{"id":5191,"date":"2026-07-27T12:44:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idrottsforum.org\/forumbloggen\/?p=5191"},"modified":"2026-07-27T12:44:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:44:35","slug":"three-lessons-from-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idrottsforum.org\/forumbloggen\/three-lessons-from-the-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Three lessons from the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Spain lifting the World Cup trophy during Spain versus Argentina 19 July 2026. (Photo: Bryan Berlin, licensed under the Creative Commons<\/a> Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International<\/a> license.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This tumultuous 2026 FIFA Men\u2019s World Cup has ended and thoughts inevitably turn to what it all might have meant. \u00a0Millions of words have been uttered as events unfolded. \u00a0Now is the hour to propose its lessons for history.<\/p>\n

Not whether, but which politics of football?<\/h3>\n

As a sociologist I have argued for decades, frequently in the face of trenchant opposition from those who live off and\/or love it, that media-propelled professional sport<\/a> (hereafter football-soccer stands for the whole institution) is profoundly shaped by capitalism and inherently political. \u00a0This position has finally and largely become conventional wisdom.<\/p>\n

Journalists, commentators, politicians and \u2018punters\u2019 now repetitively intone something like, \u201cof course, football today is big business\u201d.\u00a0 Sometimes they overreach and claim that it is \u201cjust a business\u201d.\u00a0 But at least excessive football romanticism tends today to be tempered by a measured materialism.<\/p>\n

Eliciting widescale acknowledgement of the inevitability of the football-politics nexus has been a harder nut to crack. \u00a0Ironically, at this World Cup the cringe-making \u2018Presmance\u2019 of the U.S.\u2019s Donald Trump and FIFA\u2019s Gianni Infantino<\/a> has helped lift the political veil. \u00a0It is increasingly common for previously unashamed football-politics denialists to preface their public comments with, \u201cof course, football has always been political\u201d.<\/p>\n

The pressing matter at hand is not whether football and politics mix<\/a>, but how and with what consequences.\u00a0 The political game is loaded in sundry ways, but the score is not always easily and comprehensively fixed by the most powerful actors.\u00a0 One need not embrace a hardcore \u2018bread and circuses<\/a>\u2019 or \u2018sportswashing<\/a>\u2019 stance to recognise that no serious reflection on sport can be blind to its political dimensions and ramifications.<\/p>\n

The weight of football history and its place in global culture<\/h3>\n

The first and only time England won the Men\u2019s World Cup (sob) in 1966, 16 teams participated.\u00a0 That number ratcheted up to 24, 32 and, in 2026, 48 teams. \u00a0There were two other firsts at this edition: the semi-finals both involved four previous winners and the current top four FIFA-ranked teams.\u00a0 Spain\u2019s defeat of Argentina in the final saw them swap places as numbers 1 and 2 in the world.<\/p>\n

Despite the involvement of many more nations, the 2026 champion had to come from one of the only two continental federations that have ever won the trophy: Europe\u2019s UEFA and South America\u2019s CONMEBOL.\u00a0 Only 8 of FIFA\u2019s 211 member associations have won the Men\u2019s World Cup in its 96-year existence.\u00a0 The FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup has been running since 1991 and reached 32 participating teams in 2023.\u00a0 Its 5 national team winners have come from 3 confederations: North America (CONCACAF), Asia (AFC), and UEFA.\u00a0 CONMEBOL is notably absent.<\/p>\n

History, then, weighs heavily on World Cup prospects.\u00a0 One respected football commentator has argued that western Europe\u2019s<\/a> recent success stems substantially from its social democratic commitment to footballing inclusiveness.<\/p>\n

