Governance and football: an examination of the relevance of corporate governance regulations for the sports sector

Concerns have been raised about the finance of football clubs in England and elsewhere. With the increasing realisation that football is a business, and therefore should be treated as one, the question of whether issues of corporate governance are applicable and relevant to the sports/football context needs closer scrutiny. This research firstly details current theories of corporate governance and proceeds with an examination of their limitations as approaches in the sports and specifically the football context. This paper delineates the characteristics and specific peculiarities of the sports sector, specifically football, and argues the challenges of corporate governance in sports are substantially different from conventional business as to require different approaches and mechanisms for corporate governance.