football department at Adidas. Prior to

xv
List of contributors

that he was teaching sport marketing courses at various universities and colleges. He is a mem-
ber of the Marketing and Sports Unit at the Athens Institute for Education and Research as well
as the Hellenic Management Association. His principal research interests include sport brand
management, fan engagement, and social media. His academic research has appeared in various
journals including European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Brand Management, Journal
of Strategic Marketing, Sport, Business & Management and International Journal of Sports Marketing
& Sponsorship.

Richard Parrish is Jean Monnet Chair of EU Sports Law and Policy and the Director of the
Centre for Sports Law Research at Edge Hill University. He has held a number of senior
advisory positions relevant to sport including membership of the European Commission’s
High Level Expert Group on Sport Diplomacy, the Commission’s Group of Independent
Sports Experts, and Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Inquiry into Grassroots Sport
and the EU.

Adam Pendlebury is Senior Lecturer in Law at Edge Hill University with teaching special-
isms in Torts, Sports Law and Media Law. His research interest is in sports law, in particular, the
regulation of misconduct. He has published in peer reviewed journals, given papers at a number
of international conferences, and is connected to key sports law networks. As the coordinator
of the Centre for Sports Law Research at Edge Hill, Adam has assisted in the organising of a
number of sports law events.

Sean Phelps is a graduate of Florida State University. Sean’s research interests focus on organisa-
tional theory and organisational behaviour. His research has been published in Sport Management
Review, European Sport Management Quarterly, International Journal of Sport Management and
Marketing, and the International Journal of Sport Marketing and Sponsorship.

N. David Pifer obtained his PhD from the University of Georgia and currently serves as Assistant
Professor of Sport Management at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Dr Pifer’s research
focuses broadly on financial and economic aspects of sport, but more specifically on sports
analytics and how individuals and organisations can use data and statistical techniques to make
more informed decisions.

Daniel Plumley joined the teaching team at Sheffield Hallam University in 2011. His main
research interests are in the finance and governance of professional team sports and his PhD
focused on measuring financial and sporting performance in English professional football. Dan
has published widely on holistic performance measurement in professional football.

Daniel Range graduated from the London School of Economics in 2003 and has worked
at Coventry University since 2007. Here he obtained an MA in Community Cohesion
Management and is currently working towards his PhD. He is part of the Research Group of
Sport for Peace and Development.

Giambattista Rossi is Lecturer Birkbeck University of London, where he is responsible for a

course module on sport labour markets. Giambattista investigates the role of sport agents, third-
party ownership in football, athletes’ remuneration and their economic value, team performance,
and individual athletes’ contract duration.

xvi
 List of contributors

Joel Rookwood is Senior Lecturer in sports business management at UCLAN, UK. His research
interests include football mega-events, management, enterprise, fandom, social development,
and politics, areas in which he has published widely. Joel has visited 165 countries, including
every nation of the Americas and every CONCACAF member country.

Paul Salisbury is Senior Lecturer in Sport Management at Coventry University in the UK. He
has also held management positions in academia and in the sports sector. Paul’s research interests
surround sport policy and governance, especially as they relate to sports mega-events. He has
been a recipient of the International Olympic Committee’s Advanced Research Grant.

Zora Saskova is a PhD researcher at Ulster University. Her ethnographic research explores the
ways in which the myriad, complex issues emanating from post-conflict Sierra Leone might
impact the extent to which footballers from the country have sought a career abroad. The study
also investigates an emerging football migration network between Sierra Leone and Scandinavia.

Sascha L. Schmidt is Senior Professor and Director of the Center for Sports and Management
at WHU. “Future of Sports” is his key research area. Prior to his professorship he worked as
entrepreneur and as a consultant with McKinsey, and he studied at the universities of Essen,
Zurich, St. Gallen, Harvard Business School, and EBS.

Eric C. Schwarz has been a sport business management academician and administrator since
2000 in the US, Australia, and China. He currently is Senior Lecturer in Sport Management,
Chair of the Postgraduate Courses in Sport Business and Integrity, and the College of Sport and
Exercise Science’s Director of Teaching and Learning.

Glaucio Scremin is a life-long learner, an award-winning teacher and scholar, and Associate
Professor of Sport Management at the University of West Georgia, US. He investigates the atti-
tudes and perceptions of sport fans. More specifically, he seeks to understand the influence of
fan motives on team identity and loyalty.

Jonathan Sibley teaching responsibilities include the delivery of event management lectures
and seminars at postgraduate and undergraduate levels as well as supervising dissertations spe-
cialising in sports events. In addition, he also contributed to regional workforce development
courses in Qatar in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Prior to undertaking a career in
higher education Jonathan worked at an English professional football club; within this role, he
was responsible for all aspects of community engagement. He has recently begun a PhD; the
focus of which is ethical governance in English football.

Vitor Sobral is a PhD candidate at University of Queensland. He lectures on international sport

and events at University of Queensland and Bond University. He previously worked as a football
journalist and covered several major football events, including two Men’s and Women’s FIFA
World Cups and UEFA Euro 2012.

Sten Soderman is Professor Emeritus of International Business at Stockholm Business School,

Stockholm University and affiliated researcher at Centre for Sports and Business, Stockholm
School of Economics Institute for Research. His research interests are focused on market strat-
egy development and implementation.

xvii
List of contributors

Leigh Sparks is Professor of Retail Studies and Deputy Principle at University of Stirling,
Scotland, UK. Leigh has been Director of the Institute for Retail Studies and the Dean of the
Faculty of Management, and Editor of the leading European retail journal (The International
Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, published by Taylor and Francis).

Jonathan Sullivan is Director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham,
and co-founder of the China Soccer Observatory.

Ahmet Talimciler Talimciler graduated from the Sociology Department at Ege University
Literature Faculty in 1994. Talimciler became an associate professor in 2011 still teaches at the
Literature Faculty, Department of Sociology at Ege University. He has four books on sports
media and sociology topics.

Cem Tinaz is Director of the School of Sports Sciences and Technology at Istanbul Bilgi
University and a board member of the Turkish Tennis Federation. He has published in the areas
of sport policy, sport event management, and sport sponsorship. He has participated as tourna-
ment coordinator, director, and marketing manager in many international sport events.

Jos Verschueren is Programme Director Sports Management at Vrije Universiteit Brussel

(Brussels Free University – Belgium) in the Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy
within the Department of Sports Policy and Management. He is also the founder and man-
ager of the Sport Management Knowledge Centre at the same university and founder of the
International Football Business Institute. He has over 15 years of consulting and academic busi-
ness experience in sports marketing and communication, sports partnership branding, and sports
business and management.

Renan Petersen-Wagner is Senior Lecturer in Sport Business and Marketing at Leeds Beckett
University, his research interest lies in the cultural consumption of sport, in particular football and
the Olympic Games, the Global South, and Critical Social Theory. His research has appeared in
Current Sociology, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, and the Journal of Sport & Social Issues.

Sara Ward joined MMU’s Business School in 2008 and heads executive education for the
Faculty of Business and Law. Sara specialises in football and sport governance and her current
research interests are focused on English and German football clubs, predominantly looking at
the supporter ownership business model.

Clint Warren is Assistant Professor of Sport Management in the School of Kinesiology &
Recreation at Illinois State University. He earned his PhD from the University of Minnesota,
and since that time his research has focused on sport service innovation, value co-creation, ticket
sales and service strategy, and ticket sales management. He has a specific interest in examining
these, and other, topics in the context of soccer in the United States.

Hagen Wäsche is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sports and Sports Science at the
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. His research interests lie in the fields of sport management,
organisation theory, sport sociology, and the analysis of networks in sport.

Tom Webb is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sport and Exercise Science at the University
of Portsmouth. He writes widely on sports match officials, is author of the book Elite Soccer

xviii
 List of contributors

Referees: Officiating in the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A (2017) and coordinator of the
Referee and Match Official Research Network.

Annick Willem is Professor of Sport Management at Ghent University. She is holder of the
Olympic Chair Henri de Baillet Latour and Jacques Rogge. Her research interests include
interorganisational relationships in public and non-profit sports and knowledge management.

Rob Wilson is the subject head for sport business management at Sheffield Hallam University.
His PhD focused on the factors affecting financial performance in professional team sports and
he has numerous publications in the sport management field, particularly the financial health
and competitive balance of professional football.

Géraldine Zeimers is a PhD candidate in Sport Management at the Université catholique de

Louvain and Ghent University. Her research examines implementation of social responsibility
practices by non-profit sport organisations. She explores the interaction dynamic involved in
managing collaboration among non-profit organisations.

Thierry Zintz is Professor Sport Management at the Université catholique de Louvain. He is

holder of the Olympic Chair Henri de Baillet Latour and Jacques Rogge. He investigates good
governance and change management in international and national sports governing bodies.

xix
 Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank Taylor and Francis for accepting our proposal to compile this book,
and then for publishing it. Specifically, we reserve special mention for Routledge’s Sport, Leisure
and Tourism team. Particularly, our good friend Simon Whitmore has proven yet again to be a great
supporter of academic writing about sport. Otherwise, we send our sincerest thanks to the chapter
authors, each of whom worked diligently and professionally to deliver their work – well done all!
Simon salutes his younger, fitter, better looking co-editors, and thanks Barbara and Tom for
continuing to tolerate his endless chatter and scribble about football. For me, it’s been almost
25 years of researching and writing in this field – it remains an endless source of interest and
opportunity. Thankfully, there is now a community of like-minded professionals around to sup-
port and sustain our contributions.
Dan would like to express his sincere gratitude to the wide-ranging sterling contributors
from around the world. In a time of increasing pressures in academia, taking the time and com-
mitment to see-through such high-quality chapters is a tremendous effort and pays testament
to the incredible and collegiate scholars operating in the football research – thank you. This
extends to the editorial team for their ongoing support and diligence, notably Simon who
provided the impetus to approach the handbook conception – thank you all. Also, thank you
to Manchester Metropolitan University and my colleagues in the Business School for their
ongoing support. And finally, Sarah, Niamh, George, and Betty for providing their best support
anyone can ask for – a loving family.
Paul is grateful to the large number of leading researchers who gave their time to join us in
producing this handbook, a football degree in a book. Collating the efforts of a large and diverse
group of scholars is a difficult task and we hope that this book is a fitting tribute to the excel-
lence and generosity of our authors. Gratitude goes out to the Sports Business group and wider
School of Sport at Leeds Beckett University. Thanks also to Simon Whitmore and the hidden
network of individuals at Routledge, whose support has been brilliant throughout.To my fellow
co-authors, what a time it was. Finally, to my family, Jayne, Heidi, Paddy, Elsie, and Betsy, thank
you for your unconditional love and support. Family, Football, and Work – the holy trinity.
Christos would like to thank the “dream team” of contributors that brought this volume to
life. His gratitude goes out to the three co-editors for the work they have done and continue
to do together, especially to Simon whose influence on his career – as his MA tutor, PhD
supervisor, colleague, but also co-author in several scholarly studies – is immeasurable. Special
thanks to Molde University College that afforded him the time and resources to travel around
the world and meet most of the contributors in this handbook. A huge “Thank You” for the
endless patience, support and love of his wife Demetra; unfortunately for her, this handbook
will bring even more “football discussions” into the house! Inevitable, if one considers that their
15-month-old son, Charis’ first ever word was “GOAL”.

xx
 1
Introduction to the handbook of
football business and management
Simon Chadwick, Daniel Parnell, Paul Widdop,
and Christos Anagnostopoulos

Football is commonly referred to as the global game, which is a testament to the sport’s enduring
appeal. Many countries claim to have been the originators of football as we now know it, though
it is over the last 150 years that the sport which most of us are familiar with has emerged and
developed. Initially, football was predominantly a socio-cultural phenomenon in the way that it
drew people and communities together under a common identity. As the twentieth century pro-
gressed and professional sport took hold, management in football became a key consideration for
participants and observers of the game. Later, the influence of North American capitalism began
to exert its influence such that, by the end of the twentieth century, the likes of television rights,
sponsorships, and club ownership began to fundamentally change the nature and organisation of
the sport. And as the twenty-first century matures, there are new issues and challenges, not least
those brought about by globalisation, and by ongoing concerns about governance in football. Yet
among these many and varied changes to the game, there is still great affection for it among fans;
its relationship with the media remains symbiotic; governments still recognise its importance; and
businesses know it makes good commercial sense to be involved with it.
Now more than ever, good management is required to ensure that football remains robust
and relevant. Rapid societal and technological changes mean that the sport now has serious
competition for its dominance of the sport, leisure and entertainment narratives. At the same
time, the level of scrutiny that football is now exposed to ensures that decisions made on eve-
rything from event-bidding to the signing of sponsorship contracts are examined at an almost
forensic level of detail. There are new challenges too, not least in the growing influence of states
and corporations on football. With elite professional clubs increasingly owned by American
investors, Asian governments or those intent on building franchise networks, this potentially
has profound consequences for everything from player transfer markets through to branding,
marketing, and financial decisions. At the same time, the lifeblood of the sport – players and
fans – continue to occupy a prominent position in football’s landscape. Fans are consuming it
in new and different ways, whilst retaining the fervency and strength of their team affiliations.
Players are always in demand; spotting, acquiring, retaining, and rewarding them are arguably
now bigger challenges than ever before.
In this context, there has arguably never been a more important time for managers in foot-
ball, especially given the additional business pressures that clubs, representative associations and

1
Chadwick et al.

other related organisations must contend with. As such, the purpose of this book is to highlight
and analyse the most important issues facing the sport. Drawing from their extensive experience
of the game (as players, fans, advisers, consultants, researchers, and observers), the editors have
drawn together a group of leading writers who examine the sport’s most salient issues and chal-
lenges using a combination of academic and practical insights. We deliberately adopt a business
and management approach in the book which, whilst addressing commercial aspects of football,
nevertheless acknowledges and embraces its socio-political dimensions too. As such, the reader
will find that the book covers fields such as sponsorship, agents, and social media, while also
addressing grassroots football and governing bodies.
The book is targeted at students and staff studying or working on football and sport business
management programmes in universities across the world. Given the book’s multi-disciplinary
nature, we also believe that it may also be of interest to event management, sport studies, sport
sciences, and sociology of sport students and staff. Other programmes, which contain sport
management or business modules are also likely to find considerable relevance in the work pre-
sented here. Furthermore, we envisage the book being of interest to people working in football,
and to people generally who have an interest in the sport. As such, we have sought to ensure
that the content of it is as accessible to as wide a range of audiences as possible. This has been
achieved through, for example, the examination of prominent issues, and the use of appropriate
case material.
To further supplement the readings in this book, the reader’s attention is drawn to the Twitter
timelines for each of the editors:

•• Simon Chadwick @Prof_Chadwick

•• Dan Parnell @parnell_daniel
•• Paul Widdop @Fire_and_Skill
•• Christos Anagnostopoulos @chrisanagno

In addition, readers may find the following are activities, in which members of the editorial
team are engaged, to be helpful:

•• Football Collective https://footballcollective.org.uk

•• China Soccer Observatory http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/iaps/cso/index.aspx

2
 2
A framework for diversification
decisions in professional football
Sascha L. Schmidt and Florian Holzmayer

Introduction
The burgeoning European football market has provoked increasing competition between clubs
for further growth. Besides strengthening the core football business, new related revenue sources
will be decisive for the future growth of football clubs. Digitalisation offers numerous opportuni-
ties for a football club’s growth portfolio as it entails new technologies and changing consumer
behaviour. These opportunities, however, also increase the complexity for clubs to act in a
changing environment. As such, they may lead the clubs to advanced management requirements
in terms of corporate strategy, which is defined as “the scope of the firm in terms of the indus-
tries and markets in which it competes” (Grant, 2016).
In order to ensure competitive longevity, a structured strategy development approach has
become inevitable for football clubs. The implementation of such an approach entails two main
aspects. First, a football club is required to answer the crucial strategic question – where to
compete? (Grant, 2016). From a corporate perspective, this means finding the right level of
related versus unrelated diversification. The level of relatedness must be examined in terms of busi-
ness activities and geographical reach. Second, clubs need to consciously manage a portfolio
of growth initiatives that leverage and combine its existing resources with those that are newly
acquired. This structural approach will support clubs in countering the interdependency of
financial and sportive performance in football.
Evidence suggests the existence of an upwards trend between financial and sportive per-
formance in professional football (Szymanski and Smith, 1997; Dobson and Goddard, 2011).
As such, superior financial resources increase the likelihood of higher sportive performance
through, for instance, investments into new players. At the same time, sportive performance has
a positive impact on a club’s revenues (Dobson and Goddard, 2011; Rohde and Breuer, 2016).
However, sportive underperformance may lead to a downward spiral. As a result, professional
football clubs attempt to reduce the interdependency of financial and sportive performance.
New digital business models help to decouple earnings from football success and enable a
broader risk distribution. In this respect, professional clubs are on the verge of reinventing
themselves and taking on the structure of corporate organisations that operate in a diverse range
of businesses.

