The nature, organisation and governance of financial deviance in professional football

This research will analyse the nature, organisation and governance of financial deviance in English and Dutch professional football. The objectives of the study are to:

1. Develop an empirical evidence base on the dynamics of financial deviance in professional football and conceptualise the range of deviant actors and activities, along with their underlying drivers, conditions and associated harms;
2. Identify regulatory gaps and potential intervention mechanisms (e.g. situational, social) for reducing opportunities and motivations for deviance, and improving governance responses.
With substantial sums being exchanged between market actors, opportunities for financial misconduct abound. Internal and external governance strategies have been argued to be ineffective in preventing financial deviance in EPL football, and ineffective external regulation can be argued to contribute to future deviance. The harms of deviance may befall footballing organisations, other groups such as fans, the sport of football generally, and even society more widely.
Deviance is behaviour that violates standards based on laws, regulations or norms. Within this research, the term 'financial deviance' will be used to refer to two (sometimes overlapping) types of behaviour: (1) deviance in which the football system is a vehicle for achieving illicit financial gain; and (2) deviance in which footballing advantage is secured via illicit financial activity.

Research questions
1. What types and forms of financial deviance are manifest in English football and how are they organised?
2. In what ways does the football system incentivise and generate opportunities for financial deviance? Which conditions shape this?
3. What governance strategies would be best placed to reduce financial deviance in football and are there any obstacles to their implementation?
4. How does the nature, organisation and governance of financial deviance in football compare across countries? What might be the reasons for or effects of any observed differences?
The above questions are underpinned by theories of routine activities and rational choice, namely that (1) deviant opportunities occur when a motivated offender and suitable target meet in time and space in the absence of capable guardians (i.e. bringing together micro-level decision-making with macro-level patterns of social activities), and (2) the likelihood that an opportunity is taken when encountered is positively associated with its perceived benefit. Understanding how opportunities arise, as well as the factors that drive or motivate actors to realise these opportunities, is central to developing explanatory accounts of financial deviance in football. By gaining insight into the nature and organisation of financial deviance, robust governance can be informed through theories of situational crime prevention, which assert that deviance can be effectively controlled by manipulating specific opportunities, and the contexts in which they arise, to reduce the perceived benefits of deviance.
Research design and methodology
This research will implement multiple methods:

1. Interviews with informed actors, such as investigators from various rule or law enforcement bodies and key personnel from relevant non-enforcement organisations;
2. Document analysis of publicly available data;
3. Analysis of police and agency case file data.
Data will enable a comprehensive understanding of the range of activities and actors involved, and how opportunities for deviance arise under particular conditions. Data will inform a crime script analysis, an analytical method which aims to identify and analyse the procedural nature and organisation of deviant acts, and will inform effective prevention by identifying vulnerabilities in specific deviance commission processes.