FIFA and the contest for world football

Entrevistando mais de setenta líderes influentes em todo o mundo e com base em fontes documentais exclusivas, os autores demonstram importância da FIFA no século XX, esporte e cultura em um consumidor cada vez mais global.

A primeira parte do livro aborda as origens e características organizacionais da FIFA e das federações da Europa e América do Sul. O livro inclui análises do crescimento do nacionalismo e anti-imperialismo via futebol. Apresenta o papel do futebol na África, Ásia e nos EUA.

O livro fornece elementos para a análise política e histórica do esporte, e a sociologia do sistema global e a ordem mundial em transformação. Vai ser de interesse para estudantes e pesquisadores nas áreas de estudos do esporte, estudos culturais e da sociologia da cultura popular, e para todos os envolvidos com a organização social de um dos esportes mais populares do mundo.

Preface, vii

Acknowledgments, ix

1. Introduction: FIFA and the contest for world football – an interpretative and conceptual framework, 15

Part I – FIFA and its expanding football family: background and context, 15
2. FIFA, Europe and South America: foundations and contradictions in the football family, 17
3. FIFA: an organizational and institutional analysis, 47
4. FIFA and its partners: media and markets, 73
5. FIFA”s World Cup Finals: getting the event, 100

Part II – FIFA and the collapse of empire, 125
6. FIFA and Africa, 127
7. FIFA and Asia, 152
8. FIFA and the former Soviet Union, 180
9. FIFA”s final frontier: USA”94, 203
10. Conclusion: who rules the peoples” game?

In FIFA and the Contest for World Football Sugden and Tomlinson provide the first full-length study of FIFA (the Federation Internationale de Football Association) and its role in framing and controlling world football. Interviewing more than seventy influential leaders world-wide and drawing on exclusive documentary sources, the authors demonstrate FIFA”s importance in twentieth-century sport, and in an increasingly global consumer culture.

The first part of the book covers the origins and organizational characteristics of FIFA, and of the European and South American federations. The second part considers how new and powerful players have emerged in FIFA in the wake of the collapse of empires. The book includes analyses of football”s contributions to the growth of nationalism and anti-imperialism; the use of football by ruthless and sometimes corrupt officials and political despots; and its expansion under the influence of increasingly prominent commercial paymasters. Football”s role in Africa, Asia and the USA is also illuminated, and FIFA”s global mission and rhetoric evaluated.

The book is a valuable addition to the politics and social history of sport, and to the sociology of the global system and the changing world order. It will be of interest to students and researchers in the areas of sport studies, cultural studies and the sociology of popular culture, and to everyone concerned with the social organization of one of the world”s most popular sports.