1st Edition
The Champions? Thirty Years of the UEFA Champions League
Introduction: ‘A spectre is haunting European football – the spectre of a European Super League’
Mark Doidge, Yağmur Nuhrat and Radosław Kossakowski
1. Whose interests? Which solidarity? Challenges of developing a European Super League
Francisco Javier Lopez Frias, Sergio González García and Brett Anthony Diaz
2. ‘You can look, but don’t touch’: competitive balance and dominance in the UEFA Champions League
Girish Ramchandani, Daniel Plumley, Sarthak Mondal, Robbie Millar and Rob Wilson
3. How the UEFA Champions League divided Europe and harmed competitive balance within domestic leagues
Efe Ünsal
4. The impact of ‘super clubs’ on uncertainty of outcome in the UEFA women’s champions league
Maurizio Valenti, Nicolas Scelles and Stephen Morrow
5. Pipe dream or closed shop? Experiencing the Champions League from the sidelines
Alexander Brand, Arne Niemann and Regina Weber
6. ‘Let us prepare for the Champions League!’ the symbolic Europeanization of Romania’s football bosses
Andrei Mihail
7. A product thirty years in the making: the Champions League, organisational legitimacy, and the disenfranchisement of Europe’s football supporters
Daniel Ziesche
8. Sponsoring the UEFA Champions League: exploring the impact on brand equity among fan profiles
Remco M. Beek and Inge Derom
9. ‘Full speed ahead Barcelona’: the social construction of Roy Keane’s 1999 semi-final performance versus Juventus
Steph Doehler
Biography
Mark Doidge is Reader in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University. His research focuses on social activism among football fans, climate action, anti-racism, and supporting refugees. He is the author of a number of books, including Ultras (2020), Collective Action and Football Fandom (2018), and Football Italia (2015).
Yağmur Nuhrat is a Cultural Anthropologist based at Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of Sociology. She investigates everyday ethics and morality. Her research on sport centres on fandom, fairness, gender, language and space. She has published in several volumes and journals including American Ethnologist, American Anthropologist and Sport in Society.
Radosław Kossakowski is Associate Professor in Sociology, Director of Institute of Sociology at and Chair of the Scientific Council of Sociology at the University of Gdańsk. He is active member of several scientific bodies and associations: International Sociology of Sport Association and the Football Collective Group. His articles have been published in many well-recognized journals including Sport in Society, Sociology of Sport Journal, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Soccer & Society, and Men and Masculinities. Recently, he has edited the book Football, Fandom and Collective Memory. Global Perspectives (Routledge 2025).
