2026 Special Issue: Co-operatives and co-operative principles in sport
Guest editors: Dr Mark Middling, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Northumbria
University, Professor John Wilson, Professor of Business History at Northumbria
University, and Pau López-Gaitán, PhD Candidate at the University of Bristol.
Sport is perhaps the world’s greatest pastime. From participation at grass-roots level to
spectating at the professional, global level, sport has the ability to inspire, unite, to bring
joy and hope into people’s lives the world over. However, it is also becoming increasingly packaged and commodified, with tournaments such as cricket’s The Hundred, golf’s LIV tour, and football’s new Club World Cup as examples of how a monetary focus has come to prevail. At the same time, there has been push back against the commercialism of sport, most notably football fan protests stopped a breakaway, elitist European Super League in 2021. Protests like these echo the collaborative and social principles of co-operatives, and especially the need to re-engage with communities.
This timely special issue seeks to investigate the role of the co-operative movement and its associated principles in sport at all levels, assessing the extent to which there needs to be a much closer link between sporting activities and the people who support it so enthusiastically.
Accepted papers will be published in a special issue of the Journal by the end of 2026.
