ABSTRACT
Football at both the recreational and elite level maintains a global appeal that is unlike any other sport. Contemporary elite football is now an overtly commercialised and commodified activity that has become as much a business as a sport. This chapter engages with issues concerning firstly, safety, social disorder and racism, and secondly, corruption of the commercial integrity at both an organisational and playing level. There is a choice as to what form of regulatory mechanism will be applied including sporting rules, codes of ethics and legal instruments. Codes of ethics have become widespread in football and other sports, and act as a counterpoint and their impact is evaluated. In addition, to pressure to act in a more ethical manner, the use of the term integrity has in recent years become common currency in the football and general sports world. Within football, different narratives about integrity by different individuals and groups exist: a narrow corporate model of behavioural-based integrity; an alternative model of integrity, namely a more complex inter-institutional integrity, involving individuals taking responsibility for their practice. A call for football to embrace this wider value-based moral integrity where there is critical reflection on values and practice is made.