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Schmidt and Holzmayer

In order to guide football clubs in their growth development, we introduce the Growth
Strategy (GS) framework, which is rooted in diversification literature (e.g., Rumelt, 1974; 1982;
Palepu, 1985; Chatterjee and Wernerfelt, 1991; Vachani, 1991; Markides and Williamson, 1994;
Kumar, 2013; Kim, Hoskisson, and Lee, 2015). Overall, the 3×3 matrix entails nine distinct prin-
cipal strategies along the two dimensions – business proximity and regionality. The GS framework
is intended to support football clubs in making profound decisions about where to allocate their
resources and select the most suitable diversification path in order to stimulate further growth.
Case examples illustrate the applicability of the GS framework.
This chapter is divided into six sections. After the introduction, we review the characteristics
and recent developments of the European football industry followed by a discussion about the
impact of digitalisation on football market growth. Next, we derive learnings from diversifi-
cation theory. These provide the basis for developing the GS framework, for which we then
define principal strategies for each cell and illustrate their applicability with case examples.
Subsequently, we describe diversification paths within the GS framework. Finally, we discuss the
contribution and limitations of the GS framework and provide an outlook for future research
based on our work.

The European football industry

The European football industry is governed by the Union of European Football Associations
(UEFA), which embodies one of the most significant members of the Federation of International
Football Associations (FIFA). Among a range of activities, UEFA is responsible for delivering some
of the world’s most prestigious football competitions. At the international level, it organises the
UEFA European Championship for national teams, which is regarded as one of the most viewed
TV broadcasts worldwide (e.g., Schreyer, Schmidt, and Torgler, 2017). At the club level, the UEFA
organises the UEFA Champions League (CL), which has enjoyed enormous success from a com-
mercial and broadcasting perspective (Drut and Raballand, 2012). In the CL, the top football clubs
in Europe stand in direct competition and earn large payouts (Peeters, 2011), regardless of whether
or not they perform well in the competition (Pawlowski, Breuer, and Hovemann, 2010). Regular
appearance in the CL not only benefits clubs financially, but also the leagues through exposure as
they compete in major international TV markets. Clubs from the big five European leagues (i.e.,
English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Spanish LaLiga, Italian Serie A, and French Lique 1),
in particular, have profited as they are consistently part of the CL.
The big five European leagues have been consistently growing by almost 30 per cent over
four seasons reaching revenues of € 13.6 billion in 2015/16 (Deloitte, 2016; 2017). Today, and
according to Deloitte’s (2017) latest reports, competition occurs mainly between the clubs’ core
businesses, comprising broadcasting (49 per cent), commercial (34 per cent) and match day rev-
enues (17 per cent). Broadcasting represents the major income source and is fuelled by recently
renewed national TV contracts in the UK, Spain, Italy, and Germany (Deloitte, 2017). Although
the core national market remains the most important revenue source for European clubs, the
share of international revenues is growing quickly. For example, in the 2013–2016 cycle almost
60 per cent of broadcasting revenues in the English Premier League (EPL) could be accounted
to national TV contracts. Yet, “EPL revenues generated from international media rights have
become an increasingly important source of income” (Schreyer, Schmidt, and Torgler, 2016c),
growing from 24 per cent to more than 40 per cent of broadcasting revenues from the 2004–
2007 to the 2013–2016 cycle (Schreyer, Schmidt, and Torgler, 2016c; UEFA, 2016).
However, for clubs, achieving additional revenue growth is difficult, because they do not
have full managerial control over the product they offer. In competitive sports systems,1 clubs

4
 Diversification decisions in football

need each other to produce football (Cairns, Jennett, and Sloane, 1986). This means that on the
one hand, clubs must cooperate. On the other hand, they stand in direct sportive competition.
Contrary to typical economic activity where businesses do not necessarily rely on cooperation,
in competitive sports systems “the greater the economic collusion and the more the sport-
ing competition the greater the profits” (Neale, 1964). This phenomenon has attracted much
research as it is unique to sports business. Scholars have, therefore, explored the role of the
determinants in shaping the demand for the product, which might be the drivers for revenues in
turn. These might include, inter alia, the competitive balance within a league and the resulting
game outcome uncertainty,2 or the role of superstars (e.g., Brandes, Franck, and Nü esch, 2008).
Such determinants, however, are difficult to manage as they cannot be influenced directly by
the clubs. In fact, even if they were to be controlled for, physical assets such as a club’s stadium
capacity might present boundaries, while the number of TV viewers will not increase endlessly.
Hence, the current growth development in the core football business might be opposed to limits
at some point.
Within this competitive landscape, clubs must identify new investments outside their core
business in order to compete for the attention of the football fan. Additionally, clubs may advance
their core business internationally. For both aspects, football clubs hold a distinct advantage as
compared to other companies in the entertainment industry: They enjoy oligopolistic access to
the game of football and its resources.

The impact of digitalisation on European football

According to representatives from the football business in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland,
digitalisation is identified as the main driver for future growth in the football market (Schmidt
and Eberhard, 2016). In our view, digitalisation entails two key factors that impact the core foot-
ball business: new technologies, and changing consumer behaviour. These, in turn, lead to an
acceleration of the clubs’ internationalisation, and the emergence of new digital business models
related or unrelated to the existing core business.
New technologies such as cloud computing or integrated software solutions (i.e., club man-
agement systems), and their appropriate application, are critical for successful growth (Schmidt
and Krause, 2017). These have already and will continue to further strengthen the process
efficiency and effectiveness of the core football business. Moreover, new technologies have
created new opportunities for the management of customer relationships and the handling of
substantial amounts of data (Schmidt and Eberhard, 2016). For example, the use of big data has
revolutionised football itself. In just minutes, football players can create more than seven mil-
lion data points with only three balls (Curtis, 2014). The availability of datasets has led to the
employment of data scientists, who can interpret and process the information into key insights
for on- and off-pitch strategic purposes.
In addition, new technologies impact the football spectator experience and multiplied “the
possibilities of enjoying sports content” (Evens and Lefever, 2011). They fundamentally changed
the game experience for the fan. For instance, augmented reality or virtual reality goggles enable
a fan to see the 360-degree perspective of a player or a referee and might make it possible to pro-
ject the stadium experience into the living room, soon. Real-time statistics, super slow motion,
video highlights, or interactive content further improved the fan experience during gameplay.
In the future, fans might be able to choose a camera on their favourite player’s jersey via smart
glasses or contact lenses using eye movements, whilst also reviewing the specific fitness and
performance statistics of a player3. Experts see the sports industry in a pioneer role to introduce
“yet unforeseen digital technologies” (Merkel, Schmidt, and Schreyer, 2016).

5
Schmidt and Holzmayer

Besides the emergence of new technologies, consumer behaviour has changed. Digital natives
have grown up with the Internet and manage their daily business on smart devices. They out-
numbered traditional consumers in 2013 and will overtake digital converts soon (PWC, 2014),
becoming the most important football consumers in the near future. Nowadays, fans leave digi-
tal footprints in all their online activities, making them transparent in terms of personal data.
This encourages clubs to create individualised, custom-tailored content that is distributed “across
as many multi-media platforms as possible” (Santomier and Hogan, 2013). Hereby, data mining
and CRM systems are once more important to predict distinct behavioural patterns and to hold
the attention of their fans while competing with other leisure and entertainment providers.
Since the Internet unlocks new sales channels to distribute content around the world with
very limited marginal costs, internationalisation in football has been facilitated and accelerated.
As a result, we have seen strong growth rates of new international broadcasting contracts in
England, Germany, and Italy (Deloitte, 2016, 2017). This is not surprising since digital natives
are often also fans without borders, following their second- or third-favourite club abroad.
The variety of digital news and the increased mobility provide them with a feeling of greater
proximity to their favourite international clubs. In the past, fans had to purchase a newspaper in
order to discover how their favourite team abroad had performed. Today, fans can track scores,
monitor newsfeeds, and watch video streams live.
Fans without borders can also follow their chosen stars, look for rare sports events, or hold
a personal connection to their preferred team abroad (Schmidt and Schreyer, 2012). Following
superstars via social media and other digital channels plays an important role for fans without
borders. Evidence suggests “a positive effect of superstar characteristics and role model perception
on team identification” (Hoegele, Schmidt, and Torgler, 2014). Fans are willing to spend money
on merchandise or broadcasting offerings for their cross-border favourites even if they might
not regularly be onsite for home matches. Clubs seek to endear to their fans abroad by creating
an integrated digital fan experience, thus strengthening the fan bond and increasing fan loyalty.
Manchester United can be named as best practice example in responding to changed consumer
behaviour with its recently launched digital app that will broadcast its own MUTV channel and
content across 165 countries (Cohen, 2017). Other clubs like Schalke 04, Manchester City, or
Ajax Amsterdam have entered the emerging e-sports business to extent their reach internationally.

Insights from diversification theory

The choice of business portfolio is a critical part of a corporate strategy (Markides and
Williamson, 1994). This is due the fact that a diversified portfolio can offer many benefits but
also serious costs implications. For this choice, digitalisation offers enormous growth opportu-
nities for a football club that maximises potential benefits. However, given that clubs have only
limited resources to invest into growth initiatives, it is crucial to decide on where to compete.
This entails answering questions of where and to what extent to diversify when choosing
among different business opportunities. Limited diversification entails the challenge of risk
concentration, especially in a money intensive business such as football where sportive under-
performance can provoke a financial downward spiral. Certainly, there is no “one size fits all”
solution to cope with digitalisation. However, a clear guidance for categorising and deciding on
corporate diversification, “i.e., decisions on the entry into new lines of activity,” (Speckbacher,
Neumann, and Hoffmann, 2015) is central for the growth of a club.
Diversification has been examined from portfolio and strategic management perspectives.
Drawing on modern portfolio theory (MPT), diversification is identified as the underlying
factor in the context of portfolio selection (Markowitz, 1952). MPT outlines the importance

6
 Diversification decisions in football

of choosing assets that are diversified and not positively correlated. The aim is to maximise
return and minimise risk. From a strategic management perspective, Wu (2013) states, “firms
diversify in order to leverage firm-specific resources for which factor markets are imperfect”.
This is in line with the resource-based view suggested by Penrose (1959) and Teece (1982) and
further supported by Datta, Rajagopalan, and Rasheed (1991). This school of thought summa-
rises potential benefits from diversification literature as performance improvements from scale
and scope economies, and skill synergies. In contrast, it can also be associated with costs from
bureaucracy, control, and resource inefficiencies.
Decades of research on diversification have examined influential factors and motives for
diversification decisions. Building on Dhir and Dhir (2015), these include, inter alia, resources
(e.g., Chatterjee and Wernerfelt, 1991; Miller, 2004; Sakhartov and Folta, 2014), geography and
environment (e.g., Chakrabarti, Singh and Mahmood, 2007; Mayer and Whittington, 2003;
Diestre and Rajagopalan, 2011; Kim, Hoskisson, and Lee, 2015), competition (e.g., Wiersema
and Bowen, 2008; Lien and Klein, 2013), technological changes (e.g., Lu and Beamish, 2004;
Lange, Boivie, and Henderson, 2009), leadership characteristics (e.g., Jensen and Zajac, 2004),
risk (e.g., Montgomery and Singh, 1984; Wang and Barney, 2006), dynamic capabilities (e.g.,
Dø ving and Gooderham, 2008), ownership (e.g., Alessandri and Seth, 2014), or diversification
experiences (e.g., Mayer, Stadler, and Hautz, 2015) of a firm.

Diversification choices
Besides examining these factors and motives, research on diversification distinguishes between
the choice of relatedness, entry options and entry decisions for a firm, which can be classified
as level, mode, and type of diversification (Dhir and Dhir, 2015). The level of diversification com-
prises the spectrum from related to unrelated diversification (e.g., Rumelt, 1974; Palepu, 1985;
Chatterjee and Wernerfelt, 1991;Vachani, 1991; Kumar, 2013). While the level of diversification
considers corporate decisions on where to compete, the type and mode of diversification focus
on how to compete concerning the implementation aspects of diversification. Accordingly, the
mode of diversification defines entry or execution forms of diversification through internal
development, alliances, and acquisitions (e.g., Villalonga and McGahan, 2005; Yin and Shanley,
2008). Finally, the type of diversification refers to horizontal, vertical, concentric, and conglom-
erate diversification moves (e.g., Ansoff, 1965).
Scholars such as Lubatkin (1983), Montgomery (1985), and Palepu (1985) have argued “that
the primary determinant of firm performance is not the extent of diversification [e.g., diversi-
fication versus focus], but the direction or relatedness in diversification” (Park, 2002). Thereby,
when deciding on its corporate strategy, a firm needs to differentiate between relatedness in
terms of business activities (e.g., product or business unit) and relatedness in terms of geography
(Vachani, 1991). Corporate strategy-making should therefore consider two levels of diversifica-
tion relatedness: business proximity and regionality.

The Growth Strategy (GS) framework

Founded on learnings from diversification theory, we establish the Growth Strategy (GS) frame-
work. The framework’s first dimension, business proximity, entails core, related, or unrelated busi-
ness activities. The second dimension, regionality, entails a football club’s business activities in
national, close-by, or global geographical region(s). This framework addresses a current lack of
go-to guidelines for corporate strategy considerations regarding emerging digitalisation oppor-
tunities. Existing strategy frameworks, for example, by Ansoff (1957, 1958), Ayal and Zif (1979),

7
Schmidt and Holzmayer

Ade (1993), Kotler (1999) or Gupta and Govindarajan (2000), are mainly concerned with
the product-market level and thus, do not offer these go-to guidelines for corporate strategy
accordingly.

The business proximity dimension

Diversification decisions are central to capture, evaluate, and structure new growth opportuni-
ties in the football market. Thereby, the strength of the existing core business determines these
decisions, since it provides the funding for (un)related diversification decisions. We define the
core business of a professional football club as the classical football department, which builds on
revenues from broadcasting, commercial and match-day activities. Referring to Teece (1982),
this “core business may provide critical resources to a related segment in the form of knowledge
and human capital” (Kumar, 2013). Hence, it represents the starting point for relatedness deci-
sions. We therefore label the first divide within the business proximity dimension of our GS
framework as core.

