“Sustainability”: a new player in the field

Football is the most popular and well-known industry in sport since the past few decades, where a growing number of people are practicing, match and events draw billion of spectators, and private investors are continuously looking for opportunities in this field. However, when speaking about sustainability, the sector seems not at the bar with expectations of different stakeholders, and part of the management not ready to maintain proper standards in terms of economics, societal impact, and internal governance. Grounding on extant literature, this paper discusses the results of a qualitative research conducted in Italy among relevant players in the sector, aimed at identifying principles that could support the proper development in terms of sustainability of the professional football industry as a whole. Results shows an overall shallow knowledge of the topic in the sector, a low level of implementation of sustainability measures, a limited proactiveness to act in the short term, counterbalanced by a clear self-awareness of the necessity to step-up in this area in terms of organizational and managerial actions