Title: The expropriation of goodwill and migrant labour in the transition to Australian football's A-League

Authors: Kieran James; Rex Walsh

Addresses: School of Business and Enterprise, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus, Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA12BE, Scotland ' Notre Dame University, Broadway (Sydney) Campus, 140 Broadway, Chippendale, NSW, 2008, P.O. Box 944, Broadway, NSW, 2007, Australia

Abstract: This article explores ethical and financial issues in connection with the cancellation of Australia's National Soccer League (NSL), at the end of the 2003-2004 season, and its replacement with the corporatist A-League competition which excluded the ethnic clubs which had made up the bulk of the NSL. These ethnic clubs had been formed by and primarily served the needs and interests of the various Croatian, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, and Yugoslav ethnic communities located in Australia's major cities. Many commentators were of the opinion that one of the aims of the A-League and its 'ground-zero' or 'scorched-earth' ideology was to institute exclusion of the ethnic clubs that had formed the backbone of the NSL for 30 years. We conclude that fans and volunteer labour forces of the ethnic clubs have been alienated, in the Marxist sense, from the A-League; the A-League clubs; and the Football Federation of Australia (FFA).

Keywords: alienation; Australian football; Croatian Diaspora; Croatian nationalism; football hooliganism; Marxism; soccer history; soccer sociology; Australia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSMM.2018.094349

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2018 Vol.18 No.5, pp.430 - 452

Accepted: 21 May 2017
Published online: 30 Aug 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article