Related versus unrelated diversification of business activities

Many scientific studies have identified the competitive advantages of related diversification over
unrelated diversification of business activities. The competitive advantages include growth, prof-
itability, firm value, or costs benefits (e.g., Rumelt, 1974; 1982; Palepu, 1985; Markides and
Williamson, 1994; Sakhartov and Folta, 2014; 2015). These benefits are explained by synergies
in resources from economies of scope (e.g., Teece, 1980; 1982), R&D aspects or resource shar-
ing (e.g., Wan, 2005; Lim, Das, and Das, 2009) and resource redeployment (e.g., Sakhartov and
Folta, 2014; 2015). In addition, some scholars state that even related diversification helps to
minimise risks (e.g., Lubatkin and Chatterjee, 1994). Even though most scholars favour related
diversification in terms of business activities, Kumar (2013) highlights “productivity shifts and
the concomitant subsidisation of the core business” as substantial costs beside complexity con-
siderations (Zhou, 2011). However, for football clubs, synergy generation and risk minimisation
through related diversification seem in particular attractive with their dependency on sportive
performance in the core business.
In addition to the output differentials of related and unrelated diversification, resource input also
influences the level of diversification. In particular, intangible assets, external financial resources,
and a surplus of physical resources are connected to increased related diversification (Chatterjee
and Wernerfelt, 1991). This emphasises the importance of the current and future resource endow-
ment when deciding on related diversification moves. For football clubs, the existence of physical
assets such as stadiums, training facilities or business areas offer many opportunities for related
diversification entries. Moreover, knowledge-based resources like databases on customer behav-
iour taken from ticketing and merchandising sales can be used for cross- and upselling purposes
of football-related products and services. Interestingly, successful firms find an expansion formula
over time that allows them to predict and repeat related moves (Zook and Allen, 2003). With this
repeatability, a club can grow systematically and make use of learning effects. We therefore name
related business activities as the second divide along the business proximity dimension.
In comparison, unrelated diversification is associated with more destructive effects but might
provide interesting aspects in the football market context. Although some scholars have found
beneficial financial economies (e.g., Hill and Hoskisson, 1987) from unrelated diversification,
evidence suggests that it might lead to lower performance (e.g., Ramanujam and Varadarajan,
1989; Chatterjee and Wernerfelt, 1991; Palich, Cardinal, and Miller, 2000) due to higher learning

8
 Diversification decisions in football

costs and weaker scope economies (Kumar, 2013). However, given the volatility of the foot-
ball market, a move into an unrelated business could be beneficial to hedge periods of spor-
tive and subsequently financial underperformance – assuming that financial resources from the
broadcasting and commercial activities at the core can be made available. Thereby, such unre-
lated diversification would need a clear plan and leadership with a careful consideration of all
stakeholders, options, and eventualities (Zook and Allen, 2010). In order to incorporate these
considerations into the GS framework, we label the third divide within the business proximity
dimension as unrelated.

The regionality dimension

In management literature, the performance effect of geographic diversification over time has
been an intensively discussed topic (e.g., Vachani, 1991; Kim, Hoskisson, and Lee, 2015; Patel,
Criaco, and Naldi, 2016). Taking a resource-based view, it is argued that firms can already
have positive performance effects in early stages of international expansion due to firm specific
advantages from the home market. In contrast, the organational learning theory advocates for
performance increases in a later stage from learning effects and exploration of new resources
(Kim, Hoskisson, and Lee, 2015). Other scholars highlight the negative effects of geographic
diversification (e.g., Patel, Criaco, and Naldi, 2016). Importantly, the geographic relatedness
between countries is underlined as a crucial factor when deciding on the level of geographic
diversification (Vachani, 1991). Although the overall necessity to grow due to the increasing
competition pushes clubs to extend their core business into foreign markets, their national
football business still remains the most important revenue source. Hence, the national region
represents the starting point for geographic expansion and will present the first divide within
the regionality dimension of our GS framework.

Related versus unrelated geographic diversification

When diversifying geographically, clubs need to review the characteristics of potential markets,
as well as its endogenous aspects. According to Vachani (1991), the geographic relatedness
of diversification including the physical and cultural proximity between regions is a critical
characteristic to consider. Yet, the economic development of the regions can also play a crucial
role. In terms of its endogenous aspects, a firm needs to review its resources and capabilities as
“firms choose to globally diversify based on their firm attributes” (Chang et al., 2016).
Evidence suggests that related geographic diversification is more profitable than its unrelated
counterpart. This is due to a range of benefits including less complex operations (Ronen and
Shenkar, 1985), more spillover effects (Daniels and Radebaugh, 1989), lower coordination costs
(Grant, 1987) and more similarities between intangible assets and the target country’s charac-
teristics (Vachani, 1989). Regions with low cultural, administrative/political, geographic, and
economic distances (Ghemawat, 2001) compared to the home market seem to be attractive for
geographical expansion of football clubs. It enables them to utilise and reinforce the strength of
the national business. As such, we label close-by regions as the second divide within the regional-
ity dimension.
However, digital sales and social media channels diminish national borders and enable clubs
to not only consider close-by regions for geographical diversification but also the global market.
To further internationalise, a step-by-step geographic expansion, starting with a low-commit-
ment expansion into related markets and increasing gradually in terms of commitment and
geographical distance is suggested (Johanson and Vahlne, 1977). Johanson and Vahlne (2009)

9
Schmidt and Holzmayer

emphasise the business network that a firm acts in as key for its internationalisation process. It
is argued that this network is borderless and it is important to strengthen the position within
the network. The football market can be perceived as a similar network when thinking about
attracting new fans around the globe.
In order to gain additional merchandise and broadcasting revenues internationally, European
clubs already compete through international tours (van Overloop, 2015), establishing local
offices or international cooperation agreements. During the preseason 2017/18, more than 26
European top clubs were touring across North America, Asia and Australia led by 11 British
and five German clubs (Burson-Marsteller, 2017). Leading clubs, such as Bayern Munich, FC
Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Manchester United installed local offices on these continents
in order to drive the expansion of their core business internationally (Lakhani, et al., 2016;
Marsden, 2016; Schmidt, 2017). While local offices and staff can be afforded by the top clubs,
those with fewer (financial) resources typically compete by signing international cooperation
agreements with local partners. For instance, several Bundesliga clubs closed partnerships with
Chinese football clubs (1. FC Cologne, Hamburger SV) or built local Chinese youth academies
in Germany (Eintracht Frankfurt) (HSV, 2016; 1. FC Kö ln, 2017; Eintracht Frankfurt, 2017). To
account for these internationalisation efforts of football clubs on a global scale, a third regional
divide within the regionality dimensions is named global region(s).
In summary, the GS framework is a corporate strategy tool. It consists of a 3´3 matrix with
nine distinct principal strategies for growth (see Figure 2.1) along the dimensions of business
proximity and regionality. The former consists of core, related, and unrelated business activities
and the latter of national, close-by, and global region(s) for geographic diversification.
Unrelated

C.1 C.2 C.3

Unrelated Unrelated close- Unrelated global
national power by chance opportunity
BUSINESS PROXIMITY

B.1 B.2 B.3

Related

Related national Related close- Related global

power by strength ambition

A.1 A.2 A.3

Core

Core national Core close-by Core global

power strength ambition

National Close-by Global

REGIONALITY

Figure 2.1 
The Growth Strategy (GS) Framework for European Football Clubs

10
 Diversification decisions in football

Portfolio growth options

Each of the nine cells of the GS framework entails a distinct portfolio growth option. These
options include different levels of risk and return. For each cell of the framework, a principal
strategy can be defined and illustrated with case examples.
Figure 2.1 cell A.1: A core national power strategy focuses on the core football business in
the region of origin. It could cover improvements of the existing core business through new
technologies such as cloud computing or integrated software solutions, or infrastructure invest-
ments in a smart stadium or innovative training facilities. For example, Borussia Dortmund and
TSG Hoffenheim installed the so-called Footbonaut, a training machine used to systematically
improve players’ ball control at speed and in short-spaces (Zhu, et al., 2015).
Figure 2.1 cell A.2: A core close-by strength strategy extends the football core business towards
neighbouring regions. It could imply a partnership agreement with a smaller club to identify,
train, and shape new football talent. For example, Chelsea FC unofficially cooperates with Dutch
club Vitesse Arnheim. Youth players from London are lent to Arnheim to ensure they receive
playing time, and in best case, the market value of players increases (Conn, 2017). Bundesliga
club RB Leipzig operates a similar cooperation with its partner club RB Salzburg in Austria.
Figure 2.1 cell A.3: A core global ambition strategy expands the core business to distant regions
such as the opening of international offices. For example, FC Barcelona toured the entire U.S.
East Coast and opened an outpost in New York City in 2016 with plans to introduce further
offices around the world (Marsden, 2016). With this strategy, the club geographically entered a
less known territory away from its home and close-by regions, whilst promoting its core football
business through additional merchandising sales or new sponsoring agreements. Another exam-
ple of a core global ambition strategy is Manchester United’s launch of a new digital app, which
will broadcast MUTV, the club’s dedicated television channel, to 165 countries. The main aim
of this strategy is to capitalise on untapped revenue potential by increasing its merchandise sales
across their 659 million followers worldwide (Cohen, 2017).
Figure 2.1 cell B.1: A related national power strategy entails business activities in the home
region that are related to the core football business such as the construction of a new multi-
purpose high-tech stadium. Examples of these include the plans of football club Tottenham
Hotspur to provide a fully customisable home to host also American football games from the
NFL. In the future, the club is even flirting with the idea of cross-discipline offerings (Vrentas,
2017). In addition, top clubs increasingly invest into the opening of attractions (e.g., museums,
stadium tours, or escape rooms – an interactive game through which visitors need to crack dif-
ferent puzzles to solve an overall case) at their stadiums or the surrounding facilities. Besides
European top clubs, smaller clubs like Athletic Club Bilbao or Olympique de Marseille recently
inaugurated museums or announced plans to do so (KPMG, 2017).
Figure 2.1 cell B.2: A related close-by strength strategy comprises related business activities
in neighbouring regions. For example, European clubs such as Schalke 04, VfL Wolfsburg, AS
Rome, Manchester City, FC Valencia, Sporting Lisbon, Ajax Amsterdam, Paris Saint-Germain,
and Besiktas Istanbul have expanded into e-sports competitions. Each of these clubs has estab-
lished e-sports teams that compete against each other in the football simulation game FIFA.
These tournaments are often organised by the clubs themselves in close-by European markets.
Figure 2.1 cell B.3: A related global ambition strategy covers related business activities on a
global scale. This strategic approach relates, for instance, to investments in ventures that are con-
cerned with sports technology around the globe. For instance, Arsenal FC recently announced
a collaboration with corporate innovation specialist L Marks for the launch of an Arsenal
Innovation Lab. The idea is to work closely with start-ups to identify ground-breaking new

11
Schmidt and Holzmayer

fan experiences and move the club’s international business forward. Although based in London,
the ten-week start-up accelerator program is open for teams around the globe (Claxton, 2017).
Another example is provided by Schalke 04, who entered the League of Legends e-sports mar-
ket by acquiring and rebranding the e-sports team Element in 2016 (Wolf, 2016). This move
into the world’s most popular strategy game provides Schalke 04 access to a global fan base and
is still related to the core business, given professional e-sports teams need to be managed in a
similar fashion to that employed for their professional football teams (e.g., training, nutrition,
sponsoring, and merchandising).
Figure 2.1 cell C.1: An unrelated national power strategy entails a completely new business activity
in the home region that is not related to the existing football core business. For instance, a football
club could invest into a new national sports league (e.g., drone racing, e-sports) or acquire shares
of a national technology start-up. The unrelated investment would have the character of a business
option that neither requires much financial resources nor top management attention but would
spread the risk within the business portfolio. In case the new business is successful, the club would
participate with its shares; in case of failure, the financial loss would be limited.
Figure 2.1 cell C.2: An unrelated close-by chance strategy comprises a business activity unrelated
to the core business with a focus on neighbouring regions. Building on the example from cell
C.1 in the GS framework, a football club could invest into a new European sports league or
acquire shares of a European technology start-up. This unrelated investment would work like a
business option for the club as outlined for cell C.1.
Figure 2.1 cell C.3: An unrelated global opportunity strategy includes a business activity in
faraway regions. At the same time, this business activity would have no direct link to the exist-
ing core business, maximising the risk distribution and independency from the core business.
Analogue to cells C.1 and C.2, the football club could invest into a new global sports league or
acquire shares of a technology start-up active in distant markets.

Diversification paths
Taking a strategic perspective, the GS framework equips a club with the means to map and
incorporate growth initiatives from digitalisation. The starting point for all diversification
considerations should be the core national football business (Figure 2.1 cell A.1), generating
the major part of revenues that are crucial for diversification activities. At the same time, the
dependency on sportive performance remains strong with most of a club’s activities in the core
national market. To expand outside this market, a professional football club can explore various
diversification paths within the GS framework (see Figure 2.2). There are two generic diversi-
fication paths that start from the core national football business.

Path 1: A club might advance along the regionality dimension and decide to internationalise into
close-by regions or even capture global opportunities to extend the core business. Here,
familiarity with markets plays the most important role as it facilitates market-entry efforts.
However, the further the business is extended beyond national borders the more the club taps
into new ground, while at the same time hedges against volatilities on the national market.
Path 2: A club might choose to diversify by moving along the business proximity dimension into
related or unrelated business activities. Within related opportunities, the club can leverage
existing skills from the core business as it remains within the sports industry but moves
outside the football market. With unrelated business activities, a club attains a more bal-
anced level of overall risk distribution as unrelated business activities are not correlated to
the core football business. As a result, the dependency on sportive performance is reduced.

12
 Diversification decisions in football

C.1 C.2 C.3

Unrelated
BUSINESS PROXIMITY

B.1 B.2 B.3

Related

Path 2

A.1 A.2 A.3

Core

Path 1

National Close-by Global

REGIONALITY

Figure 2.2 
Diversification Paths Within the GS Framework

Since there is no “one size fits all” approach to diversification, each club needs to consider an
individual path to growth. The two illustrated generic diversification paths are suitable for clubs
that have exploited their core national business and start to seek out first options to grow outside
their current competitive arena. Top European clubs, such as Manchester United, Real Madrid,
FC Barcelona or Bayern Munich, face rather saturated home markets and have therefore already
started to diversify into new businesses and geographies. Hence, opportunities away from their
core business and national market (see Figure 2.2 cells B.2, B.3, C.2 and C.3) become more
attractive for further diversification and growth. In doing so, lower revenues from the core busi-
ness in periods of underperformance can be hedged with contributions from related or unre-
lated business activities on international markets. However, a diversified portfolio of business
activities per se is not a guarantee for financial success. It is complex to manage and requires a
lot of management attention. As such, it involves constant examination in terms of, inter alia,
realised synergies from economies of scope and scale, risk reduction, and potential inefficiencies.

Contribution and outlook

Deducted from diversification theory, the GS framework aims to support football clubs in reducing
complexity resulting from almost unlimited digitalisation opportunities in terms of new technolo-
gies and changing consumer behaviour. In turn, these accelerate the clubs’ internationalisation, and
create new digital business models. The GS framework should help in making profound decisions
from a corporate level on where to compete within these opportunities. Thereby, the 3´3-matrix
improves resource allocation within a club’s business portfolio along the business proximity and
regionality dimensions. Clubs shall identify growth opportunities along nine principal strategies
and various diversification paths that can be implemented with the underlying resources of a club.

