The apparent globalisation and commercialisation of football has led to much criticism from both academic and media commentators that it is no longer the People’s Game. Certainly the changing structures of ownership within top level football is characterised by the increasing of international financial investors keen to associates themselves and their businesses with globally recognised club brands, personified by teams such as Manchester United and Real Madrid. That said, most football clubs continue to be firmly embedded within local contexts and often within close geographical proximity to traditional fan bases. Despite commercialisation, even the biggest football clubs remain committed to local community development, contributing huge social value in otherwise deprived neighbourhoods and cities. In a context where football is embedded in a multi-scalar local and global networks, which tie together a multiplicity of stakeholders from international business to a variety of local interests, binary conceptualisations of football such as local/global or authentic/inauthentic, are no longer appropriate to interrogate the complex and dynamic relationship between football and its communities. This conference, therefore, aims to together interdisciplinary research in the UK to explore the following themes:

• From the local to the global – who are football’s communities?
• What is the changing nature of supporter demographics and fan culture?
• Football branding and marketing – is it all about global expansion?
• How are football clubs and their supporters engaging with equality and diversity?
• What strategies are football clubs deployed for engaging with their communities?
• To what extent do football clubs contribute to urban and economic development within local communities?