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ABSTRACT
By drawing upon and attaching a new layer to the “security field” concept, this article examines and conceptualizes European security practices and challenges through the lens of European football. At a critical juncture for security in both Europe and football, this article questions (i) how the supranational regulation informing European football’s security field has evolved since 1985 and (ii) how exactly the security field’s regulators – the Council of Europe, Council of the EU, and UEFA – set the standards for the remainder of the security field. Relatedly, it asks what this tells us about the power to define security. Drawing upon theoretical perspectives located in International Political Sociology, the sociology of leisure and sport, and publicly available documents and conventions, this conceptual article contributes to our understanding of security in Europe. It argues, first, that the security field in European football is indicative of wider security transformations. Second, that the security field’s regulators configure and dictate the wider field and possess the power to standardize security and the prioritization of threats. This remains important because, to fully understand and analytically capture the security field in European football, one must conceptually account for its standard setting organizations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See Dunning (Citation2000) and Tsoukala (Citation2009a) for accounts of this phenomenon.
2 The Convention, however, also relates to other sport events.
3 In Member States, NFIPs are responsible for cooperation and information-exchange in the context of football matches with an international dimension (Tsoukala, Citation2016).
4 States ratifying the Saint Denis Convention must consequently denounce the 1985 Convention (Council of Europe, Citationn.d.).
5 Although this role differs across Europe, Supporter Liaison Officers (SLO) are, broadly, individuals that mediate between fans, clubs, national football associations and ‘other parties involved in football, such as the police and stewards’ (UEFA, Citation2011, p. 10). As Numerato (Citation2018) submits, the implementation of SLOs in 2012/13 occurred in line with the heightened emphasis on dialogue, as advocated by fan activists, to prevent football-related violence.