Abstract:
Abstract: The English professional football industry has attracted considerable
academic interest in relation to the tragedies that occurred during the
20th century. However, the bulk of this work has focused on historical, social
and economic factors rather than match processes. Consequently, an in-depth
view of contemporary football match event management processes does not
exist. This paper aims to address this by examining small and medium
enterprises (SME) and event literatures in order to surface the SME mentality
evident in the majority of clubs. A Football Match Event Lifecycle Model is
developed and then used to provide an insight into contemporary football event
management issues and processes and demonstrate how clubs can generate,
transfer and use knowledge to learn from the mistakes of the past. The paper
adopts an interpretivist methodological approach and utilises qualitative
primary data from semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation.
