An alternative football club in a liquid modernity: FC United of Manchester

Abstract

Critical management studies have taken an interest in ‘utopian’ models of management, especially within alternative organizations. This article focuses on FC United of Manchester, a small football club with 5000 members, whose principles of inclusion, affordability, community, and friendship evoke ideas of utopianism and collectivism. About 30 fan-owned football clubs exist in the UK, each with their own raison d’être, but all discontented with the commodification of the game. Bauman’s concept of ‘liquid modernity’, in which individuals find self-realization through consumption, is used to analyse how FC United reacts to the individualization and commercialization of football. This analysis employs CMS concepts to evaluate whether FC United is a genuine alternative to standard business models, and gives an empirical and critical dimension to liquid modernity as a framework for understanding society.

Keywords:

• football
• liquid modernity
• alternative
• community
• utopia
• dystopia

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank FC United for being so willing to help me out, to be interviewed and for the everyday life with them. I would like to thank especially Adam Brown, Adam Jones, Robin Pye and most of all Andy Walsh, for being so supportive.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.