Abstract
<jats:p>This chapter examines contemporary football as a contradictory social field shaped simultaneously by financialisation and decommodifying countertendencies. It argues that football can no longer be understood merely as a cultural game or entertainment industry, because clubs, supporters, media rights, stadiums, and governance structures are increasingly reorganised through debt, investment, brand value, and revenue extraction. Yet football is not reducible to an ordinary commodity. Clubs remain historically embedded institutions shaped by locality, memory, and community attachment. From a social-policy perspective, the key issue is to identify the conditions under which football can sustain access, participation, representation, and collective ownership rather than deepen inequality.</jats:p>