13
Schmidt and Holzmayer

Conclusively, it advances existing diversification frameworks focused on the product-market level

(e.g., Ansoff, 1957; 1958; Ayal and Zif, 1979; Ade, 1993; Kotler, 1999; Gupta and Govindarajan,
2000) by allowing to sort in the digitalisation opportunities from a corporate perspective.
Besides the benefits of the GS framework, there are also limitations that need to be men-
tioned. The GS framework is a tool for the identification and evaluation of strategic diversifica-
tion options. It might primarily assist football clubs from the big five European leagues that have
already reached a certain level of maturity and professionalism. For less advanced clubs with very
limited financial resources, focusing on the core business might be of first strategic priority, instead
of seeking out related or unrelated business opportunities nationally or internationally. Further, the
GS framework does not address the question of how to compete in a new business or geographic
field since it concentrates on principal strategies on the corporate level. Hence, it is not concerned
with the respective diversification type (e.g., horizontal or vertical) and mode (e.g., internal devel-
opment, alliance, or acquisitions) that would need to be considered for implementation measures.
In addition, the GS framework shall only be the starting point for an ongoing portfolio review
process. The aim is to obtain a balanced portfolio of growth initiatives while constantly question-
ing borders and barriers within and on the periphery of the club’s business activities.
With regards to future research, we see three areas to empirically test and further develop the
GS framework: First, the output perspective of diversification strategies for football clubs needs
further consideration. An empirical analysis of the short- and long-term performance implications
as well as cost effects from related or unrelated diversification decisions by football clubs with
regards to business proximity and regionality would be insightful. Second, the current diversifica-
tion approaches of football clubs have to be examined empirically from an input perspective. The
resource classification used by Chatterjee and Wernerfelt (1991) in terms of physical resources,
intangible assets, and financial resources and its impact on the level of diversification might pro-
vide a starting point. As such, it may be adapted to the football market context. Insights could
aid understanding as to why clubs diversify in different manners with their underlying resources.
Third, the impact of diversification strategies (e.g., through learnings from related or unrelated
diversification) on the core business needs empirical investigation. At the same time, the effects of
increasing complexity in managing a diversified business portfolio should be examined.

Notes
1 Each of the big five European leagues involves 18 to 20 clubs, which play each other twice per season,
resulting in 34 to 38 games for each club from August to May. As they are open league systems, promo-
tion and relegation from the second divisions is possible. In addition, national cup competitions involv-
ing clubs from a country’s different leagues are organised on a knockout basis (e.g., FA Cup, Copa del
Rey de Fú tbol or DFB-Pokal).
2 The role of game outcome uncertainty in shaping the demand for professional football has been exam-
ined recently (e.g., Cox, 2015; Pé rez, Puente, and Rodrí guez, 2017; Scelles, 2017; Schreyer, Schmidt,
and Torgler, 2016a; 2016b; 2016c; 2017).
3 It is worth noting, that the increasing use of these new technologies is also likely to have a significant
impact on future stadium attendance demand. In fact, as Schreyer und Dä uper (2017) observe, in the
German Bundesliga, the second most-attended professional sporting league in the world (DFL, 2017),
currently about every tenth ticket sold remains unused and this number is likely to further increase as
technology changes the way fans consume the game.

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 3
Global football
Defining the rules of the changing game
Remco M. Beek, Martijn Ernest, and Jos Verschueren

Introduction: The phenomenon of globalisation

For decades, the term globalisation has been a buzzword with which to describe the ­integrations
of markets and the benefits and dis-benefits of our present economic relationships. Several
contributions were made to categorise the history of globalisation over the course of 200,000
years and multiple organising principles were used, mainly related to economics or by the
definition of trade (Baldwin, 2016). The new globalisation is driven by information technology,
which has radically reduced the cost of moving ideas across borders (Baldwin, 2016). In order to
understand the actual and upcoming dynamics, it is relevant to briefly outline the dynamics of
globalisation in order to integrate these patterns in the context of football.
Baldwin (2016) extrapolated two stages of globalisation. First, around 1820, trade costs fell,
which drove “unbundling” of production and consumption. Nearly all economists and scholars
of globalisation have noted that the economy was globalised by the early twentieth century.
As European countries colonised Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, they turned their colonies into
suppliers of raw materials for European manufacturers, as well as markets for European goods.
Meanwhile, the economies of the colonisers were also becoming free-trade zones for each other
(Saval, 2017). Production clustered locally as markets expanded globally, as this micro-clustering
sparked innovation. Multinational corporations were prominent in the economic landscape and
became significant investors in and exploiters of knowledge (Little, Go, and Poon, 2017).
The second stage occurred around 1990 when communication costs fell and the informa-
tion and communication technologies (ICT) revolution and wage gap drove unbundling of
G7 factories (this was the start of new globalisation). High-tech nations moved operations to
low-wage nations and ICT broke the monopoly that G7 labour had on G7 knowhow. With the
reduction of transaction costs as a recent driver of globalisation, production or supply “chains”
were replaced by much more densely networked patterns (Little et al., 2017). This enabled
innovation in the development of new business models and relationships with new sectorial and
regional strategies in response to the demand for a global approach to positioning within global
networks (Little et al., 2017).
Globalisation is inevitable in a world of modern communications that cannot be
­un-invented, but it will not be possible to combine globalisation with a small-state approach

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(The Economist, 2016). Individuals, communities, and corporations can appeal directly to
supra-national ­entities, creating a diffusion of state power in areas such as trade, security, and
environment through the emergence of transnational corporations operating in internation-
alised financial and labour markets (Little et al., 2017).

Globalisation of football
The game of football has come a long way since English villagers began kicking around pigs’
bladders in the Middle Ages. Football began to spread internationally during the heyday of the
British Empire, but the sport’s globalisation went into reverse in the interlude between World
Wars I and II, as authorities restricted the international transfer of players (Ghemawat, 2007).
Ghemawat (2007) outlined five parallels of football’s global progress and many economic
indicators of globalisation. First, there was a peak before World War I, followed by a reversal dur-
ing and between the two world wars, and then a revival after World War II. Second, globalisation
remained, in many respects, uneven and incomplete. In the case of football, this can be explained
by the failure to gain traction in the United States, the world’s largest sports market. Third,
cross-border differences featuring cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic differences
between countries are highlighted in the football context as well. This could be illustrated by
the role that Latin cultures, temperate climates, and threshold levels of economic development
play in explaining various countries’ success in the FIFA rankings. Furthermore, the strategies
that football clubs have followed exhibit a range of approaches for dealing with the differences
between locations, related to forging a local identity or aggregate across borders.The final paral-
lel is the negative portents about globalisation fuelling debates about whether it stalls or goes
into reverse.
However, the business of football should not be considered independently of the major
challenges facing the world in which sports may have a facilitating role. The shift towards
hosting international hallmark events in emerging destinations such as South Africa (2010
FIFA World Cup™), Brazil (2014 FIFA World Cup™), Russia (2018 FIFA World Cup™)
and Qatar (2022 FIFA World Cup™) raises challenges on the alignment with modernisation
and neoliberal globalisation approaches (Beek and Go, 2017). Moreover, the impact of mul-
tinational organisations such as FIFA is stated in relation to state powers since laws changed
in host countries because of organising these hallmark events. In the case of the 2014 World
Cup, for example, the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff signed a law that allows the sale of
beer at football matches, reversing existing legislation in accordance with FIFA requirements
(BBC, 2017a). Therefore, the political spectrum is crucial to understanding the process of
globalisation in the context of football.

Stages of globalisation in football

In order to understand the developments in the playground of football, we clarify the phenom-
enon of globalisation in the context of football. In addition to the first process of internation-
alisation within football in the early 1900s, four main “globalisation stages” could be offered:
geographical globalisation (Globalisation 1.0), commercial globalisation (Globalisation 2.0),
digital globalisation (Globalisation 3.0) and social globalisation (Globalisation 4.0). Over the last
decades, these much-discussed trends within international football are considered more impor-
tant than others in fundamentally changing the game. However, it seems relevant to include
these patterns in order to understand the challenges ahead, realising that these stages are con-
tinuous processes, without evident origin or expected ending.

21
Beek, Ernest, and Verschueren

Globalisation 1.0: Geographical globalisation

The first official international game was played between England and Scotland on the afternoon
of Saturday, December 2, 1872. Four thousand spectators saw the teams draw 0–0 at Glasgow’s
West of Scotland Cricket Club (The Guardian, 2016). Football’s global spread was both encour-
aged and hampered by Britain’s empire, most often in locations where Britain’s influence was
through trade (such as Central America, South America, and Europe) rather than conquest
(Pearson, 2017). In countries subject to acute British imperial muscle (such as South Africa,
Australia, and New Zealand), football never really took hold as a truly popular sport since
cricket and rugby became the sports of the people (Tomlinson, 2011). The FIFA World Cup
in 1930 was the first world championship for men’s national association football teams. It took
place in Uruguay from 13–30 July 1930 with 13 teams: seven from South America, four from
Europe, and two from North America. The first pan-European football tournament was held in
France in 1960.
The immigration of South American football players, especially to Spanish and Italian leagues,
was explained by the historically talented South American players, the linguistic and cultural link
because of the Spanish colonial past (except Brazil) and perceived styles (skill, flamboyance, and
the like) that were better suited to the playing styles of Italy and Spain than to those of northern
Europe (Maguire and Pearton, 2000). The concept of globalisation is an active ingredient in
most analyses of player migration. However,Taylor (2007) argued that footballer migration is by
no means a new phenomenon and should not be isolated from the general trends and patterns
of migrations. Three sets of determinants (economic, cultural, and institutional/structural) have
influenced and stimulated the movement of football labour and are crucial for understanding
why players move around the globe. The movement of footballers from country to country and
from continent to continent is much more than the product of the current economic and power
relations of world football. It reflects a “complex set of linkages between specific countries, or
sets of countries, linkages that often have deep social, cultural and historical roots” (Taylor, 2006).
Poli (2010) contributed to this idea by concluding that the creation of economic opportuni-
ties is intrinsically linked to the characteristics of the actors involved (such as their biographies,
linguistic skills, trust relationships) within the development of transfer networks.

Globalisation 2.0: Commercial globalisation

A new set of social and cultural relations have arisen, notably featuring the greater migration of
elite labour, a gradual proliferation of continental and global competitions, astronomical rises in
elite player salaries, new media outlets for football (satellite television, club television stations, the
Internet, etc.), and new forms of cultural encoding of football through these media (Giulianotti,
2002). In line with the professionalisation of football towards an industry, sponsorship relation-
ships started as transactional approaches, in addition to the philanthropic origins, and football
organisations shifted from local institutions to global brands.
Although football was first broadcast on television in 1937, with the FA Cup final between
Sunderland and Preston North End, the role of television was limited until the 1960s. Clubs
refused to let cameras onto their grounds for fear of declining attendances (Sondaal, 2013).
In 1964, an agreement was reached between the BBC and the Football League whereby
£5,000 would be divided equally between all 92 Football League teams to allow the broad-
cast of extended highlights of football matches on the programme Match of the Day. By
the 1980s, however, negotiations for a new contract took place in a changed environment,
due to a combination of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation policies, growing

22
 Global football

television ownership, English football’s global popularity, and developments in satellite televi-
sion (Sondaal, 2013).
In addition to the stated private investments in football to gain shares and (partial) owner-
ship in a football club, several examples indicated this commercial globalisation from a business
investor’s perspective. In order to understand these patterns, it is relevant to briefly indicate the
case of investments made in Brazilian football. Since football became big business in the 1990s,
several companies have invested heavily in Brazil. Private equity firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst
was one of these investors with radical ideas, as the firm’s president Charles Tate mentioned that
“soccer in Brazil is like baseball, basketball and football put together in the USA” (Romero,
1999). The transaction with the Corinthians club gave the company all licensing rights to the
club’s name, enabling it to sell items like caps or T-shirts emblazoned with the Corinthians
insignia as well as the opportunity to negotiate deals for the TV broadcast of games. At that time,
Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst had already entered into pay-tv ventures in Brazil and in neighbour-
ing Argentina that could facilitate such deals. Over the years, other companies such as Bank of
America and ISL invested, and lost, hundreds of millions of dollars in storied clubs such as Vasco
da Gama, Flamengo and Corinthians (Antunes, 2012). Almost all have fled, with no desire to
come back. According to Ghemawat (2007), the story of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst’s investment
in Brazil also illustrates what is “probably the most common bias in evaluating cross-border
strategies: an emphasis on ‘size-ism’, which fails to appreciate the persistence of differences
between countries”.
Some football clubs were originally founded by another commercial organisation; for exam-
ple, the professional Dutch football club PSV was started in 1913 to serve the needs for activities
for Philips employees (PSV, 2017). Some other clubs were founded as a result of interference of
Western football clubs. For example, Ajax Cape Town was formed in 1999 as the Dutch football
club AFC Ajax expanded its worldwide talent-feeder network to South Africa (Ajax CT, 2017).
These clubs supported society, shared knowledge, trained football and management skills, and
aimed to spot new talent for the parent club. Furthermore, in order to offer fans around the
world the opportunity to see their beloved team play live and to promote the club’s brand, clubs
routinely travelled to financially lucrative places to play games during the preseason, such as the
International Champions Cup (Sondaal, 2013).

Globalisation 3.0: Digital globalisation

The emergence of information and communication technologies, coupled with a globalising
society, has resulted in network-centric marketing, causing corporate sponsors to be active in
redrawing multiple boundaries. Internal restructuring, combined with international strategies,
strategic alliances, and collaboration with a variety of societal stakeholders, has proven increas-
ingly important to enhance sponsors’ reputations. In an increasingly globalised, connected, and
media-intensive world, one of the most challenging tasks managers face is the implementation
of effective ICT strategies.
In addition to the impact of satellite television, new technological innovations radically
changed the media landscape. In addition to the worldwide commercialisation and develop-
ments of the Internet in the late 1990s, the first years of the new century were marked by the
establishment of online social networks with Facebook (since February 2004), Twitter (since
March 2006), WhatsApp (since January 2008), Instagram (since October 2010), and Snapchat
(since September 2011). These innovations extended media and marketing communications
as they shifted consumer behaviours away from personal computers, via laptops and tablets, to
mobile devices (Parganas, Anagnostopoulos, and Chadwick, 2015). Moreover, it enabled football

23
Beek, Ernest, and Verschueren

fans worldwide to watch games and interact with other fans. The more physical communities
of the football clubs were transformed into digital communities in which the content of foot-
ball drove the interaction between the members of the tribes (Parganas, Anagnostopoulos, and
Chadwick, 2017).
The opportunities to connect the world with the live streams of football games shifted the
model of free public viewing on television to the first types of decoded pay-tv. Moreover, at this
stage, multiple digital innovations were made in the football industry, including LED-boarding
on the pitch, virtual advertising during the matches, and online communication. Most of these
innovations created new forms of existing aspects (such as hardcopy advertising and hardcopy
magazines moving to virtual advertising and online content, respectively). At the stage of digi-
tal globalisation, the digital gamification of football also started, resulting in a variety of games
including FIFA (since 1993) and Pro Evolution Soccer (since 2001). However, what started as
casual gaming was actually the start of the growing phenomenon of e-sports as well. Other forms
of simulation (such as football analysis) also grew rapidly, enabling football clubs to improve
tactical (on-field) aspects. Thus began a long process of incorporating the technological oppor-
tunities in the game by, for example, goal-line technology and video assistance referee (VAR).

