Examining the X factor of corporate social responsibility in professional football clubs: An integrative literature review

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation has gained momentum amongst professional sport organisations, including the football industry. Amidst the increasing normative and strategic importance of CSR for professional football clubs, this integrative review aims to consolidate and examine scholarly contributions in this area. Our content analysis performed on 50 studies (published from 2008 to 2022) elaborates on five CSR-football thematic areas, namely “Implementation and Governance”, “Drivers and Barriers”, “Impacts and Perceptions”, “Communication”, and “Measurement”. Findings indicate that the extant research on CSR in football is rather limited in various aspects. Our discussion addresses those core areas in need of attention for future research endeavours, specifically the expansion of the research scale and scope, the strengthening of theoretical foundations, the prevalent instrumental approach in CSR implementation, the minimal attention on drivers and barriers, the lack of focus on impact assessment and evaluation, and the lack of emphasis on disclosure and communication issues.