Less positively, this favourable circumstance can be traced to the material fruits of the colonialism<\/a> that produced association football as the world game through, in the first instance, cultural imperialism<\/a>.\u00a0 Unlike cricket, with its contemporary domination by India<\/a>, the Empire(s) in football have had greater difficulty in \u201cstriking back<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, this year\u2019s World Cup has comprehensively demonstrated the (quite literally) all-consuming global popular cultural appeal of the game.\u00a0 It is unquestionably hyper-stimulated<\/a> by commerce, manipulated by corporations, governments and governing bodies, and exacts a dangerous environmental<\/a> toll.\u00a0 But football\u2019s widespread cultural appeal at community level is undeniable, and cannot be simply expunged by exploitation or arrogantly dismissed by arbiters of cultural taste<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Potential legacies of this North American edition<\/h3>\n

Prominent within the 2026 World Cup image bank is the sight of an arch-nationalist-exceptionalist President co-presenting the FIFA World Cup Trophy as global football attempts to celebrate its collective humanity.\u00a0 The sound archive will also contain some booing<\/a> when he and Infantino appeared on screen and on the pitch.\u00a0 There will probably be some comic memes of his gauche attempt to gatecrash<\/a> the Spanish team\u2019s celebration.<\/p>\n

The legacy status of such moments is uncertain, but they and much else besides have been captured for posterity.\u00a0 The tournament was certainly tainted in many respects, from barring an accredited Somalian referee<\/a> at the border to Trump\u2019s notorious pressuring of FIFA to overturn<\/a> a U.S. player suspension.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is no universal collective memory or legacy.\u00a0 In any case, despite its seeming omnipresence this World Cup will have barely permeated the consciousness of many around the globe.\u00a0 Amid the multitudinous contending perspectives and narratives, this observer still struggles with the familiar contradiction<\/a> of trying to manage rational analysis and emotionally invested football fandom.<\/p>\n

For some, footballing feats, triumphs and defeats will be highlighted and off-pitch contexts subordinated.\u00a0 Comparatively few, fortunate fans can legitimately claim the privileged status of \u2018having been there<\/a>\u2019.\u00a0 All who spied it from myriad angles and distances will have their recollections primed and framed by already established viewing and speaking positions.<\/p>\n

They will have seen a mega sport event hosted by three North American nations yet dominated by one whose leader unashamedly antagonised co-hosts and citizens of many nations alike. That host nation was even conducting a war with a participant, Iran.\u00a0 Perversely, this World Cup will be remembered by some for its capacity to enthral precisely because of, not despite, its political resonance.<\/p>\n

Those same, often reluctant World Cup watchers were surreptitiously invited to look beyond some features of a tawdry fa\u00e7ade towards the beauty of the game when at its best.\u00a0 They might even have glimpsed its frayed, phantasmagoric utopian dream of unity in diversity, as rival fans hugged each other with a loud, colourful, cheerful joie de vivre<\/em>.\u00a0 Only the hardest hearted among them could have been unmoved by the heroics of the tiny nation of Cabo Verde<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Emile Durkheim<\/a>, a founding father of sociology, influentially proposed that religious observance in some forms is an unconscious reaffirmation of society.\u00a0 One legacy of this geopolitically fraught World Cup might be that football, as secular religious facsimile, <\/a>illuminated a better possible world amid the darkness of authoritarian populism and genocidal wars.<\/p>\n

No doubt this is an overly optimistic take on football as a resource of hope<\/a> under the immediate spell cast by its most compelling spectacle.\u00a0 But, as any serious football fan is prone to bemoan, especially if they\u2019ve read or watched Fever Pitch<\/em><\/a>, \u201cit\u2019s the hope that kills you\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n

Originally published on openforum.com.au<\/a>, July 21, 2026
\n<\/strong><\/span>Copyright \u00a9 David Rowe 2026<\/strong>
\nEmail: d.rowe@westernsydney.edu.au<\/a>
\nTwitter: @rowe_david<\/a>
\nWebsite: https:\/\/www.westernsydney.edu.au\/ics\/people\/emeritus-professors\/david-rowe<\/a><\/p>\n

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