Globalisation 4.0: Social globalisation

The ways in which supporters talk about football and “consume” the game indicate the dynam-
ics of football in transnational networks and identified social movements in the new media age
(Millward, 2011). Digital communication has forced organisations to redefine interaction with
their communities and new efforts to enlarge sense of belonging and fan experiences (during
the game as well as in and out of the stadium).
The social impact of influencers and the increasing technological opportunities have funda-
mentally changed the game. Whereas celebrity endorsement started as a way of connecting a
celebrity (such as an athlete or artist) to a brand, with influencer marketing the influencer is per-
ceived to be the creator of the entire content. Nevertheless, branded content is where branded
content interferes with credibility and authenticity. Football is a context in which these social
interactions with influencers as role models will also become more dominant and complex. The
impact on social media of Francesco Totti’s farewell from AS Roma after 25 years was impressive
and broke the club’s digital records on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat,YouTube and AS
Roma’s website. With 8.8 million Facebook followers – which is only a fraction of the social
following database compared to clubs such as FC Barcelona and Real Madrid (102 million fol-
lowers) or Manchester United (73 million followers), Roma out-performed every team in the
world in terms of Facebook videos during that period of time (Rogers, 2017). The tribute to
the talismanic Totti highlights the global impact of influencer marketing.
In line with the battle for football talent and in their search for authenticity, sports brands are
looking for the “next big thing” to promote their products. While Neymar had only just turned
13 when Nike signed him in 2009, Shane Kluivert is now the youngest player to have signed an
endorsement agreement. The nine-year-old son of retired Dutch football icon Patrick Kluivert
switched from Paris Saint-Germain to FC Barcelona (both Nike sponsored) and continues his
development as a football talent in addition to already being an impactful influencer. He has a
global reach on social media, with 178,000 followers on Instagram and over 50,000 YouTube
subscriptions to his personal channel (BBCb, 2017).
Community formation is driven by community members engaging, participating, and feel-
ing supported by strong networks to form strong communities and tribes (Misener and Mason,
2010). These communities and tribes raise the complexity of the unique characteristics of a

24
 Global football

person and the interactions of a person as a component of a group. Moreover, this complex
interaction is also driven by the various roles a person may have, such as a consumer, employee,
or volunteer. Cultural dimensions, group behaviour, tribes, and networks are commonly used to
draw tendencies among individual behaviours. Several contributions have sought to define the
spectator identities in football including diversity on sense of belonging (Giulianotti, 2002) with
interplay of identity, time boundaries, geographic constraints, level of attachment, the degree
of fan-like behaviour, and the primary form of self-identification (Hunt et al., 1999; Sullivan,
2004). It seems relevant to reconsider the taxonomy of fandom in perspective of the new
dynamics on geographical, commercial, digital, and social aspects in order to define marketing
opportunities. Moreover, football clubs are investing in databases to have a more detailed under-
standing of the fan base, enabling them to explore new commercial possibilities.
In line with the service-dominant logic and the related integrative approach of value
­co-creation (Vargo and Lusch, 2008), new dimensions of engagement marketing by virtual exten-
sions (such as virtual reality) were introduced to get access to exclusive content. Organisations
shift from selling products and services towards creating detailed data profiles, knowing that
the individual consumer becomes more valuable. Regulations on increasing interactions with
spectators during the game have changed to create new ways of fan engagement. The debut of
“Ref Cam” by ESPN came in the football match between MLS All Stars and AS Roma in 2013;
four years later, FOX Sports enhanced the MLS All-Star Game with Real Madrid with “Ref
Cam” (FoxSports, 2017). Following applications of technological capabilities in other sports
(such as ice hockey, American Football and rugby), unique content was created by player cam-
eras during a (friendly) match between Legends Real Madrid and AS Roma (Matthews, 2017).
Indeed, Intel planned to showcase Intel TrueVR during the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in
PyeongChang (Grant and Novy-Williams, 2017), while TAG Heuer Connected showed the
use of smartwatches during football games in the Premier League and Bundesliga (Shaw, 2016).

The future dynamics of global football

According to the phenomenon of globalisation and its development within the context of
sports, five patterns can be identified: global outlook with fidelity to local roots, changing
commercial partnerships, changing media landscape, cultural battles within the playground of
football, and attractiveness of the game.These are crucial ingredients in understanding the future
dynamics of global football, representing challenges and dilemmas for the industry.

Pattern I: Global outlook with fidelity to local roots

Professional sports clubs need to clearly define what they are (identity), who they want to target
(segmentation and targeting), how they want to be perceived and how they differentiate them-
selves from the other main competitors (positioning) (Bodet, 2010). As suggested by Sondaal
(2013), there is a need for a global outlook with fidelity to local roots. What role is to be played
by the vast majority of “local” clubs that are incapable of hiring global stars (Alvito, 2007)?
The dilemma of the identity of the football club is reflected in the rare emergence of the
truly “global” team: Many players still play in their host nation and host-nation players are often
awarded the accolade of club captain. This can be illustrated best by the 15 greatest performing
European football clubs of 2017 (based on the UEFA coefficient season 2016/2017), which
include Real Madrid (captained by Spain’s Sergio Ramos), Juventus (Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon),
Club Atlético de Madrid (Spain’s Gabi), Manchester United (England’s Wayne Rooney), FC
Barcelona (Spain’s Andrés Iniesta), FC Bayern Munich (Germany’s Philipp Lahm), Borussia

25
Beek, Ernest, and Verschueren

Dortmund (Germany’s Marcel Schmelzer), Olympique Lyonnais (France’s Maxime Gonalons),

AFC Ajax (Dutch Davy Klaassen), Sevilla FC (Spain’s Vincente Iborra), and RC Celta de Vigo
(Spain’s Hugo Mallo). These “home” players are typically viewed as the “heart” of the team.
Only AS Monaco (Colombia’s Radamel Falcao), Leicester City FC ( Jamaica’s Wes Morgan) and
Paris Saint-Germain FC (Brazil’s Thiago Silva) had captains who were not from the club’s home
country. This supports the argument of football clubs practising cultural “globalisation”, mean-
ing they accord status to symbolic local or national figures and recruits “foreign” players from
culturally similar nations, at the same time as they seek to build global recognition.
Football clubs should determine their core values and higher purpose in order to strengthen
the engagement of the community members and sense of belonging in the “glocal” tribes. In
this foreign–familiarity continuum, trust is a crucial ingredient. Studies on place and identity
in football cultures (e.g., Edensor and Millington, 2008) suggest that place-based sporting his-
tories, practices, and identities matter more than ever, resonating culturally in an age of global
communications, information, and capital flows. It is of importance here how these histories
and practices, and the places and spaces tied to them, are being reworked, reordered, and, most
critically, privileged by and through media according to differing hierarchies of symbolic value
(Ruddock et al., 2010).
The case of the Maracanã stadium in Brazil indicated multiple aspects of the bright and dark
sides of globalisation in the football context. Despite the centrality of the Estádio Mario Filho
(Maracanã) stadium in the sporting landscape of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, the shifting political
economy of global sport in the 1990s positioned the Maracanã outside the realm of interna-
tional competitions (Gaffney, 2010). Beginning in 1998 and continuing today, the Maracanã has
undergone a series of major reforms in order to bring it into compliance with international
regulations towards a Euro-American style of spectatorship. Before it was eliminated in 2005,
a section of the stadium was known as the “geral”, a low-lying area of concrete that encircled
the field. This “populist heart of the stadium was a functional and symbolic space that allowed
for the inclusion of all social sectors in public life to participate in Brazil’s most popular form
of leisure in its most iconographic stadium because of the low ticket prices” (Gaffney, 2010). As
it illustrates several described dynamics, the pressure of global forces on local identity and the
impact of society are obvious in this case.

Pattern II: Changing commercial partnerships

A geopolitical shift is underway that has not been seen since the end of the Cold War, moving
from a unipolar world with one superpower to a multipolar one.This new world order has many
great powers that will need to work together in order to avoid friction and conflict on trade and
currency, on economics and finance (WEF, 2017). These changing powers will affect the sport-
ing and football industries as well, since the challenges of the football context cannot be viewed
independently from the dynamics in the world. New opportunities arise to collaborate within
international partnerships in an effort to identify, where appropriate, the reputation-reality gap
and manage the brand reputation as football organisation or stakeholder (sponsors, host cities,
governments, etc.). These changing powers by new stakeholders are illustrated best by the case
of City Football Group. This holding company now administrates six association football clubs
under the ownership of Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG): Manchester City FC, New York
City FC, Melbourne City FC, Yokohama F. Marinos, Club Atlético Torque, and Girona FC
(Tremlett, 2017).
The impact of globalisation is more sudden, more individual, more unpredictable, and
more uncontrollable (Baldwin, 2016). Therefore, the role of the football club in the (local)

26
 Global football

society should surpass corporate social responsibility, since the contribution to the world is
increasingly important to the members of the community. FC Barcelona and Arsenal recently
announced their intentions to be of value for the stakeholders in innovative ways. Both
clubs presented – separately from each other – two concepts that had distinct similarities:
the Barça Innovation Hub and the Arsenal Innovation Lab. The Barça Innovation Hub is a
platform for research, development, training, and innovation that aims to help change the
world through sporting excellence via knowledge and innovation as a powerful brand with
worldwide impact and one of the leading sports organisation regarding talent and knowledge
(Barça Innovation Hub, 2017). The Arsenal Innovation Lab aims to identify smart-thinking
businesses and help them identify ground-breaking ideas to take Arsenal forwards in a part-
nership with L Marks (Arsenal, 2017).

Pattern III: Changing media landscape

Due to the changing media landscape, the impact of the media will shift as well, since new
ways of communication and sharing of content between consumers and organisations will
enable new dynamics in the reality–reputation gap. Therefore, sponsorship partnerships help
overcome the gap among stakeholders between perceived reality and obtained reality. The
projected and perceived image, as well as the destination’s reputation, can be clarified as
potential gaps between these aspects. It is important to understand the opportunities and the
risks in increased digital media usage, so that both industry and users can learn how best to
exploit the benefits while mitigating the negative effects (WEF, 2016). Wagg (2007) illustrated
these dynamics by the vital myths in global sport and popular culture: the myths of the celeb-
rity and of the football manager. As they are endowed via the media with special significance
and unusual powers, the actual skills cannot be known, only believed, which makes both
celebrity and football management socially constructed (Wagg, 2007). The changing media
landscape affects the reality–reputation gap, which designs new opportunities and risks for the
football industry.
In the nexus of branded content and user-generated content, sponsorship partnerships
become increasingly important in the marketing domain to leverage engagement and con-
versations with stakeholders through meaningful content. For example, it has been suggested
that new media powers such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Netflix will join the
broadcasting battle in the Premier League (Sweney, 2017). Moreover, illustrating the chang-
ing media landscape, the live streaming sports network Stadium partnered with Twitter and
Facebook to offer live streamed sports (Perez, 2017); Amazon won the battle with Twitter for
the livestream rights of the NFL (Rovell, 2017); Snapchat signed partnerships with the NFL,
MLB, NBA, Formula 1, and Wimbledon (Edmondson, 2017); and the Champions League
shifted from the public network to pay-tv in Spain, Great Britain, and Germany (Sportcal,
2017). Furthermore, e-sports has experienced massive global growth over the past few years,
with major investments from blue-chip sponsors, game publishers, and media companies, as
well as sports leagues and teams (Nielsen, 2017). In understanding e-sports and its potential
related to the football industry, it is crucial to distinguish gamification of football with profes-
sional gaming of, for example, League of Legends and the growing interaction on new media
platforms like Twitch.
As digital engagement became key in order to engage customers, upcoming technological
innovations in relation to artificial intelligence, blockchain, and 3D printing will undeniably
impact the football industry in the years to come and shift the value propositions of rights hold-
ers and their partners (PWC, 2015).

27
Beek, Ernest, and Verschueren

Pattern IV: Cultural battles within the playground of football

In the next few years, cultural conflicts will be expressed in the context of football, both within
the borders of a nation as well as in the international playing field. These conflicts will follow
the political and social dynamics within and across nations and religions. The rivalry between
FC Barcelona and Real Madrid reflects a broader antipathy of the media and citizens in Madrid
towards the Catalans in general and FC Barcelona in particular, and vice versa (Ball, 2002).
The recent political and social dynamics in relation to the potential independence of Catalonia
have affected the tensions between the fans of both football clubs, as well as the support of the
national team.
In addition, Great Britain leaving the European Union is suggested to have far-reaching
effects on sports, especially in case of labour conditions and business investments of non-British
organisations. This new Britain’s status as a member of the European Union might have both
positive and negative effects on the national football industry and the global brand of the English
football clubs and sponsors (Aarons, 2016). Moreover, the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup™
in Qatar has raised questions about alcohol being banned from stadiums and streets because of
cultural and legal principles in the conservative Middle Eastern country (Payne, 2016). With
Budweiser as a major sponsor of that event, the cultural clash between FIFA and Qatar’s strict
cultural norms might not end like the FIFA’s push in Brazil to adjust legislation on alcohol for
the 2014 World Cup. This is especially the case since FIFA already made an exception for the
host country of the tournament being played in the winter, with a break during the regular
season of the clubs, instead of the regular summer edition at the end of the club season.
The globalisation of football enables intercultural encounters of people within destinations,
between destinations as well as among organisations with different cultures and structures.
Despite the positives of this pattern, these dynamics will challenge the football industry as well.
History has shown the impact of these aspects by means of political boycott, political conflict,
and hierarchy of power (for example, players of German club Hertha BSC kneeling in support
of NFL protests for tolerance and against discrimination (Uersfeld, 2017)). This form of social-
cultural risk (for example, social support and cultural differences) was relevant in the conflict
between Papiss Cissé and the English football club Newcastle United. The Senegal striker had
complained that Newcastle’s new four-year, £24m sponsorship with a payday loan company
called Wonga offended his Muslim faith and personal beliefs (The Guardian, 2013). He objected
on religious and ethical grounds that he would not wear Wonga-branded clothes. Under Sharia
Law, a Muslim is not allowed to benefit from lending money or receiving money from someone –
that is, earning interest is not allowed. Wonga’s annual percentage rate is over 4,000 per cent. A
few weeks after leaving the preseason training camp, Cissé and the club agreed on the terms of
wearing these shirts (Taylor, 2013).
In addition to the cultural conflicts, the process of globalisation will have an impact on legal
aspects as well, including labour rights, contract rights, transfer windows, television rights, and
financial agreements (such as investments, ownership, taxes) among the cultural and political
spheres of influence. For example, although Brazilian child-labour laws prevent anyone under
the age of 14 from working, foreign clubs have the alternative of “hiring” a player’s entire family,
who move along with the star player (Alvito, 2007).

Pattern V: Attractiveness of the game

The integration of football into the global economy represents a double challenge for all those
involved with the sport and for the future of the sport itself. As Croci and Ammirante (1999, p. 501)

28
 Global football

stated, on the one hand, “all of these developments constitute new exciting and profitable oppor-
tunities, at least for a few people”. On the other hand, “they risk destroying all the identities and
traditions that football has long embodied and that have been at the base of its appeal”. However,
this process started decades ago, and new opportunities in the actual stage of globalisation bring
new dimensions that will radically affect the football context.
Another example of this pattern is that the substantially Western-dominated powers of
sport circulating around the globe will create new dominant practice and expressions by cul-
tural adaptions (for example, English Premier League in the Asian context) and hybridised
local forms of global sport such as Indian Premier League cricket. The latter illustrates per-
haps the most tangible example yet of a genuine political and economic shift in the power
relations of a major sport from West to East (Rowe and Gilmour, 2009). The rise of the
Indian economy, combined with the nation’s population and its elevation of cricket above all
other sports, has placed India at the centre of the sport. The same tendency might occur in
case of an exceptional growing popularity of the local clubs and global world-class football
players in the Chinese Super League exceed the interests in the English Premier League by
Asian football fans (and investors). At the beginning of 2017, Chinese clubs were break-
ing transfer records and international football players quadrupled their wages and became
some of the biggest stars in a continent of four billion people (Price, 2017). Moreover, only
seven football teams are among the world’s 50 most valuable sports teams (Manchester
United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Arsenal, and Chelsea),
in contrast to teams of strong global sport competitions like the NFL, the NBA, and MLB
(Badenhausen, 2017).
While globalisation will affect both men’s and women’s football, it is considered less evident
that globalisation transforms cultural values within football, especially when it comes to gender
roles (Eliasson, 2009). However, a new agreement between Norway’s football association and
the country’s international players will lead to men and women receiving the same financial
compensation for representing their country, with the men making a financial contribution to
the women’s team in this historic deal (Wrack, 2017). Moreover, the aging population generates
new opportunities for the football industry, with a significantly growing new type of the game:
walking football (Ramaswamy, 2016). Nevertheless, the incredible growth of women football is
the focus of gender and the interference of Asian investors in European clubs impact the chang-
ing powers by new stakeholders. The competition with other sports and other types of enter-
tainment in this era brings football into perspective, as there is, and will be, no unequal spread
of interest in football around the world. With the aim of raising value for the sport’s fans, new
strategies are required to reach new fans and create more intense relationships with present fans.
There is a need for football clubs to avoid becoming the equivalent of a city in which residents
move from the city centre because there are too many tourists. The same might occur in stadia
where loyal fans feel less devoted to the club during matches when there is a higher proportion
of day-visitors from abroad. Football clubs must realise the impact of change in ownership and
spectators of the club in relation to not only identity and atmosphere, but to competitiveness
between teams, level of attractiveness, and sense of belonging within the communities of the
football industry.
Football’s long-term hope is that the magnificence of a performance and the excitement
of its unpredictability will protect it from the problems that commodification inevitably
brings (Croci and Ammirante, 1999). The main question of global football is whether the
game being played is the finite one or the infinite one. A finite game is played for the pur-
pose of winning, while an infinite game is played for the purpose of continuing the play
(Carse, 1986).

