In this article I will use an example of current adult education practice, the Glory and Dismay Football Literacies Programme (GDFLP) to appraise the value of critical discourse analysis (CDA) for adult learners, both individually and collectively, and for adult education practitioners with an interest in developing critical literacy skills. The purpose of CDA is to unveil dominant discourses within capitalist social relations and it therefore presents a useful way of thinking about the development of critical literacy. The article draws upon a complimentary range of both theoretical and methodological perspectives to explore the football literacies programme and uses examples of CDA to reveal insights into dominant discourses within the football genre. Football, I suggest, is a conduit, a platform, a "code" for understanding the deliberately complex structures and phenomena of capitalist society. Moreover, to assist learners in critical literacy pedagogy to "decode" football as a discursive formation I will define a discursive formation and suggest educational strategies for its deconstruction.