In November, FIFA, worldwide soccer’s governing physique, introduced that it might be awarding its inaugural Peace Prize on the 2026 World Cup draw. Just about all the web shortly concluded that Donald Trump could be the recipient. A couple of weeks later, worldwide soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo joined Trump for a state dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. And final week, throughout a convoluted and unhinged draw ceremony that concluded with a half-hearted rendition of “YMCA,” FIFA did certainly hand Trump the award, praising him for being “a pacesetter that cares concerning the individuals.” A couple of days later, U.S. prosecutors dropped expenses in a legal case linked to FIFA’s 2015 corruption scandal.
When this entire White Home soccer lovefest started a month in the past, I had simply completed re-reading How Soccer Explains the World. Printed in 2004, Franklin Foer’s bestseller used the gorgeous recreation to clarify the character of globalization because it appeared on the time. Foer traveled the world, watching video games, interviewing supporters, and weaving all of it right into a story about the place the world was going. In Foer’s telling, soccer represented a variety of responses to the seemingly inevitable rise of free-market Western liberalism. Amongst genocidal followers of Serbia’s Purple Star Belgrade, soccer stood for the atavistic Balkan tribalism that thwarted globalization’s peaceable promise. Amongst Iranian girls sneaking into soccer stadiums, the sport mirrored their yearning for the “superior, capitalist, un-Islamic West.”
In November, FIFA, worldwide soccer’s governing physique, introduced that it might be awarding its inaugural Peace Prize on the 2026 World Cup draw. Just about all the web shortly concluded that Donald Trump could be the recipient. A couple of weeks later, worldwide soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo joined Trump for a state dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. And final week, throughout a convoluted and unhinged draw ceremony that concluded with a half-hearted rendition of “YMCA,” FIFA did certainly hand Trump the award, praising him for being “a pacesetter that cares concerning the individuals.” A couple of days later, U.S. prosecutors dropped expenses in a legal case linked to FIFA’s 2015 corruption scandal.
When this entire White Home soccer lovefest started a month in the past, I had simply completed re-reading How Soccer Explains the World. Printed in 2004, Franklin Foer’s bestseller used the gorgeous recreation to clarify the character of globalization because it appeared on the time. Foer traveled the world, watching video games, interviewing supporters, and weaving all of it right into a story about the place the world was going. In Foer’s telling, soccer represented a variety of responses to the seemingly inevitable rise of free-market Western liberalism. Amongst genocidal followers of Serbia’s Purple Star Belgrade, soccer stood for the atavistic Balkan tribalism that thwarted globalization’s peaceable promise. Amongst Iranian girls sneaking into soccer stadiums, the sport mirrored their yearning for the “superior, capitalist, un-Islamic West.”
Twenty years later, although, the game appears to replicate a decidedly extra sinister facet of globalization. The final two World Cups, in Russia and Qatar, have been led to by a mixture of bribes and compelled labor. Watching the world’s most well-known footballer seem on the White Home alongside two international icons of corruption and authoritarianism, I couldn’t assist pondering that soccer nonetheless has some explaining to do.
Donald Trump walks with soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and his associate Georgina Rodríguez on the White Home on Nov. 18.The White Home handout picture
I first learn Foer’s e-book in school the yr it got here out. I used to be a diehard soccer fan who, like Foer, got here of age within the Nineteen Nineties, once I subsisted on scraps of deep cable midweek afternoon video games and little snippets from the pages of soccer gear catalogues like Eurosport. I acquired three separate copies of this e-book for Christmas in 2004, and it actually hit house. On the time, I used to be nonetheless obsessive about soccer and likewise studying about worldwide relations principle for the primary time. As a university scholar writing papers concerning the tradition of McDonald’s within the Center East, I flew by means of the e-book. I largely bear in mind feeling pangs of jealousy that I didn’t get to journey to those distant stadiums and witness the sport in so many iterations alongside numerous teams of diehard supporters, a few of them slightly scary.
Twenty years on, I had been pondering fondly of the e-book and determined to mud off my copy. I used to be shocked at how little I really remembered. I knew there was a chapter on internecine strife between Glasgow’s two large golf equipment and a chapter that defined how London’s Tottenham Hotspur developed a quasi-Jewish identification. I used to be additionally fairly positive I remembered an evaluation of Silvio Berlusconi’s rise in Italian politics (my reminiscence was right, there may be) and was assured that there was a chapter on the traditionally racist, anti-Arab supporters of Israeli membership Beitar Jerusalem (there may be not).
