Footlball Globalization

Introduction

Football has been one of the most popular if not the most popular sport in the world in the last two-three decades. It is the sport that overshadowed any other individual or team sport. At first sight it doesn't seem very interesting game but if you become a devoted fan it becomes a lifestyle. Its magnitude can be best described by its presence in our everyday lives. How many times have you been switching the TV channels and there have been at least two or three showing football matches? How many times have you been watching football match even though maybe you are not a football fan, just because of your friends or family? These questions speak about how football had become hugely popular. The game also had become very popular because it reminisces almost all of us to the football games we played when were kids. In the same time football had become the one the fastest growing businesses in the world, spreading its influence to all continents. It has become a huge entertainment business with billions of Euros turnover each year. With the growth and expansion of European football clubs the football globalization had become clearly visible. Many players from around the world are coming to play in different European leagues. In the last decade many foreign acquisitions of European clubs had happen. This speaks for the popularity of the sport has all around the globe. In this paper I'll try to emphasize the key points of football globalization, and explain how football clubs had become the main pillar of football globalization.

A Brief History of Football

"The contemporary history of the world's favorite game spans more than 100 years. It all began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football branched off on their different courses and the Football Association in England was formed - becoming the sport's first governing body" . In 1869 the Football federation banned handling of a ball and that was actually the establishing of a new game called football. Shortly afterwards countries around Europe and South America adopted the game and established their own leagues. "Football fast became as popular elsewhere as it had been in Britain and in May 1904, FIFA was founded in Paris with seven original members: France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain (represented by Madrid FC), Sweden and Switzerland" . After the initial foundation of FIFA, the football community has been expanding. By the 1950 the number of member has come to 52. Today FIFA has 204 members in which 305,000 clubs operate. 223,000 of those clubs are located in Europe. At the moment around 245 million people play football regularly.

Europe top Football Clubs and their rivalries

Europe top clubs have dominated the world football since its origins. Europe itself has the world's four top leagues: Italy Seria A, Germany Bundesliga, England Premier League and Spain La Liga. Nine out of ten top clubs come from these countries: Barcelona (Spain), Real Madrid (Spain), Man Utd (England), Chelsea (England), Bayern Munchen (Germany), AC Milan (Italy), FC Internazionale (Italy), Arsenal (England), Porto (Portugal), Liverpool (England) . It isn't strange that football in these countries has the largest fan base than any other sports. Their rivalries in the last 50 years had brought the game of football to another level, with great contribution for the popularization of the game and its' globalization.

FC Barcelona has been the most dominant force in European and also in World football in the last decade. They have managed to win 3 out of 10 champions' league trophies in the last 10 years. It is well known that the Uefa champions' league is the most competitive event in the game of football. The main goal to all of these top clubs is to play in the Uefa champions' league and eventually win it. Another important aspect of these clubs and the game of football are the rivalries they have between each other. World's most famous rivalry is the Spanish "el clasico" between FC Barcelona and FC Real Madrid. It is year long expected game with estimated more than 400 million viewers. El Clasico probably has the best quality of football in the world at the moment. Their players like Messi, Ronaldo, Cassilas, Xavi and Iniesta are idols to millions of fans around the world. So it is not a wonder that millions of player shirts are sold each year, which actually means huge revenues for the club. Another great rivalry, which contributes to globalization of the game, is the Milano derby of FC Internazionale and Ac Milan. These two worldwide hugely popular football clubs come from the same city Milano. Italy. With their worldwide fan bases of around 100 million , these two top European clubs have a huge part of the global market of shirt sales and TV rights.

Expanding of the clubs' fan bases and entering the US and Asian markets

The globalization of football has been speeding up in the last ten years. In search of better revenues the European football clubs always tried to expand their fan bases. They have referred themselves as a global clubs for years, but in fact no club was really global without a global fan base. Until the 90's the clubs were global in a sense that fans were watching the matches on TV from different countries and continents in the world. But the real globalization has not started until the era of the Internet. With the expansion of the personal usage of the Internet the worldwide fans were not just able to watch the matches, but also to track day to day news of their favorite team online instantly. In the age of Internet the fans got the opportunity to become really linked to club they followed on TV. Internet gave the game of football a whole new aspect. The fans were able to exchange opinions and give different ideas with other fans on thousands of online forums. It was a beginning of new era of football. The most important aspect of this new era is that it gave an excellent opportunity to the clubs to increase their fan bases. The time of online merchandising was a gift from heaven for the profit-seeking clubs. The online sales of shirt went skyrocketing. They were able to sell many times more shirts then ever before. Besides selling of jerseys and shirts the clubs made total usage of the online shopping, so they started selling different kinds of stuff. They were selling items not really connected to the sport. Items like cups for coffee, pajamas, shoes, bags, towels, plates for eating, postcards, accessories for dogs, computers are just a small part of the collection they were offering on their online