This paper examines the extent of an institutional change within the organisational field of municipalities and competitive sport in Sweden. First, there is both a continuation of and a challenge to the institutional relationship between municipalities and competitive sport as a result of new institutional logics. Second, although there are competing institutional logics, the municipalities have an ambivalent approach towards the stadium requirements from competitive sport. On the one hand, the municipalities wish to continue their mutual exchange with competitive sport, and finance and support it, while avoiding competing institutional logics within the organisational field. On the other hand, if they are not able to have an increased influence over the development of the stadium requirements, the municipalities express that they define the stadium requirements as private issue and a task for competitive sport itself. The conclusion is that the financing of stadium requirements and the definition of them as a public issue is under negotiation and the new institutional logics have resulted in a battle over policy formulation and a less predictable policy area.

Using the concept of standards and a framework examining strategic responses to institutional processes, this article aims to understand why a municipality has resisted to implement elite football's stadium requirements and, from this perspective, assesses the options municipalities actually have to refuse implementing them. At first, the municipality in focus, Angelholm in Sweden, demonstrated a lack of awareness of the intrinsic power of standards and the ways in which they can influence municipal decisions. However, as it emerged that the standards contradicted other municipal priorities, the municipality became more critical and eventually decided not to follow them. Another finding of the study is that municipalities, as the 'adopters' of elite football standards, cannot affect how these standards are written. Therefore, the options to accept or decline them are perceived to be limited. Consequently, standards constitute a central form of governance within local sport policy.

This article aims to explain why Danish municipalities usually choose to comply with stadium requirements from the Danish Soccer Association (DBU) even though, in most cases, they do not have the supporter base that could fill the renovated or new stadiums to their capacities. Using institutional theory as a theoretical framework, the article shows that coercive forms of isomorphism are part of the homogenization process leading to the municipalities' compliance. It also suggests that mimetic forms of isomorphism are present in the sense that municipalities believe that if they comply with these requirements they will strengthen the conditions of their local clubs. In turn, they have encouraged other municipalities to follow suit. In sum, the analysis shows that the central form of governance through standardizations together with isomorphic forces have contributed to a uniformity among the municipalities.

In 2003, the Danish Football Association introduced a new club licensing system for its first-tier clubs. Among the criteria for the system was a requirement for clubs to play at a stadium with a minimum capacity of 10,000 spectators. This paper aims to understand how the Danish Football Association and the Danish league clubs have succeeded in their efforts to make their licensing criteria a public concern by standardizing them at a municipal level. It presents a case study examining how the policy process surrounding the decision of building a new stadium in the Danish village Hobro changed – in a peculiar way – what in institutional theory is understood as a (voluntary) standard into a directive for Mariagerfjord Municipality. The case is illustrative of policy processes regarding stadium funding in other parts of Denmark and most likely in other Scandinavian countries.

2003年, 丹麦足球协会为其一级俱乐部推出了新的俱乐部许可证制度。该制度要求俱乐部必须在最低容量为10,000名观众的体育场内举行比赛。本研究旨在了解丹麦足球协会和丹麦俱乐部联盟如何通过市级标准化成功地将这一许可制度引导成为大众关心的话题。本文提供的案例是研究在丹麦的霍布罗山村建立一个新体育馆的决策政策过程如何改变 - 以一种特殊的方式 - 这在制度理论中被理解为马里亚尔峡湾市政府指令制定的 (自愿的) 标准。这个案例解释了丹麦其他地区以及其他斯堪的纳维亚国家的体育场建设基金的有关政策的制定流程。