Globalisation on the playing fields

It is unlikely that US President Donald Trump, who will meet World Cup host Vladimir Putin next week, shares his youngest son’s passion for the game (Barron is an Arsenal fan). Had he cared to watch the electrifying semi-final Tuesday night, he would have seen in just 90-odd minutes all the best that open borders and globalisation has to offer.
 
By now, even the most casual observer of the World Cup Finals would have noticed two things about the sumptuous display of footballing skills in Russia.
 
One is the dominance of the European football. The other is the dynamic multi-national, multi-racial nature of the sport.

 

No one has basked in this multicultural message more thoroughly than French president, Emmanuel Macron. Images of his undisguised elation at France’s 1-0 victory over Belgium – both teams brimming with youthful stars of non-European ethnicity – were beamed to a worldwide TV audience of over 2 billion. For the quarter-final, the 40-year-old invited youngsters from the satellite towns around Paris to watch the match at the Elysee Palace. Given that current teenage sensation Kylian Mbappe, the French striker of Cameroonian-Algerian origin, grew up on these mean streets, the significance of this gesture would have been lost on none of his right-wing xenophobic opponents.

 
The club team Mr Mbappe represents, Paris St-Germain is owned by Qatar Sports Investments, promoted by the family that rules the natural gas-rich kingdom that will be hosting, amidst fierce controversy, the 2022 World Cup.
 
Some six teams in Ligue 1, France’s top-tier club tournament, are foreign-owned – by Spanish, American, Russian, Polish and Chinese investors in addition to the Qataris. It is by no means the leader. That honour goes to the English Premier League, with 13 teams boasting foreign ownership. In the Italian Serie A, five of the teams are foreign-owned.
 
Foreign ownership of European football teams remains contentious, however. In Spain, for instance, teams are proudly, locally-owned and rely on zooming broadcasting revenues, merchandise sales and sponsorship deals to pay stars like Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo astronomical sums. In Germany, a 50+1 ownership rule means that, with some historical exceptions, no one entity can enjoy dominant ownership.

 
But the palpable impact of the EPL is promoting a rethink within the Bundesliga. Old-timers may rue the replacement of the blokey, working-class culture of English football with the glitz of ownership by sundry Russian oligarchs, shady Chinese and Asian billionaires, opaque oil moguls and brash American tycoons. But the runaway success of the EPL business model, Europe’s richest league by a mile and copied around the world, is strikingly evident in this edition of the World Cup, where the top English clubs account for the lion’s share of players remaining in the tournament.
 
In anticipation of Brexit, the Bundesliga this February floated the idea of relaxing the 50 + 1 restriction. The assumption is that looser ownership rules will attract more deep-pocketed buyers (and therefore top talent) at a time when the UK tightens work permit laws to restrict foreign footballers, whether from the European Union or elsewhere. This may force English clubs to buy local.

 
As with all things Brexit, this would be England’s loss. The dominance of foreign players has long been cited as the key reason (excuse?) that England hasn’t won the World Cup after 1966. None of the team will deny that their abilities have been honed on exposure to top-level international competition, week in and week out.
 
The embattled Theresa May, who meets Mr Trump today, may not have had time to watch the Three Lions in action against Croatia. But not being as obtuse as her ally across the pond, you do wonder if she spots the larger implications of Brexit in the team’s performance so far.