Global Game, Local Identity: The Social Production of Football Space in Liverpool

This thesis sets out the situation of the globalized English Premier League and its consequences for football in Liverpool. I am looking at both the reliance on and resistance to a tourist based consumption of the game. Using a Lefebvrian theoretical framework I analyze how football space is created in Liverpool and how the supporters’ groups of different teams in the city work to both globalize and glocalize the football culture of the city, and are looking to reshape their relationship with football’s current economic and cultural space. As Liverpool increasingly relies on a tourist-based economy with sport as its focus, it is altering the relationship between supporters and their clubs. The monitoring of fan performances by both authorities and other fans can be considered through Foucauldian conceptions of power to continuously shift the dynamics between different groups of supporters.