Principally, I used to be shocked at how little of the world that I had lived in for the previous 20 years may very well be discovered on this e-book. For all its readability and fascinating vignettes, How Soccer Explains the World anticipated few of the dynamics that will animate world affairs within the twenty first century. Foer alludes to writing on the finish of some form of historic epoch—for instance, he calls 2001 “the exhausted finish to an period of speedy globalization”—however provides no sense of what would possibly come subsequent, nor actually why the period had come to an finish. The reply appears apparent (9/11), however it’s unclear why Foer didn’t handle it.
At its coronary heart, that is journey writing. Foer dropped in to varied areas all over the world; chatted up supporters, gamers, and officers at golf equipment; and painted vivid footage of how questions of identification play out in a soccer context. And as journey writing, it stays an immensely entertaining learn. The characters he adopted come alive on the web page and he captured the complexities of their allegiances and passions nicely. In his chapter on the Catholic-Protestant rivalry of Glasgow’s two greatest golf equipment, he took the ferry to Belfast after the Celtic-Rangers match together with hordes of drunken Northern Irish followers of each groups. On this second, he exhibits how the Glasgow soccer rivalry is much less a Scottish factor and extra a proxy for simmering animosity in Northern Eire.
The e-book is nominally concerning the world, however in the end, it’s concerning the West. Each chapter or case research is both set within the West or examines different components of the world from the angle of the West. In that sense, it feels very a lot of its time. One chapter follows a Nigerian participant who performs within the Ukrainian league. Foer visits his condominium in Lviv, and dissects the cultural changes, the meals, and the dismally chilly winters. It prompts an intriguing query: How did the son of a farmer from southeast Nigeria make it to Ukraine? Foer explains the machinations: A neighborhood agent in Nigeria promised him a French membership however was taking cash behind his again, so his European transfer was delayed and he initially ended up in Moldova.
Group Nigeria huddles earlier than taking part in a match within the 1994 World Cup at Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts on July 5, 1994.Rick Stewart/Allsport by way of Getty Photos
Right here, greater than elsewhere within the e-book, the facility dynamics of world soccer loom so giant—and Foer virtually fully ignores them. The late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s noticed Nigeria explode onto the world soccer scene. So why have been its gamers determined to maneuver to even probably the most minor European leagues in international locations whose nationwide groups might by no means compete with Nigeria’s?
Once more, the reply lies in Foer’s issue explaining a lot of something outdoors the context of the West. Within the early 2000s, there have been a number of tales to inform about how globalization had formed African soccer. An astonishing movement of Chinese language capital funded the constructing of recent stadiums throughout sub-Saharan Africa, usually making a hyperlink between oil-exporting international locations and the place the place they despatched most of their oil. Foer might need famous how African gamers have been prepared to go nearly wherever outdoors their house continent to make a residing—not simply European leagues, but in addition Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Laos, and China. There’s a presumption that readers would robotically get why a Nigerian would go to Tiraspol, Moldova, to play skilled soccer, however that assumption rests upon large, long run, historic dynamics.
Amongst different issues, Foer was on a quest for authenticity, to find how the native might survive within the midst of globalization. Within the prologue, Foer admits that he anticipated to seek out “the facility of mega-brands just like the golf equipment Manchester United and Actual Madrid, backed by Nike and Adidas … prying followers away from their outdated allegiances.” However he’s relieved to seek out that the anticipated “homogenization” of soccer tradition was not there.
Foer identifies a optimistic instance in FC Barcelona, proof that regardless of his fears, the worst features of globalization may very well be tamed. He praised Barca for his or her “pious refusal to show their jerseys right into a billboard,” as all their international rivals had lengthy since executed.
Barcelona jerseys by means of the years (left to proper): Qatar Airways in 2017; Rakuten in 2017; Spotify in 2023; the Rolling Stones in 2023 and Ed Sheeran in 2025 (each in partnership with Spotify).Getty Photos
However right here too Foer’s optimism proved misplaced. Within the mid-2000s, the game was on the cusp of a revolution. What got here subsequent in world soccer was a extra concerted, coordinated effort on the a part of large golf equipment, clothes corporations, and media conglomerates to globalize within the worst method. The outcome was a kind of soccer monoculture centered round tv rights and international branding that undoubtedly weakened lesser leagues all over the world to the advantage of the massive leagues of Europe, particularly the English Premier League.
Within the 10 years after the e-book’s publication, the mega-brands exploded. The Adidas-Nike rivalry, unofficially launched throughout the 1998 World Cup with Nike’s sponsorship of Brazil, escalated, whereas the largest European golf equipment vied for brand new doable markets in Asia, the Center East, and North America. Golf equipment began planning preseason excursions of Thailand, China, and Pittsburgh the place they may promote out stadiums, hawk jerseys, and develop their fanbase. A couple of years after the e-book, the Italian Serie A was taking part in cup finals in China, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar; the Spanish Tremendous Cup has now been performed in Saudi Arabia a number of occasions. La Liga (certainly one of Spain’s main leagues) even tried to stage a daily season recreation this yr in Miami, earlier than coach and participant pushback scuttled the plan.
