How Soccer Explains the World

infobox Book |
name = How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
orig title =
translator =


author = Franklin Foer
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
subject = Soccer Globalization
genre = Non-fiction
publisher = HarperCollins
release_date = June 29, 2004
media_type = Hardback & Paperback
pages = 272 pp (hardback edition)
isbn = ISBN 978-0066212340 (Hardback)
preceded_by =
followed_by =

How Soccer Explains the World is an analysis of the interchange between soccer and the new global economy. The author takes readers on a journey from soccer stadium to soccer stadium around the globe in an attempt to shed new insights on today’s world events, both from political and economical standpoints. Soccer is here the globalized medium that seems to lend itself to explaining the effects globalization has on society as a whole.

Failure of globalization

In the first part of this book, Foer tries to explain “the failure of globalization to erode ancient hatreds in the game’s great rivalries”, commonly referred to as hooliganism (2004, p. 5).

Rise of corporate hegemons

In the second part of the text, the author uses soccer “to address economics: the consequences of migration, the persistence of corruption, and the rise of powerful new oligarchs like Silvio Berlusconi, the President of [both] Italy and the AC Milan club” (Foer, 2004, p. 5).

Persistence of nationalism and tribalism

In the final part, Foer uses soccer “to defend the virtues of old-fashioned nationalism – a way to blunt the return of tribalism” (2004, p. 6). The book thus challenges theories that a universal, globalist philosophy will subsume local nationalisms. Overarching structures such as the European Union and United nations may attain structural prominence, but underneath the veneer of these structures, vibrant sub-cultures and tribal loyalities remain, and may even be strengthened by modern communications like the Internet. They may thus foreshadow not the hoped for unity sought by globalized bureaucratic and political elites and corporate oligarchs, but increasing fragmentation and national/ethnic conflict within outward facades of globalized unity.

About the author

In 2004, HarperCollins published Franklin Foer’s first book How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. His writings have also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Foreign Policy, and Spin. He is the editor of The New Republic and contributing editor at New York magazine.

ee also

*The Last Save of Moacyr Barbosa
*Among the Thugs
*Globalization