football for life

Exploring the cultural
reach of football

If we are to meet the social and environmental challenges that we face, then we must ask searching questions about what shapes the cultures in which we live. It’s for this reason that we have embarked on a conversation with a major football club. Football is both a product of the cultures in which it is played, and an important influence in these cultures. We’re interested in exploring how changes in football culture could have wider effects in societies at large. 

Over the past few years, Common Cause has worked with a number of arts and cultural organisations to explore the values that they engage through their work. As institutions with a cultural footprint, they help to shape the values that are seen as important in society at large. Of course, many other social institutions also play important roles. For example, the media, educational institutions, or government bodies. When we consider what sectors have large influence over our culture today, football seems like an obvious choice, considering it is one of the most watched and played sports in the world. We’ll bring what we’ve learnt from our collaboration with arts and cultural organisations to a new conversation that we’ve begun in collaboration with a major Swedish Football Club, AIK. 

The story so far

Collaborating with the leading Swedish club, AIK, we have written and published a white paper outlining some of the opportunities to change football culture – beginning with coaching culture – and in doing so create wider social benefits. You can read the paper here. 

We have co-hosted an initial conversation with some key people in the football community to explore the ways in which football contributes to shaping cultural values. 

We are in the process of arranging further meetings to deepen this conversation. If you’d like to join us, please get in touch. 

Football:
A narrow escape

Learn more

If you’re interested in learning more about the thinking behind this project, check out this blog written by Tom Crompton and the white paper written by Tom Crompton and James Vaughan.

tom crompton

Contact

If you’re involved in the football community and would be interested in discussing how we might work together we would love to hear from you.
Please contact Tom on tcrompton@commoncausefoundation.org.

Thank you to
our partners

Thank you to James Vaughan at AIK Fotboll. 

Other projects
we’ve been working on’

Curating for Compassionate Values

Greater
Manchester

What’s included: 

  • An initial call to agree the scope of the training and to get to know the work of your organisation further.
  • A series of online or offline workshops of 2 hours over a period of 4-6 weeks, dependent on the agreed scope of the workshop.
  • We offer every workshop participant a one-to-one follow-up call.
  • A feedback call with the training organiser/s to discuss ways the organisation way want to consider working with values further in future.

Cost: 

The exact cost will depend on the scope of the training agreed with you, but below are indicative costs:
  • If you’re a small NGO (<£1m) the cost of this training will be approximately £4,500.
  • If you’re a large NGO or a public sector organisation the cost of this training will be approximately £6,500.
  • If you’re a business the cost of this training will be approximately £11,800.
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