29
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
young man not return to his own customs and his own people when
the American influence was removed?
They were sitting in front of Nampu’s house while Mrs. Burton
made these reflections. She was resting in the shadow of the cliffs
behind the hut on a splendid Indian blanket of black and red. Near
her Nampu was molding a great earthenware bowl, shaped and
colored like a great red disk cut in two and hollowed on the inside.
Around it the crude outline of a snake lay coiled. Already Polly had
asked to be allowed to purchase it.
A few yards off Se-kyal-ets-tewa sat upright with his legs crossed
underneath him. He was silent unless he was spoken to, but he
seemed to keep his eyes fixed on the three girls who formed another
group at some distance off.
None of his new acquaintances at their second meeting thought of
or spoke to the Indian by the English name of John Mase—the name
by which he had introduced himself on the train.
Suddenly Mrs. Burton turned to him.
“I hope you will come to see us as often as possible at camp,” she
began, speaking with her usual impulsiveness and thinking it might
be amusing to study the different influences at work in the Indian
youth. “I would like to have you teach us of your people and some
day take us to your village perhaps. Later on we are hoping to see
your great August festivals.”
Mrs. Burton had not meant to be condescending, but there may
have been an unconscious suggestion in her tone. The Indian
hesitated and frowned. Then, seeing that the three girls were coming
toward Nampu’s house, he rose up.
“Thank you,” he answered, but without signifying whether his
reply meant agreement.
Next day Peggy Webster asked him the same question.
She and Bettina and Dawapa were standing in a small group at the
entrance of the Painted Desert, waiting for the others to join them.
They had walked from Nampu’s house—a distance of only a mile or
two.
“You will not disappoint us, Se-kyal-ets-tewa,” Peggy urged,
thrusting her hands into her pockets in a boyish fashion and nodding
her head vigorously. “But if you do decide to come won’t you give us
some other name to call you by? Life isn’t very long at best and Se-
kyal-ets-tewa——”
The Indian smiled. He understood and liked Peggy, as all other
boys and men who were worth while did. She was so simple and
straightforward and so without the least trace of coquetry.
“Yes, if Mrs. Burton and the rest of you really wish it, I will come
when I can, although I have other more important work to do,” he
answered proudly. Then smiling again, “Perhaps the last two
syllables of my name will be less difficult. Tewa alone means ‘Keeper
of the Trail.’”
He was looking directly at Peggy and talking to her, not appearing
to notice Bettina nor the Indian girl.
Nevertheless Bettina replied:
“I was lucky when you chanced to be the ‘Keeper of my Trail’
yesterday.” She was smiling, also, and yet she spoke seriously. “I
wish I knew how to thank you.”
A moment afterwards the entire party was entering the Painted
Desert.
It was as if they had come into a country where, long centuries ago,
Titanic artists and alchemists had poured out their paints and jewels.
The mounds of earth with plateau-like surfaces called mesas were
red, blue, green or orange and took strange, fantastic shapes.
Fallen between the mesa were petrified trees which had split open
and were filled with precious stones. Now and then a petrified tree
appeared embedded in the sandstone of the mesa showing along its
side.
No one of the party realized how many miles were walked that day.
Nevertheless, after a time, Bettina naturally grew weary. Yet she did
not wish to mention her fatigue, realizing that she had simply not
entirely recovered from her experience of thirty-six hours before.
So, whenever it was possible she sat down, allowing the others to
wander on without her.
They were about to start on the homeward journey when she
chanced to speak to Tewa again, and this time they were alone.
Bettina was sitting in the sand with her chin in her hand by the
side of a giant petrified tree. She was staring at the place where it had
split open in falling, showing not only stones but precious and costly
gems on the inside.
Bettina was thinking so deeply that she did not hear the Indian
coming toward her.
He did not speak until she seemed to feel her eyes drawn away
from the things at which she was gazing, by another pair of eyes
looking upon her. Then she started a little.
“Mrs. Burton sent me to tell you that you were to ride back to
Nampu’s house in the wagon. You did not hear me coming? The
Indian moves silently because the moccasins we wear are best suited
to the sands of the desert.”
The young man, thrusting his hands inside his belt, drew out an
exquisite pair of moccasins made for a woman and of softest leather
and embroidered in bright beads.
“You will wear these and you will be less tired,” he said.
Were they a gift and, if so, what ought she to do? Bettina did not
know whether she should accept them.
But the Indian seemed to take her acceptance for granted.
“I am sorry to have startled you,” he continued, holding out his
hand to assist her in getting up.
But, for a moment after she had arisen, Bettina stood beside him,
making no effort to move on.
It was odd how little shyness she felt. It was easier to talk to this
Indian; to explain to him what she was thinking and feeling than to
any young man acquaintance of her own race.
“I wonder if you have ever read the Bible,” Bettina asked
unexpectedly, and then, seeing the Indian looked startled, she
laughed.
“Oh, I am not a missionary trying to convert you. It is odd, but this
place suddenly made me think of a chapter in Revelations. I suppose
because I never could have imagined anywhere else such a profusion
of jewels.”
“I have read your Bible,” the young man returned. “But I do not
believe in it for the Indian. For us our own religion seems best. Yet I
think I can recall the verses you mean.”
 “‘And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with
all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the
second sapphire; the third a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;
“‘The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the
eighth, beryl; the ninth a topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus, the
eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.’”
The young man pronounced each word slowly and Bettina held her
breath. Never could she have a more curious experience than this.
She would never forget these past few minutes.
The air of the desert was like crystal—the place a marvel of strange
color. And as the Indian recited, Bettina seemed able to count each
jewel in the stones before her.
How strange life was, that she should hear these exquisite
symbolic verses repeated by a Pagan in a land which had once
belonged to his Pagan ancestors.
 CHAPTER XIII
The Eternal Feminine

This morning there seemed to be a great deal of activity about the

new Sunrise Hill camp. But then, no matter how people may talk of
leading the simple life, there still remains a good deal of work to be
done to make even the simple life agreeable.
The four tents stood in a kind of half circle in front of the small
group of pine trees, which had influenced the choice of the camping
site. Before the central tent was a tall totem pole, as yet uncolored
and uncarved, which was later to record the experiences of the
Arizona Sunrise Camp Fire club. It had been purchased from an
Indian wood carver and had a strange head on top, resembling a
sardonic American eagle.
Below and beyond the chosen mesa, and some distance off, lay
Cottonwood Creek. The creek, fringed with tall cottonwood trees,
was nearly a mile in length. To the south lay the Gardener ranch and
toward the west the beginning of the desert, with the Hopi
reservations farther on.
This morning, half a dozen yards from the kitchen tent, the camp
fire was burning, and above it hung a huge iron pot.
Nearby, peering through a pair of large round glasses, Alice Ashton
was engaged in studying a recipe book. The book had been compiled
in Boston and Alice was baking beans for lunch. As the book had
been a present from her mother to the Camp Fire club, Alice,
although she knew exactly how the beans should be done, preferred
resorting to it, as she always did to the wisdom of the printed page.
Ellen Deal was endeavoring to render her assistance but evidently
her services were not desired. Nearly a month having passed with the
Camp Fire club in Arizona, Ellen and Alice had become great friends.
Alice conceded that the other girl had a scientific mind and was an
authority on health but, when it came to baking beans, Boston must
remain pre-eminent.
Mrs. Burton, sitting under one of the pine trees in her favorite
place and reading a lot of mail, now and then glanced about her.
Alice’s earnestness was amusing—what a contrast she and Sally
were, although they were sisters with only two years difference in
their ages.
There were a good many letters—two from her husband, one from
her sister, Mrs. Webster, and another from her beloved Betty
Graham in Washington.
Mr. Simpson had driven to the post-office box on the Gardener
ranch and returned with the mail only half an hour before. Since
then he had been engaged in digging at the pathway up the side of
their mesa, so as to make the ascent less difficult for the campers.
“Marie!” Polly called. But when Marie did not answer, she did not
call a second time. What was it about their kind, ugly guide that
seemed to inspire her maid with a kind of viciousness? Marie had
just marched to the side of the mesa and was at this moment shaking
Indian blankets just above Mr. Simpson’s head, while he devotedly
dug and chiseled at their trail.
Marie did look ridiculously picturesque in her French maid’s
costume of black and white, waving the brilliant, many-colored
Indian blankets in the breeze, like some small insect with wings all
too big, which seemed for the moment about to carry her over the
cliff.
Mr. Simpson must have been amused also, for he climbed up his
own steps to speak to her, and Mrs. Burton did not hear what he
said, but saw Marie flounce and toss her head after his remark.
No one of the other girls was in sight at present.
Vera, Peggy and Bettina had taken one of the burros and gone off
to stroll along the creek and gather wood which they stacked on the
burro’s back for the camp fire. Sally, who was the acknowledgedly
lazy one of the Camp Fire girls, was probably off pretending to read
somewhere, and Gerry might possibly be with her.
But the Camp Fire guardian was glad to feel that no one was far
away and that things were comparatively peaceful. Indeed, except for
Bettina’s accident some little time before, which had amounted to
almost nothing, they had spent several delightful weeks at camp.
Now and then they, of course, took trips about the country and had
seen several of the smaller nearby villages; also they had visited one
of the petrified forests, but there had been no difficulties which were
not amusing. And the girls seemed to be growing more friendly
under the influence of the Camp Fire club life.
Polly was thinking of these facts with a degree of quiet satisfaction.
Her husband’s, her friends’ and her sister’s letters had all faintly
suggested possible complications. None of them appeared sure of her
as a safe and sane Camp Fire guardian, no matter how good her
intentions. Her husband naturally was uneasy about her health,
realizing she had much responsibility to which she was
unaccustomed, while Betty and Mollie were uneasy over their only
daughters. Mollie really could be forgiven, for Billy had been ill for
several weeks and she herself was worn with nursing. She wrote that
he seemed to have greatly missed Vera’s companionship. And Mrs.
Burton wondered what her eccentric little nephew could find in the
companionship of the quiet Russian girl.
But at this moment she saw Gerry at some little distance off
coming across the sands and then more slowly climbing up the steps
of the mesa.
She looked very fair and sweet as she came across the trail. She
wore no hat and her pale yellow hair was the color of corn silk. It was
tied back loosely with a band of ribbon and she wore an ordinary
morning camp fire costume. Gerry had not yet gotten beyond the
first order of the camp fire.
Her hat, however, was filled with lovely wild flowers, which she
cast at once into her Camp Fire guardian’s lap.
“This is my morning tribute, dear lady,” she began. “I have been
wandering about looking for them for you.”
Now Polly Burton was aware that Gerry always flattered her, but
she did not dream for a moment that this had anything to do with
her especial fondness for her. There was an unusual bond between
them—one which she had not yet confided to the other girls and
probably would not until their camp fire days were over. Besides this,
Gerry did seem to have a particularly sweet nature, even though the
usually reasonable Peggy did not like her. But, then, the other girls
did, and Peggy was a little spoiled and apt to be too blunt. She and
Gerry would become more friendly later, was always her aunt’s
conclusion.
“Were you alone, Gerry?” Mrs. Burton asked. “You know I would
rather you girls did not go far from camp by yourselves. This country
is too unfamiliar to all of us.”
But she picked up the flowers and held them lovingly against her
face. They had not the usual fragrances, but a kind of aromatic
sweetness.
“Oh, I wasn’t alone all the time,” Gerry replied evasively, although
the older woman did not notice this. “I followed Vera and Peggy and
then came back along the creek.”
“But what about Bettina?” Polly asked carelessly, “I thought she
went with the other two girls.”
She was not especially interested in her own question, for she was
really thinking of her husband. But something in Gerry’s manner at
this instant arrested her attention.
Gerry had not answered, but instead had turned her face and was
gazing at the landscape.
“Where was Bettina?” Mrs. Burton asked more sharply, annoyed
simply because Gerry had not replied to her question.
Then Gerry turned slowly around.
“She started with the other girls, but said she was tired and sat
down to rest under one of the trees by the creek. On my way back I
saw that Tewa had joined her there. I did not know you expected him
at camp today. He has been here twice already this week to tell us
Indian stories. I sometimes wonder how he manages to come so far.”
“Oh, that is no concern of ours,” Mrs. Burton returned lightly, “so
long as you girls are interested in what he has to tell us. And Bettina
seems to be more entertained than any one else.”
Gerry laughed a curious little laugh and then stopped abruptly.
She was sitting on the ground facing Polly, with her hands clasped
gracefully over her knees and her head tilted back so that her blue
eyes were upturned.
 “I wonder if you will be cross with me, dear lady, if I say something
to you?” she asked with a slight flush and tightening of her lips,
which were rather thin.
Still Polly was not paying serious attention to her companion.
“Why should I be angry, Gerry? I have not been with you so far in
our acquaintance, dear. You have been a more satisfactory Camp Fire
girl than I believed you could be at the beginning. Besides, I made up
my mind that if I was permitted to be a Camp Fire guardian, I must
reform my own temper before I could influence the girls. So fire
away, Gerry, and test me,” she ended lightly, slipping her letters back
into the envelopes, but glancing at them again as she did so.
Yet Gerry did not speak at once.
“I was just wondering if you knew how intimate Bettina and your
Indian protégé are,” she said finally, “and if you mind? It seems odd
to me when you were not willing to have Terry Benton continue as
our guide, when he was a nice American fellow. And this Indian——”
Impulsively Gerry reached out and took hold of Polly’s hand,
looking at her with a kind of playful apology.
“I don’t mean to criticise you, you know. I would never do that,
and besides, I wouldn’t dare anyhow. But I feel you cannot have
noticed their friendship. It is only because I realize Bettina does not
understand some things as I do; has never been up against the world
as I have that——”
“Be quiet, Gerry.”
Undeniably Mrs. Burton’s amiability, which she had announced as
necessary to her Camp Fire work, had suddenly vanished.
“One thing I shall never allow in my Camp Fire club is for one girl
to talk to me unkindly of another. If Bettina is friendly to Tewa it is
because she is grateful to him, as I am. He is an unusual fellow and
she may help him with his education. I am afraid, Gerry, you do not
understand just who Bettina is, nor who her father and mother are.”
Polly hesitated. After all, Gerry’s influences had been so different.
She must not be too angry with her.
“Don’t let me hear any suggestions of this kind again about any
one of the Camp Fire girls,” she ended more kindly. “It is because I
want you to forget a good deal of nonsense that I brought you out
here with us.”
Gerry said nothing and, getting up, Polly laid her hand lightly on
Gerry’s head.
“Let us forget this past few moments altogether—both of us,” she
suggested, and walked away.
She had seen Bettina and Tewa strolling slowly away from the
neighborhood of Cottonwood Creek toward their mesa. Bettina was
nearly as tall as the Indian and in her picturesque camp fire costume,
did not look out of place beside her companion.
 CHAPTER XIV
Antagonisms

Dinner was finished and yet it was early evening.

