The Power and the Glory: Geopolitics, FIFA and the beautiful game

Jonathan Wilson's The Power and the Glory traces how the FIFA World Cup evolved from a football tournament into a global stage for power, politics and profit

The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup

By Jonathan Wilson

Published by Hachette

600 pages ₹1,299

 

Now that Indian football fans will get to watch the FIFA World Cup starting June 11*, the media is dishing out analyses, statistics and nostalgia. Behind the hype, though, it will escape no one following the money with half an eye that this most-watched global sports tournament has become not just big business but highly dubious business. We know this from the dramatic scandals that followed the award of the hosting rights to Qatar for the 2022 edition. This is the trajectory that football writer Jonathan Wilson follows in The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup. 

Wilson’s book lives up to its title as a new history tracing the evolution of the World Cup from its first edition in 1930 to 2022 with its unforgettable final through the lens of global politics. Like the Olympics, the World Cup, as the world’s most watched sporting event, has become what Wilson describes as a “massive soft power jamboree”. As he writes in the Prologue, “Every host has tried to use the tournament as an expression of confidence or modernity or just to prove they are relevant, a central part of a broader global community.” 

This theme spans from Mussolini hijacking the tournament in 1934 to promote his ideal of a muscular successful Italy to Vladimir Putin’s efforts to showcase his irredentist dreams in 2018, and the Qatari Al Thani family’s ambitions to legitimise an authoritarian regime linked to fossil fuel wealth in 2022. 

Jules Rimet, creator of the World Cup, saw the tournament as promoting global brotherhood, a goal that has proven illusory, as Wilson’s history demonstrates. He points out, for instance, that celebrations over the multicultural nature of France’s World Cup winning teams (1998 and 2018) have not diminished the racist appeal of politicians such as Marine le Pen. Or that Brazil’s romanticised virtues of miscegenation — “mulattoism” — as the basis for its footballing success downplays the racism permeating Brazilian society and the brutality of slavery. Yet, Wilson says, “Football does matter, does offer insights, often unconscious, into the desires and doubts of a culture, never more so than the quadrennial snapshot offered by the World Cup.” 

With an eye for the occasionally comic nature of global political theatre, here’s one telling example from the 2018 prize-distribution ceremony in Moscow when the rain came down in buckets. It fell, Wilson writes, “on the celebrating France players and the dejected Croatians… and it fell on the temporary stage erected for the presentation of the medals. It fell on Gianni Infantino and it fell on Emmanuel Macron. But it did not fall on Vladimir Putin because a lackey held an umbrella over him. There was only one umbrella on the pitch and there was no doubting the power of the man it protected.” 

Inevitably, the politics of hosting the tournament has transformed the nature of FIFA. The book was published before FIFA chief Gianni Infantino awarded the FIFA Peace Prize — a strange award for a sporting body, surely — to Donald Trump. With the US, a consistently underwhelming football power, co-hosting the 23rd edition of the World Cup with Mexico and Canada, Infantino may have thought it prudent to offer his bestie a consolation prize after the Norwegian Nobel Committee overlooked him for the Nobel equivalent. In the spirit of this bromance, he joined Trump and world leaders for the signing of the egregious Gaza peace declaration. He has not commented on Trump’s adventures in West Asia since February 28. But by inserting himself into the geopolitical architecture, Infantino has taken a sporting administration body to another dubious level of global engagement. 

Long before this, successive FIFA chiefs embedded the practice of wheeling and dealing into the administration of global football. The process started with the long-serving Brazilian of Belgian origin, Jose Havelange, a steel magnate later found guilty of corruption over marketing rights. The trend was efficiently followed up by his successor, Sepp Blatter, whose Teflon talents ensured that none of the corruption charges that precipitated his exit stuck. 

The machinations of which Havelange was capable confounded even the arch-Machiavellian former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. In 1983, Kissinger headed the bid for the US for the 1986 tournament primarily to bolster the ailing fortunes of the North American Soccer League. But the decision to award the tournament to Mexico was taken in backroom deals well before that. As Wilson tells it, “Mexico’s presentation lasted a desultory eight minutes. For the US, Henry Kissinger gave a detailed and coherent speech that was entering its second hour when he realised the Mexicans were already celebrating downstairs. For Kissinger, this was a personal humiliation: ‘It made me nostalgic for the Middle East,’ he said.” 

The big turning point for the World Cup came when the hosting rights were awarded to South Africa for the 2010 edition — not without some inspired vote buying, it transpired — to showcase the coming of age of Africa. Till then, FIFA shared broadcast, ticketing, sponsorship and licensing revenues with the host. With the 2010 edition, FIFA took 100 per cent of those revenues while also demanding tax breaks. 

That set the trend, writes Wilson, “in which the World Cup landed in a country, contributed very little and left again a few weeks later having made itself a fortune, leaving the hosts to pick up the bill.” That explains the serial scandals that followed the enormously wasteful expenditure in Brazil for the 2014 edition and how successive editions went to host countries with minimal footballing credentials. 

The Power and the Glory doubles as a survey of world politics — especially in South America and Europe — and footballing history. There is plenty of football packed in. Wilson writes about the fascinating changes in tactics and formations — he authored the definitive book on the history of footballing tactics in Inverting the Pyramid. He discusses the standout controversies — Germany’s suspicious 1954 victory; the Hand of God; Ronaldo’s pre-final breakdown in 1998; the Head Butt — but mostly without comment. And he describes the many characters in the game: Pele and Maradona, of course, but also Puskas, Cruyf, Garrincha, and many more. This is a book worth reading for a truly complete history of the World Cup — in all its power, glory and also its tawdriness.

 

*June 12 for India because of the time difference