It is the purpose of this study to (1) present a signal system for offensive football including automatics; (2) compare it with whose systems already in use; and (3) present the reactions of nine coaches using it at the junior high school, senior high school, junior college, and professional levels.

Brands are eager to gain their consumers love and respect by connecting with them in a more efficient manner in order to become a Lovemark. This happens very frequently in the football “world” as it is the sport with the biggest audience in the planet. This study analyzes the Lovemark Axis inside the sponsorship strategies directed toward the female audience. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, with the aim of analyze the perception of the consumers exposed to the ads of the sponsor brands of the Peru national football team. Results evidenced that the love and respect elements for the sponsored brand contribute to the association of values and feelings of the sponsoring brand. These results support that although the construction of a Lovemark requires a great period of time, the use of sports sponsorship helps to generate greater visibility and association of the brand with the sport.

African football academies are a seriously neglected field of research but are a highly important step in the evolution of football (Scherrens, 2007). The study is motivated by the lack of research on football academy structures in particular South Africa. The primary focus of the research is on football development in South Africa, whilst it also reviews substantial literature concerning the phenomenon of elite sport development in order to explain the dynamics surrounding the football academy structure. The study identifies the relevant key components within the current football models and proposes a ‘winning’ model for South Africa. The study unpacks two theoretical frameworks, in understanding the impact of competitive advantage within a football academy. Through gaining insight into the strategic models employed within the various researched academy systems, this study outlines the important resources, competencies and capabilities within a football academy. The analysis revealed certain trends and provided the basis for the answering of the research questions. Hence the broad scope which is critical to understanding the football development phenomenon.The research aims to empower administrators and management of football clubs in South Africa with the strategic knowledge to provide a sustainable and competitive academy through player development, which can aid our national teams. The dynamic processes involved in football development enabled a winning model for a football academy in South Africa which could provide a competitive, sustainable advantage for a football academy. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

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Athletes of American football need the ability to stop, start, and reach top speed in an efficient manner. Football players on the defensive side of the ball require the skill of stopping a backward run and accelerating to a forward run. This action is termed the break. Football players receive year-round training in an effort to improve performance. Yet, many times, these athletes may not focus specifically on the muscular systems that are unique to the position they play. The law of specificity states that the more specific the training is for the action required, the more beneficial the outcome. This study utilized seventeen defensive players of a Division IA football team and compared the effect of two training programs on acceleration during the break. The first program was a standard conditioning program (SCP) for football players. The second program was the SCP combined with three ballistic-plyometric drills (BPD) designed to improve the acceleration of the break. The groups were pre tested and divided into either the SCP or the BPD using a matched pair ABBA procedure by position, from fastest to slowest. After six-weeks of training, the BPD group made a 24.9% (p<0.05) improvement in acceleration from 11.14 ± 0.43 m•sec2 to 13.78 ± 0.44 m•sec2. While the SCP group pre tested at 11.9 ± 0.41 m•sec2 and post tested at 12.42 ± 0.34 m•sec2 for a 6.3% change that was not statistically significant. We conclude that the addition of three specific ballistic-plyometric drills to a SCP will improve acceleration out of a break in American football players.

Studies of football hooliganism have developed in a number of academic disciplines, yet little of this literature directly relates to criminology. The fighting, disorderly conduct, and destructive behavior of those who attend football matches, especially in Europe has blossomed over the past thirty years and deserves criminological attention. Football hooliganism is criminal activity, but is unique because of its context specific nature, occurring almost entirely inside the grounds or in proximity to the stadiums where the matches are played. This project explores the need for criminological explanations of football hooligans and their behavior based on literature which indicates that subcultural theories may be valuable in understanding why this behavioral pattern has become a preserve for young, white, working-class males. This study employs Albert Cohen's (1955) theory of subcultural delinquency to predict the hooligan activities of young, white, working-class males. West and Farrington's longitudinal study, the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development provides a wealth of data on numerous topics, including hooliganism, and is used to explore the link between hooliganism and criminological theory. The running hypothesis, grounded in Cohen's theory of subcultural delinquency, is that the less middle-class the youths are in their values the more likely they will be to engage in football hooliganism. Cohen initially identified a locus of nine middle-class values: ambition, individual responsibility, achievement and performance, delayed gratification, rationality and planning, etiquette and the cultivation of social skills, self-control, wholesome leisure, and respect for property. These middle-class values have been modified into a shorter set of values; constructive leisure, acceptable conduct, self-reliance, and success, that are more mutually exclusive and easier to test empirically. Scales were constructed for each dimension of the modified version of Cohen's middle-class values using factor analysis with orthogonal rotation. Each scale then underwent reliability analysis using Chronbach's alpha. From there the scales for the middle-class values, the dependent variable of football hooliganism, and controls were tested using both bivariate and multivariate procedures. Results indicate that these modified middle-class values may be an important explanatory factor for football hooliganism. / Ph. D.

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