Over in the west the sunset was flaming the sky with the brilliant
colors of this land of clear atmospheres.
Seated in a group about a smouldering outdoor fire were eight girls
—seven of them in ceremonial camp fire costumes and one of them
dressed as an Indian. Curious that the Indian girl should be the
fairest of them all!
Her pale yellow hair was fixed in the elaborate fashion of the Hopi
maidens, with great loops over each ear, her dress of white. About
her throat were several strings of uncut turquoise. The dress itself
was made of a single piece of woolen cloth—really a white blanket—
with a deep border of bright blue and red at the bottom and at the
top. Around her waist was a white belt and on her feet soft white
moccasins, with strings of white leather wound about her legs almost
to the knees until she looked as if she were wearing white top boots.
Dawapa was also in her ceremonial costume, as she was the guest
of the Camp Fire girls. At the moment she was deftly fashioning a
baho, or feather prayer plume. The other girls were watching her
with interest.
They were at some distance back from the fire with the evening
wind blowing the smoke away to the northwest among the blue peaks
of the San Francisco hills and the gorges of the Grand Canyon.
Gerry Williams was sitting next to Dawapa, with Sally Ashton on
her other side, Sally’s brown head resting against Gerry’s shoulder
and her lids closing now and then over her big brown eyes. She
looked like a sleepy, sweet-tempered doll.
 Opposite were Vera and Bettina, and in front Alice, Peggy and
Ellen. They had broken their usual Camp Fire circle formation in
order the better to observe their guest.
Their Camp Fire guardian was not with them at the moment,
having gone to her tent after dinner. It seemed better, now and then,
to Polly that she leave the girls alone.
On the ground beside Dawapa was a large round basket, flat like a
tray and woven in red and green grasses, with a disk inside to
represent the sun.
In spite of the lateness of the hour, as it was still sufficiently light,
Alice and Ellen and Vera were working at their own weaving. Since
her arrival two days before, the Indian girl had been teaching the
Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club to improve their hand craft in more than
one way. Although Dawapa was not yet an artist to equal her mother,
her skill in basketry, in silver work and more especially in pottery
had awed the American girls. It was one thing to be a modern Camp
Fire girl, no matter how successful in the obtaining of the green
honors, and another to have been born to the life of the camp and the
inheritances of generations of hand workers.
“What is that pretty thing you are making used for, Dawapa?”
Gerry asked, glancing up from her own pretty hands, which were idly
crossed in her lap, toward the other still fairer girl. Gerry did not
seem to be making a great effort to add to her Camp Fire honors and
thus attain to a higher membership.
The Indian girl was almost abnormally shy and timid—or at least
she appeared timid to the Camp Fire girls. But she had been to a
government school and spoke a fair amount of English.
“We plant our prayer plumes on the altar when we pray to the
Indian Gods,” she answered gently, with a faraway look in her light
blue eyes. “Our first prayer is for good thoughts—then that our
children may be wise and strong, and that the God of the Sky may be
glad of us.”
Gerry laughed. It was odd how few things seemed to strike her as
serious.
Alice Ashton frowned. She was not pleased at her younger sister’s
intimacy with Gerry, of whose history they knew almost nothing.
 “That is lovely, Dawapa; thank you for telling us,” she returned,
wondering if the Indian girl would feel that they had less good
manners than her own people. “After that, do you not pray for
something you especially wish for—the thing you most desire?”
Alice spoke earnestly and the other girls remained silent. Perhaps
there was not one among them who did not cherish a secret wish;
perhaps for some simple, material possession, or perhaps an
ambition which only the future could gratify.
But Dawapa only nodded her head and did not reply.
Gerry leaned over.
“Oh, if that prayer plume thing brings one good luck, give it to
me?” she demanded, reaching over and making an attempt to take
the baho from the Indian girl’s hand.
But Dawapa held to it firmly.
“Don’t do that, Gerry,” Bettina Graham said hastily and with a note
of authority. “Dawapa told you that the prayer plume is a part of the
Indian religious ceremony.”
After all, Bettina Graham was her mother’s daughter, and courtesy
and good breeding had been the rule of her life. She did not dislike
Gerry; indeed, she had not paid a great deal of attention to her, but
occasionally something in the other girl’s behavior offended her
almost unconsciously.
And, in a way, Gerry knew and resented this. In fact, she had
immediately decided that what Bettina’s friends called shyness was
only hauteur, due to her father’s prominence and her own social
position.
At Bettina’s speech she now flushed angrily, but drew away from
the Indian girl. Then she laughed a faintly mocking, insinuating
laugh.
“I beg your pardon; I had forgotten what a convert you have
become to ‘the poor Indian.’”
Just exactly what Gerry meant by this stupid speech, Bettina did
not appreciate. However, she did know that it was her intention to be
rude.
“You have extraordinarily bad manners, Gerry. I wonder if it is
because you do not know better?” Bettina returned quietly. By this
time she was also angry, but she had a self-possession which gave her
the advantage. Yet, the moment her sentence was finished, Bettina
regretted it. Among the new Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club this was the
first open quarrel, and the other girls were looking uncomfortable.
Bettina had not meant to make her accusation so sweeping. Having
lost her temper, she had simply said more than she should, as most
of us do under similar circumstances. Moreover, Bettina felt a little
stab at realizing that Gerry would doubtless tell her side of their
difficulty to their Camp Fire guardian. In Bettina’s mind there was
little doubt whose part she would take.
“You are hateful, Bettina,” Sally Ashton murmured, still a little
sleepily. She had not listened carefully to what had been said, but
wished to announce herself as Gerry’s champion. The truth was that
Alice had recently lectured her younger sister on the subject of their
intimacy, and Sally intended to show how utterly unimpressed she
was by family advice.
If Gerry intended continuing the quarrel she did not say anything
more at this instant. For, glancing up, she had seen that Mrs. Burton
had come out of her tent and was walking slowly towards them.
Bettina also had seen her and was a little puzzled that Gerry did
not make the best of her present opportunity. Then she concluded
that Gerry was a little ashamed, as she herself was, over their
childish lack of self-control. Perhaps next day there would be a
chance to straighten things out when they were alone, particularly as
they were expecting guests to arrive at their camp fire at any
moment.
“Our visitors have not yet appeared, have they?” Polly asked a
moment later, as she sat down next to her niece.
Straightway Gerry kissed her hand to their Camp Fire guardian
across the intervening space, looking as sweet and unruffled as if
nothing unpleasant had occurred.
Really, by this time only Peggy showed any especial expression of
annoyance. Peggy simply refused at all times to pretend to any state
of mind she did not feel. Although she had not spoken, recognizing
that she had no part in Bettina’s and Gerry’s quarrel, none the less
was she ruffled.
 Recognizing this fact, but not understanding the cause, Polly
slipped her arm affectionately through Peggy’s and held her close for
a moment. She could feel the girl grow less rigid; see her expression
change and soften. There was no doubting the sincerity of the
devotion between the niece and aunt, even if now and then they did
not entirely approve of each other’s actions. Mrs. Burton, however,
had not the faintest idea that Peggy would at any time oppose her in
a matter of importance. Perhaps she had grown too accustomed to
believing in her own charm and unconsciously in the influence of her
own success. So far no one appreciated the fact that Peggy Webster
was one of the few people who absolutely had to think for herself,
and to be faithful to the truth and to justice as she saw it.
“Terry Benton’s note to me said he wished to bring half a dozen
other friends with him tonight, so that was rather an unnecessary
question on my part,” Mrs. Burton went on, wondering why the
group of girls remained so silent and constrained, and glancing with
more attention from one face to the other.
Some little time before, Mrs. Burton had been compelled to
surrender the idea that she could order her Sunrise Hill Camp Fire
club as if it were a nunnery and she the Mother Superior. At least,
this was the accusation which Mrs. Gardener had certainly made on
their arrival. Really, Polly had only wished to keep clear of
entanglements. But Terry Benton, although not permitted to remain
as guide, had manifested no ill feeling. Indeed, ever since he had
been a more or less frequent visitor at camp, bringing an occasional
friend with him. He and Gerry and Sally seemed to have formed a
kind of three-cornered friendship.
Tonight, however, was the first time that he had suggested
bringing so many visitors at one time. But Terry had written to say
he had a friend from the East who had just arrived at the Gardener
ranch and wanted to call. There were also four or five western fellows
who declined to be put off any longer.
Therefore Mrs. Burton had acquiesced and written to say she and
the Camp Fire girls would be glad to see them. After all, she
remembered how important a part their boy friends had played in
her own Camp Fire days. Perhaps it was a sign of age to have
expected other girls to be different. Anyhow, Mrs. Burton had the
grace to laugh at herself after submitting to the inevitable. And she
was now first to spy their expected guests.
But the moment after, Sally also had seen them and jumping
quickly to her feet, all her sleepiness vanished, began waving a yellow
scarf.
The newcomers made an effective picture, riding in single file
along the trail which led from the Gardener ranch. Although the sun
was not entirely down, the moon had risen and was showing faintly
in the opposite sky. Later would be revealed, the Pleiades which the
Indian calls the time of the sweet influences.
The young men were wearing rough-rider costumes. Observing
Sally’s signal, Terry Benton, who was leading the line of march, rose
in his saddle and saluted. The next instant six other men followed
suit and together they halloed across the desert the long, curious cry
of the western cowboy.
But the girls had also risen in a picturesque group about their
camp fire, calling back in return the now world-famous camp fire
cheer:
“Wohelo for aye, Wohelo for aye, Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo for aye!
Wohelo for work, Wohelo for health, Wohelo for love.”

Ten minutes later, leaving their burros below fastened to the trees
near Cottonwood Creek, Terry and his friends, after climbing the
mesa, came directly toward Mrs. Burton. And before Terry could
introduce any one of them, a young man held out his hand.
“I have met you before, Mrs. Burton. You remember you said I
could not be a member of your Camp Fire club? Well, I have done the
next best thing, I am a visitor at the Gardener ranch. Benton and I
are old friends, and when he wrote me of what was going on out here,
I guessed the rest. Besides Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Graham
confessed. I think they want a first-hand report of Miss Bettina and
Miss Peggy from me.”
But Peggy had by this time joined her aunt.
“Ralph Marshall; how extraordinary to see you out here! You are
the very last person I would ever have dreamed of. I thought, after
your visit to us, you were to stay on and study scientific farming with
father.”
 “Oh, well, I have concluded to be a ranchman instead,” Ralph
returned, smiling and shaking hands with Peggy.
Peggy was pleased to see him. He had been a guest at their place
several times while she was growing up and was really a charming
fellow, if a little spoiled by his father’s wealth. Then his people were
friends of Bettina’s mother and father, as well as of her own.
 CHAPTER XV
The Storm

Ralph Marshall decided that he never had seen Bettina Graham so

agreeable nor so good looking as she was tonight.
Ralph was a great admirer of Bettina’s mother; indeed, whenever
he made a visit to Washington, he was always in Mrs. Graham’s
train. And he knew that Mrs. Graham wished him to be friends with
her daughter; indeed, she had frankly told him so, announcing that
she believed the one would be good for the other. For Bettina, in her
mother’s eyes, was too grave, too given to yielding to odd fancies and
too indifferent to people, while Ralph, in contrast, was too frivolous
and fond of society. He was some day to inherit great wealth, so his
father was trying vainly to interest him in something of importance.
His excursions to Washington and his connection with Senator
Graham were in order to inform him of national affairs. Failing that
interest, for Ralph had announced himself as bored to death by
politics, he had gone for a few weeks to the Webster farm, pretending
to have developed a curiosity concerning scientific farming.
But, really, Ralph was only concerned at present with having an
agreeable time. He was not a student and had barely managed to be
allowed to remain at college. He was not a first-rate athlete, for
athletics required too much self-sacrifice to appeal to Ralph. But he
had a charming voice and was one of the stars of his college glee club,
and there was not a man in college who danced better.
So he and Bettina really were too great a contrast in all their ideas
and desires ever to have been intimate friends up to the present time,
in spite of the family wishes.
Tonight, however, Ralph had concluded that Bettina was almost a
real girl, and not a prig given to writing poetry and reading a lot of
dull books that would bore any natural human being to death. She
was evidently interested in all kinds of outdoor sports, which she
must have learned through her Camp Fire work, and Ralph always
had been forced to concede that Bettina knew how to dance. She was
so tall and slender and, just as she had a peculiar light grace in
walking, so she had it in dancing.
Ralph and Bettina were dancing together at the time the young
man was reaching these conclusions—dancing outdoors on the
smooth plateau of the mesa on a wonderful, white night. Bettina’s
hair was shining in the moonlight, and she was stirred out of her
usual coldness by the beauty and novelty of her surroundings. So it
was small wonder that Ralph, who was a romantic person, was at
present taking a more kindly view of his companion.
However, Bettina had not changed to the same degree in her
opinion of Ralph. She was still convinced that he was exactly the kind
of man she would always least admire. Bettina’s ideal was
represented by her father, who had made his own way by a strenuous
and self-denying youth. Moreover, Bettina had never forgiven Ralph
for his discovery of the poem she had written and believed she had
safely burned that afternoon at the Webster farm.
But the music ceased. After Bettina and Ralph stopped dancing
they walked together to the side of the mesa and Bettina sat down.
The music consisted of a Victor, which Mrs. Burton had brought
with them as a part of the camping outfit, and tonight Marie had the
music in charge.
She looked like a little French figure of Pierette in her tight-fitting
black dress, and with her face oddly white in the moonlight. For
Marie insisted upon following the French fashion of using a great
deal of white powder in spite of her mistress’ remonstrances.
The Victor had been placed in a convenient position and Marie
mounted on a stool beside it. Almost for the first time since their
arrival in camp, Marie appeared almost gay as she ground out the
records and watched the dancers.
Mr. Jefferson Simpson had come forth from his lone tent near the
creek and established himself several yards away, to smoke a
meditative cigar and observe the proceedings with his twinkling,
philosophic eyes.
 “It is great out here, isn’t it?” Ralph said, as he arranged himself in
a picturesque attitude, lying at full length on the sands near Bettina’s
feet.
“And it wasn’t so worse—that little poem of yours I found this
spring; at least, not for stuff of that kind.” And Ralph spoke with a
fine scorn of the poets and poetry of all ages.
“I can repeat the thing, I think. Indeed, to tell you the truth, after I
read it over I learned the words and have been singing them to some
music I know.”
And Ralph sang under his breath in a charming voice:
“In the moon of the peach blossoms,
Toward the land of the setting sun,
Ghosts of old camp fires keep calling;
Camp fires whose race has been run.

“I can see the sands of the desert;

I can hear strange desert cries;
And ever my thoughts go homing
To a tent under desert skies.”