Even Foer’s beloved, idealistic Barca couldn’t resist the business flip. By 2010, they, too, succumbed to the temptation and has since had Qatar Airways, Rakuten, and Spotify emblazoned on the entrance of their well-known red-and-blue striped uniforms. As a part of that Spotify deal, the Rolling Stones’ tongue brand appeared on their jerseys two years in the past; this yr, it was the title of Ed Sheeran’s newest album.
Safety forces are posted in entrance of the stands throughout the 1998 World Cup match between Iran and the US in Lyon, France, on June 21, 1998.Gerard Malie/AFP by way of Getty Photos
With 20 years of hindsight, Foer’s e-book now capabilities finest as a main supply doc of a quick window of time when everybody’s uncle was studying Fukuyama and Friedman. It was a heady time when the one actual, apparent risk to a neoliberal world order appeared to be atavism and Balkanization. So Foer turned to a few of soccer’s most unusual rivalries and supporter teams, whose usually antagonistic identities had been formed a long time, if not a century, earlier than. In consequence, it’s not a shock that the struggles Foer dissects really feel much less related as we speak. They haven’t essentially been resolved, however they’ve been outdated by newer, bigger adjustments, just like the enlargement of the FIFA empire and the autocratic creep that has facilitated it.
In his Iran chapter, Foer factors to the pitch-side ads throughout a World Cup match for PlayStation, Doritos, and Nike—which Iranian authorities couldn’t censor on the published—as the final word temptation for Iranians. Might there be a extra early-aughts take? Did Iranians demand that ladies be allowed in soccer stadiums due to their want for cool ranch? It’s not a giant leap from this logic to Foer’s assist for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, wherein his primary premise was that the Iraqi individuals deserved higher (nevertheless true) and would welcome U.S. forces as liberators.
Soccer stays a geopolitically versatile phenomenon. However utilizing it to grasp as we speak’s world requires a distinctly extra cynical view of the position of cash in geopolitics than was well-liked within the early 2000s.
That is the advantage of David Goldblatt’s more moderen e-book, The Age of Soccer. Goldblatt rigorously illustrates how the large quantity of wealth in a handful of leagues has siphoned off the most effective gamers and coaches from lesser leagues all over the world, making the native product usually far much less watchable than the Premier League or La Liga. Attendance for native leagues is low as a result of there are higher merchandise accessible elsewhere, and the sense of place and group these leagues fostered is fading.
In Goldblatt’s telling, soccer reveals “the Faustian cut price that each one trendy societies have made with the forces of cash and energy.” Nowhere is that this extra obvious than the aggressive sportswashing by the Saudis, Emiratis, and Qataris. In internet hosting quite a few worldwide competitions and in investing closely in storied European golf equipment, they’ve efficiently cultivated a extra optimistic international public picture. The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar noticed lots of if not hundreds of primarily South Asian migrant staff die within the development of recent stadiums for the match. FIFA has been joyful to play alongside, to the purpose the place it now must launder the taint of its personal complicity in sportswashing. The outcome has been a collection of generic public campaigns for ideas like Indigenous rights, gender equality, and ending violence towards girls.
A banner studying “Unite for gender equality” is displayed throughout the 2023 FIFA Girls’s World Cup match between Portugal and the US in New Zealand on Aug. 1, 2023.Fiona Goodall/FIFA
After all, Trump’s latest acolyte, Ronaldo, is the poster boy for sportswashing. He shocked the world when he signed with the Saudi skilled league in 2022, giving it the legitimacy it craved in return for an unprecedented 200 million euros per yr in complete compensation. FIFA has already awarded the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia after a surprisingly uncompetitive bid course of that mainly ensured the Saudis would win.
Maybe it’s time for Foer to put in writing a sequel on this spirit. He would possibly study the networks in Africa that assist funnel gamers from small village golf equipment to Europe’s richest groups in addition to to minor golf equipment in Vietnam and Albania. Or Foer would possibly have a look at how golf equipment he visited within the Nineteen Nineties, like Chelsea and Tottenham, have develop into large international manufacturers with enormous followings in Asia and North America. If hooliganism has subsided, it could be as a result of tickets at the moment are too costly for extraordinary followers—violent and legislation abiding alike.
Foer’s intuition to animate the on a regular basis characters that assist groups and function golf equipment was proper. There have been and are so many tales to inform. However the capitalist West can’t at all times be the star.
