FREE (Football Research in an Enlarged Europe)

Newsletter

Throughout its duration, the FREE project produced a regular newsletter, which provides a good overview on the different activities that were carried out. The nine issues of the newsletter published between spring 2012 and December 2015 can be downloaded below.

1. « Kicking it off in Angers! » (Spring 2012)
   A detailed report on the kick-off conference in April 2012; a spotlight on the three PhD candidates of the FREE team; an outlook on the forthcoming historical conference. (6 pages)
2. « Is Football Memory Policy-Relevant? » (December 2012)
   An editorial by Albrecht Sonntag on collective memory; a report on the conference « Origins and Birth of a Europe of Football » in Besançon; a presentation of Work Package 8 on « Governance »; miscellaneous news. (8 pages)
3. « Football: Still a Men’s Game?«  (Spring 2013)
   An editorial by Gertrud Pfister about the feminisation of football; a detailed report on the conference on « European Football and Collective Memory » (Stuttgart, February 2013); news from the network. (8 pages)
4. « Politics and Jerseys. Mobility and Emotions.«  (September 2013)
   An editorial by Alexandra Schwell and Nina Szogs about anthropological approaches; a detailed report about the conference « The feminisation of football » in Copenhagen; an interview with Sylvain Landa from Sport & Citizenship; news from the network. (8 pages)
5. « Public spheres and apolitical spaces.«  (February 2014)
   An editorial by Albrecht Sonntag on the public sphere of football; a detailed report about the « Kick It! » conference in Vienna (October 2013); an interview with Raffaele Poli from the CIES Football Observatory; news from the network. (8 pages)
6. « A Simple Truth and Some More Complex Issues«  (September 2014)
   An editorial by Borja Garcia on supporters as stakeholders; a detailed report on the conference on « Public Spheres and Public Spaces » (Ankara, April 2014); an interview with Paul Dietschy on dissemination through the media; a report on conference participation of FREE members in Latin America, and news from the network. (8 pages)
7. « You haven’t seen the last of us yet«  (February 2015)
   An editorial by Albrecht Sonntag; a detailed report on the « Whose Game Is It? » conference (Loughborough, October 2014); an interview with Harriet Baker from Palgrave-Macmillan abot the planned book series; news from the network. (8 pages)
8. « Motivation is Everything!«  (April 2015)
   An editorial on the purpose of research by Albrecht Sonntag; a detailed report on the concluding conference « We’re in the Finals! » (Brussels, March 2015); news about the publication of the first books and the first defense of a FREE PhD thesis; information about the FREE exhibition in the Berlaymont and the publication of the FREE policy briefs. (8 pages).
9. « Despite the turmoil, work continues«  (December 2015)
   An editorial by Albrecht Sonntag; three interviews with the authors of the first three books published in the « Football in an Enlarged Europe » series (Palgrave-Macmillan); a special issue of Sport in History based on the Besançon conference; a report on the release of the UNESCO report on racism and discrimination co-authored by Albrecht Sonntag and David Ranc, news from the network. (8 pages).

Book series

While the project itself was successfully concluded, significant parts of the research live on in a book series published by Palgrave-Macmillan, coordinated by Albrecht Sonntag and David Ranc and named after the project « Football in an Enlarged Research book series« . Between 2015 and 2019, ten books have already been released!

Data from the surveys

The FREE project carried out two major surveys: an online survey among the attentive public of what could be named « the football community », and a representative CATI survey among the general public. The data from these surveys is publicly available:

• Click here for the « Top-line data report » of the online survey.
• Click here for the « Top-line data report » of the CATI survey.

The complete data set file in .sav format can be obtained on request to albrecht.sonntag@essca.fr.

Final report

Click here to download the final report

Find out more on the CORDIS website, the European Commission's source for results from EU-funded projects: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/290805