Football is so much more than just a game
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Your support makes all the difference.Football, as even the least interested will have observed, is more than a game. It is a billion-dollar business; but it is also more than a business. It is a vehicle for (mostly) benign nationalisms that not only heal internal divisions within nations, but bring the countries of the world together. The answer to the apparent success of the anti-immigrant National Front in France, for example, is to point to the national fervour for a team many of whose best players are immigrants or the sons of immigrants. The World Cup is also the only truly global cultural experience, watched in more countries than there are members of the United Nations.
That said, however, we should not lose sight of the game itself. The simplicity of it explains much of the extent of its appeal – the skills and (lack of) equipment required mean that the world's greatest players are as likely to emerge from a South America favela or an African shanty town as from the suburbs of London E4 (Chigwell, that is, original home of David Beckham).
As a result, while success in the Olympic Games reflects the wealth of nations, football is open to the poorest countries on equal terms and the United States is a rank outsider. Even before yesterday's giant-killing defeat of France by its former colony Senegal, Africa was the coming power.
The other curiosity of football is that, because it is a game, the normal rules of commerce do not apply. Italian clubs spend 125 per cent of their income on players; Barcelona turns down the €10m it could make by taking advertisements on its shirts because that would offend Catalan pride; and clubs are required to supply valuable players to national teams free of charge.
Yes, the World Cup is a festival of global corporate sponsorship and Fifa, its ruling body, is a viper's nest of corruption, but the opponents of globalisation ought to swallow their cynicism. Football is a common international tongue. The World Cup is as important as the United Nations in promoting international understanding. And it is ruled by values that are more powerful than mere money.
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