Is football a sport? Before you reply with the obvious answer, let me read you a dictionary definition of sport: “An occupation or proceeding of the nature of a pastime or diversion. A game, or particular form of pastime, especially one carried on in the open air”. Does that describe the World Cup? The media frenzy, the multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals, the superstar players, the sheer level of excitement and hysteria? I didn’t think so, but then this may not be your definition of sport. Indeed it is an old-fashioned one, one that harks back to a time when sport was not big business. A more modern definition goes like this: “A game, competition or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary).
I have a friend who back in 1998, despite the competition being held in his home territory, decided that football had gone too far, it had become obscene as he put it, and stopped watching it. I didn’t quite see his point of view. Quite the opposite, the World Cup is inclusive. It’s a time when little nations like Trinidad and Tobago get to play with the big boys and maybe even beat them. It’s a time when even those who don’t understand the offside rule can get swept up in the excitement of the beautiful game. It’s also a time when wherever you are in the world, there is a sense of shared experience. Most of all I like the theater of it, particularly when it goes down to a penalty shoot-out.
But as the years have passed, I began to see his point of view. Football has moved beyond being a sport. There is too much money in it, and just as power corrupts in politics, money corrupts in sport. First, there is the obvious temptation to fix games and the current scandal in Italy has shown just how extensive this phenomenon may be. Then, there is the effect on footballers, who despite being mere humans with talent are catapulted into stellar status. Here in France, the place attributed to Zinedine Zidane is awesome. There is a film out in the cinemas that shows him for ninety minutes, seventeen cameras following him in real time during the duration of a football game. It sounds dull, ninety minutes of watching his impassive face but I hear it is a fascinating film. His face has become an icon, it is like the picture of presidents in some countries; it is ever present, gazing at us from posters, magazine covers and television screens.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, there is also the way politicians jump on the bandwagon. You can’t blame them really. Not only is it an easy way to gain points with the public, it also distracts attention away from political issues and gives politicians a breather. But it can go a step too far. On the day Abu Musab Zarqawi was killed in Iraq, when the Anglo-Saxon media went into overdrive, the first item on the eight o’clock news on French channel TF1 concerned Djibril Cisse, the French footballer injured during the previous evening’s friendly against China. Cisse was in hospital and out of the World Cup. President Chirac came on screen in person to add his wishes for a speedy recovery and to state his confidence that France was on course to regain the World Cup despite this setback.
But when it comes to injured footballers, the Palme d’Or goes to Wayne Rooney in England. Roo, as the tabloid press likes to call him, injured his foot back in April and since then the public had been treated to a blow-by-blow account of his recovery. Just in the last ten days, there has been the desperate countdown to the decisive CT scan that would decide whether or not the Manchester United forward would be declared fit for the World Cup. The Sun, England’s biggest selling tabloid newspaper, devoted a whole front page to a grainy picture of Rooney on a football pitch, with the headline “Roo Kicks Ball” and then, a few days later, once the footballer had been declared fit, another dedicated front page, this time a full Technicolor picture of their man in action!
Football fervor in England is close to hysteria. The English invented the game after all and every World Cup is a chance for the country to dream again that “football’s coming home”. It did come home once; back in 1966 and on home ground too, when Bobby Charlton’s England famously defeated what was then the Federal Republic of Germany. My favorite anecdote about English football though comes from 1950 in Brazil. It was the first World Cup after World War II. England were defeated 0-1 by the USA. Some newspapers thought it must be a typo and printed a story of England winning 10-1!
But the real home of the World Cup is unquestionably Brazil. They hold almost every record: They have won it more times than anyone else (five times), they are the only team to have participated in every World Cup, they have scored more goals than anyone else, Pele is the only player to have been part of three winning teams... And if Ronaldo scores just three goals during this World Cup, he will become the World Cup’s top scorer. The winners’ club is an elite club; there are only seven members. At the opening ceremony in Munich on Friday, past winners came on for a victory parade. England were first out, then France with their one win in 1998. Italy, Uruguay and Argentina followed, then Germany to the roar of the crowd, only to be drowned out by the arrival of the Brazilian contingent. When it comes to football, Brazil reigns supreme; they have talent, artistry and passion like no one else. They are the favorites to win in Berlin on July 9, but I hope they don’t.
My biggest wish for this World Cup is that it is won by a country that has never won it. That would go some way toward re-establishing the game as a sport, one where everyone stands a chance to win. The last World Cup was full of firsts. It was the first time the World Cup was held in Asia. The first time Senegal, Ecuador and Slovenia made it to the World Cup and Senegal, on their virgin voyage, not only defeated the previous holders France, but made it to the quarter-finals, and even though the final was held between two members of the elite club of seven, the semi-finals saw the inclusion of Turkey and Korea for the first time. As for Saudi Arabia, they have the bad luck of being in the same group as Tunisia — the only other Arab country to have made it to the World Cup. I sincerely hope they will both make it to the second round, as Saudi Arabia did so memorably back in 1994 in the US, but I’m not holding my breath.