In the beginning Bettina was uncertain whether she was pleased or

annoyed at Ralph’s reminding her of an embarrassing experience.
But undoubtedly, by the close of the song, she was flattered. Ralph
really made the most of her little poem.
“The meter is very poor—so poor I threw my poem away—but the
music is lovely and you sing awfully well,” Bettina conceded, finding
herself not so bored by her companion as she always had been in the
past. But then, they had scarcely been together for a ten-minutes’
conversation alone in their entire acquaintance before tonight, both
Bettina and Ralph having taken pains to avoid it.
“Anacoana, Flower of Gold, is your Camp Fire name, isn’t it?”
Ralph continued, gazing somewhat sentimentally at Bettina with his
hazel-brown eyes. His hair was nearly the same color, and his teeth
strong and white. Indeed, the only contradictory thing in Ralph’s
appearance was his mouth, which was fine and clearly cut—
contradicting the weakness of the rest of his face.
This time Bettina was annoyed. It was useless to try to be sensible
with Ralph Marshall, as he was always under the impression that he
must be languishing when talking to a girl.
And Bettina did not like this; neither did she know exactly how to
behave under the circumstances. It would have been simple enough
to have laughed Ralph into better judgment of her and of the
situation. But Bettina was no longer sufficiently at ease.
“Oh, that is rather an absurd name which my father once chose for
me as a Camp Fire name and by which I have been embarrassed ever
since,” she answered coldly, not returning her companion’s gaze, but
sitting up stiffly.
Her attitude gave Ralph the desire to flee. Bettina was a literary
iceberg, after all! But how escape when one was lying at full length on
the ground gazing with at least an appearance of ardor upon an
unresponsive maiden, unless some one came to the rescue?
Ralph glanced about and suppressed a sigh of relief.
Terry Benton and a girl were coming toward them.
And Bettina was equally relieved by the vision of Sally Ashton—a
Sally no longer suggesting the least appearance of sleepiness, or of
anything but sweetness and animation. It is curious, but there are a
number of girls in this world—and an equal number of women—who
really never do wake up until something masculine appears upon
their horizon.
Sally was laughing and talking, her cheeks crimson and her big
brown eyes shining.
“We have come to look for you, Bettina. Tante was afraid you and
Mr. Marshall might be lost.” For Polly was ‘Tante’ to all of the Camp
Fire girls who were the daughters of her old friends, as well as to her
own niece.
The fact was, however, that she had not suggested to Sally to look
for Bettina and Ralph—the suggestion had come from Gerry. And
Gerry had not mentioned Bettina. She had simply told Terry Benton
that she had not yet met his eastern friend, and did he suppose that
Ralph had already run away?
So Terry and Sally had good-naturedly set off to find him.
Sally’s explanation had been the only excuse she could think of at
the moment, since, under the circumstances, she did not wish to
mention Gerry’s name. She was not really bad-tempered or deceitful;
it seemed impossible that any daughter of Esther and Dick Ashton’s
could be! But the fact was that Sally was like a pretty, soft kitten. She
did not wish her pleasures interfered with, and if they were she was
capable of a scratch. Moreover, she had fallen very much under the
influence of an older girl who had experiences of life which Sally
considered extremely fascinating. And at present Gerry’s power was
perhaps stronger than the Camp Fire’s.
Bettina and Ralph both got up hastily. The four of them were about
to move away when, unexpectedly and almost simultaneously, their
attention was attracted by the silhouette of a figure coming alone
along the western trail from the desert to the ranch, running with
extraordinary swiftness.
But at some distance off he stopped and stood perfectly still,
gazing in the direction of the mesa.
“An Indian—and a stunning one!” Ralph exclaimed in surprise and
excitement. Having only just arrived in Arizona, he had not yet
learned to take the appearance of an Indian upon the scene as a
matter of course.
And the figure below was a fine one—nearly six feet in height, with
broad, slender shoulders, perfectly erect, the head thrown back,
motionless as a man in bronze.
“Oh, that is our Indian, or Tante’s or Bettina’s,” Sally replied
teasingly. “However, I ought not to speak of him disrespectfully, for
he is the son of an Indian chief and a chief himself, I believe, when he
happens to be at home from college. Really, he does seem to be an
unusual fellow.”
“There are several of these Indian students at my college,” Ralph
remarked. “Queer contrast their existence must offer, if they return
to their own people in the holidays.”
Ralph was watching as he talked.
The man below had started to move again and was climbing the
ascent to the mesa. It chanced that the trail was not far from the spot
where the two Camp Fire girls and their companions were standing.
When the Indian reached the top he hesitated a moment, perhaps
surprised by the unexpectedness of seeing two strange young men.
But, without making any sign, he went on in the direction of the
group of tents.
 Not far from her own tent Mrs. Burton was sitting in a big camp
chair, with Dawapa on the ground beside her. The Indian girl had
been frightened by the appearance of so many strangers.
Standing in front of Mrs. Burton was a big, good-looking fellow
named Howard Brent, the son of another Arizona ranchman, with
whom she was talking.
The Indian stopped in front of them, but Polly did not notice until
she heard a little suppressed cry from the girl beside her.
Mrs. Burton was not altogether pleased at the sight of the young
man.
After all, he had too mysterious a fashion of appearing at camp
unexpectedly.
But something in the dignity and aloofness of his manner always
impressed her.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I did not know you had friends with you or I
would not have come. They must have told you to be prepared before
now.”
“Told me what?” Mrs. Burton demanded with her usual
impatience.
“That a storm is coming.”
The Indian pointed toward the southwest.
“Nonsense,” the young ranchman beside Polly replied. And then in
a patronizing fashion: “The Indians out here think they are great
weather prophets, and that they know the signs in the sky as well as
we know the face of a clock.”
The young ranchman looked up at the sky and then sniffed the air.
“Not a sign of a storm that I can make out, and I was born and
brought up in Arizona.”
“Oh, well; even if a storm does break on us, I suppose we can find
refuge in our tents,” Mrs. Burton added, not specially interested in
the subject of the weather at the present moment, and thinking that
Tewa might have manufactured a more worthwhile excuse for his
appearance.
In response the Indian said nothing, but the other man laughed.
 “I don’t believe you realize what an Arizona storm toward the end
of July may mean, Mrs. Burton. However, there is no reason for
worrying tonight.”
Tewa turned away, not replying to Mrs. Burton’s vague invitation
to remain.
The next instant, however, Dawapa had jumped up and seized the
young man by the arm.
“Take me home; I don’t like it here. I have fear, Tewa,” Dawapa
whispered.
Her companion shook his head.
“It is too far; there will be no time before the storm gets here.”
Freeing himself, he walked quickly away.
Half an hour later the first informal Sunrise Camp Fire dance was
over. The young men guests had started back on the trail toward the
Gardener ranch.
In another half hour Mrs. Burton and the girls were in their tents
asleep.
Tewa, the Indian, had disappeared.
Only Mr. Simpson had not retired. He had gone down to his own
solitary tent after the young men visitors departed. But he did not
seem able to sleep.
The moon had gone down, but the night was still fairly clear, with
a few stars overhead.
However, over toward the southwest there was a yellowish white
cloud rolling up the horizon. Suddenly, all the vitality and freshness
had gone from the atmosphere.
But more important, down in the neighborhood of the creek there
were queer rustlings in the branches of the tall cottonwood trees, as
if the birds were whispering together. On the ground there was the
faint sound of running, soft-padded feet.
Also Mr. Simpson heard familiar cries of the animals farther off—
the queer barking of the coyotes, the snarl of a wild cat—signaling
each other of the approach of danger.
Perhaps the tents ought to be more securely fastened down in case
of danger.
 Mr. Simpson was again climbing the mesa when he saw away off,
coming from the neighborhood of the Painted Desert toward them,
what appeared like a giant. It was a huge column of sand borne
straight upright.
A hurricane was behind it!
 CHAPTER XVI
After Effects

One of the conspicuous characteristics of Mrs. Richard Burton was

that she was at her best in emergencies. But, as she was a celebrated
actress, it was of course easy to understand her appreciation of
dramatic moments.
Before Mr. Simpson reached the top of the mesa she had
awakened.
Something—a sound or an increasing heaviness in the atmosphere
—had brought her slowly back to consciousness. Half a moment she
lay wondering why she felt such a sense of impending calamity when,
so far as she knew, everything about her was peaceful. Marie was
breathing contentedly in her cot on the opposite side of the tent.
Getting up, Polly put on a heavy rose-colored silk dressing gown—
the admiration of the Camp Fire girls—and walked to the opening of
a tent.
The air was thick; the sense of calamity more convincing.
Going outdoors, Mrs. Burton looked up at the sky. The funnel-
shaped, yellowish white cloud was coming closer, but not so close as
the extraordinary pillar of sand. Then she saw Mr. Simpson and ran
forward to meet him.
“Get the girls out of their tents quickly, or the tents will be down
upon them.”
There was a great bell fastened to a post near one of the tents for
use in emergencies, but Mrs. Burton could not have reached it in
time. However, before she got there it had begun ringing and the
girls had run quickly out in response.
 Some instinct must have taught them the proper thing to do, for,
in an instant, they had dropped flat down on the ground. There was
no place nearby to take refuge—no cavern in the rocks—only the flat
surface of the mesa.
It is extraordinary how few people show nervousness or cowardice
in the face of unexpected danger.
Now, of the little Camp Fire party, none of whom knew anything
before of the perils of an Arizona storm, and entirely unprotected as
they were, only Gerry Williams and Marie were frightened.
When Gerry came out of her tent she was clad only in a thin little
wrapper. As soon as she looked up at the sky and heard the muffled
roar of the oncoming storm, which in a strange way seemed only to
increase the stillness nearer by, quite senselessly she started running
—running alone along the top of the mesa as if she meant to plunge
over for safety.
Sally Ashton, who had followed nearest her, made no effort to stop
her. Indeed, Sally flew straight to her sister Alice’s arms and they
quietly lay down beside each other, covering their faces with their
hands. For it is an odd thing how many differences members of a
family may have and yet, in a moment of peril, they are reunited,
deserting many an affection which had seemed a stronger tie than
blood.
But, fortunately for Gerry Williams, Vera had seen her loss of
judgment. Vera it was who had aroused soon after Polly had left her
tent and, guessing at once what was about to take place, had rung the
bell. For Vera had the gift for sudden, quick action without waiting
for advice.
That instant she seized Gerry by the shoulders and, as she was
much the stronger, threw her down in the sand, pinioning herself on
top of her and holding her still. She was not a moment too soon, for
almost at once the storm passed over them. And all this, of course,
has taken longer in the telling than in the time of action.
The column of sand drew nearer, like a vast herald of disaster with
the wind roaring behind it.
And in the face of the terrific sound, Marie began screaming.
It was so nonsensical and yet it set on edge the nerves of everybody
who was close enough to hear her.
 She was kneeling with her face buried in her hands, crying as loud
as a frightened child, and occasionally murmuring a word or two of a
Latin prayer, when she could gather sufficient self-control.
Mrs. Burton chanced not to be near enough to speak to her, but
she did see Mr. Simpson go to Marie and sit down beside her. What
he said must have had a somewhat soothing effect, for she did not cry
quite so noisily, or it may have been that the storm was at the instant
passing over them.
Any one who has ever experienced a western storm will tell you of
having gone through almost the same physical experience. First,
there is a terrible sense of oppression, then, a sound of a tremendous
roaring in the ears and of heavy pressure, followed by a queer
tingling and burning of the skin.
However, as a matter-of-fact, the Sunrise Camp Fire party did not
meet the real force of the storm. In the eccentric fashion that a
hurricane often shows, it turned as it neared their mesa and swerved
toward the south. But they had at least a portion of it and were
bathed in fine sand like a down-pouring of rain.
Yet the whole incident was over in such a little while! And the
entire party got up almost simultaneously, as if they had been
Mohammedans praying in the desert—the early morning prayer of
every true follower of the Prophet. For it is the Mohammedan
custom at a given moment at sunrise and at sunset to kneel and,
burying the face in the hands, pray with the face turned toward
Mecca. And, also, at a given moment, in Moslem countries the prayer
is over with the ringing of a great muezzin bell.
Naturally, as Camp Fire guardian, Polly was most anxious to learn
the effects of the past few moments upon the girls, whose welfare she
took almost too seriously perhaps.
But as soon as she staggered up she heard a voice beside her saying
quietly:
“Don’t try to talk for a moment, Mrs. Burton, please. The air is still
bad. It may hurt your throat.”
And Polly saw that Ellen Deal had come directly to her. The next
moment she had brought a camp chair and was gently forcing her
into it.
 Polly was pleased and touched. She had not devoted as much
attention to Ellen as she had to some of her other guests. For one
thing, Ellen was older and seemed to have one of the slight natures it
is hard to be intimate with at first. However, she believed that Ellen
must have fine qualities, else the severe Dr. Sylvia Wharton would
never have been so anxious for her to be one of the party. And later,
perhaps, she would have her chance.
“You are very good; there is nothing the matter with me,” Mrs.
Burton murmured, and then frowned and smiled apologetically at
the same time. For her voice apparently seemed to have departed
and she was absurdly weak. But, then, she must remember that she
had originally come to Arizona because this very trouble made her
acting impossible.
However, the Camp Fire girls really appeared more entertained
than frightened by what they had undergone.
“I feel rather like a kitten that has been left out over night,” Sally
remarked. “My fur is all ruffled.” She sat blinking her big soft brown
eyes and shaking her brown hair, which was in a mass of brown fluff
over her shoulders. If Sally had dreamed how much she did make
people think of a kitten, perhaps she would not have said this. Yet
she did know, since “kitten” had been her father’s name for her ever
since she was a tiny child.
At present Alice was entirely concerned with her younger sister.
“You are sure you are all right, dear? I was so worried about you.
As the storm blew across us I was thankful to remember you had
gained five pounds since we arrived at the Camp Fire,” Alice said,
speaking with such an appearance of solemnity that it was difficult to
decide whether she was joking. But, then, as growing too fat was
Sally’s particular horror in life, she was of course teasing her in the
usual elder sister fashion.
Sally pretended not to hear.
“Where is Gerry? Is she all right?” she demanded. “She was just in
front of me before the storm broke. Here she comes, now.”
In fact, Gerry was at the moment only a few steps away, leaning on
Vera’s arm and looking fragile and shaken.
“I am abominably afraid of storms; have been always,” she
exclaimed petulantly. “So I suppose you were right not to let me run.
Perhaps I might have been knocked down. Still, I think you were
frightfully rough, Vera. Perhaps you can’t help it, having been
brought up in the country.” And Gerry ended her speech with the
fine scorn which one remembers the city mouse felt for the country
mouse in the old fable.
“Yes, I am sorry if I hurt you,” Vera returned, quietly disengaging
her arm from the other girl’s, now that she saw there was nothing the
matter and knowing that she preferred being with Sally. She herself
wished to learn how Peggy and Bettina and their Camp Fire guardian
had passed through the storm.
It was now nearly daylight on the top of the mesa. The sun had not
risen, but there was a kind of general grayness that preceded the
approach of dawn. At least, it was possible for the girls to grope their
way about and to recognize each other as they approached close by.
Vera now saw that Bettina had gone over toward Mrs. Burton and
that Peggy, in her usual practical fashion, was wandering about
trying to discover how much damage had been done. The Indian girl
was with her.
It was a piece of good fortune, or perhaps what is usually the cause
of good fortune—a piece of good sense—that the camp fire had been
put out before the girls had retired for the night. In these dry months
in Arizona, when there is ordinarily so little rainfall and living so
near the great ranch fields of corn and alfalfa, Mr. Gardener had
suggested that it was wiser to take every precaution. Now the ashes
had blown in every direction and the three sticks, which usually
stood like a tripod above the camp fire, had tumbled abjectly down.
More important, the kitchen tent had collapsed.
When Vera reached Peggy she discovered that she was pulling at
the tent ropes and trying to find out the extent of the damage.
“Do try to dig out a saucepan or a kettle or anything you can find,
please, Vera,” Peggy suggested. “I am going to start a fire and make
some coffee, if one of us can find the stuff. Nothing happened of any
consequence and yet my knees are as shaky as if I had been through
the war. And I’m afraid Tante will be ill. Mother wrote me not to
forget—even if she never spoke of the fact—that she really is out here
for her health. I don’t know whether being a Camp Fire guardian can
be much of a health cure, but at least it is stimulating.” And Peggy