Major sports events (MSE) include the well-known sports mega-events (SME), the summer Olympic Games and the FIFA football World Cup Finals, as well as other, lower order, though major international, sports events such as the Winter Olympics, the UEFA football championships, the Commonwealth Games ...

This article discusses the contemporary politics of sports mega-events, involving the Olympic Games and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Men's Football World Cup Finals as well as other lower 'order' sports megas, taking two main forms: the promotional and the protest. There ...

This analysis of sport policy and sport investment/infrastructure in modern Japan is set within the broader concern with Japanese public policy, regional development programmes and private sector initiatives. Drawing on major trends of the past two decades, with particular reference to the...

This chapter explains how soccer adopted its characteristic traits in Japan by referring to the history of its development in the school system. It outlines the different meanings attached to soccer as a subject of physical education and extracurricular activity of school sports clubs. Over the...

This paper raises questions about the discrepancies between predicted and actual outcomes of sports mega-events, and about why hosting is so often the project of political and business elites. It also raises questions about the economic impacts of tourism, in the years after the event. The paper...

Analysis of major sports or 'mega'-events, including the Soccer World Cup, enables consideration of several overlapping and intersecting issues. These include: centre-periphery relationships related to governance in world sport; power relations between nation states, supranational sport...

Framed by a discussion of the nature and significance of sports and mega-events, this chapter investigates the changes made to everyday life during the 2002 Soccer World Cup as a means to project a new kind of South Korea. The role of two specific groups is examined: (1) the National Council for a...

This chapter assesses the current status of soccer at various levels (school, professional, corporate) in Korea Republic, unravels the pattern of government policy, and establishes the relationship between the status of soccer and government policy. It is revealed that the government has an...

Firstly, this chapter outlines the main themes of the existing literature on soccer player mobility. Then, it describes the history and geography of the migration of Japanese soccer players. Three time periods are identified: before the launch of the first professional soccer league in Japan (the...

An "East Asian Era" is unfolding in the hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and other sports, and nonsports, mega-events. In addition to three editions of the Olympics and Paralympics, several other not as large mega-events have been or are set to be staged in East Asia over the next 5...