The beautiful game

Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World, despite its grandiose title, fascinatingly blends politics, culture, religion, race, crime, and history. It definitely works as a travelogue too.

In the last chapter of the book he mentions this tidbit.

Not just pundits buried in the C Section of the paper, but people with actual power believe that soccer represents a genuine threat to the American way of life. The former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp, one of the most influential conservatives of the 1980’s, a man once mentioned in the same breath as the presidency, holds this view. In 1986, he took to the floor of the United States Congress to orate against a resolution in support of the American bid to host the World Cup. Kemp intoned, “I think it is important for all these young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialism [sport].”

Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Silvio Berlusconi, who owns AC Milan, or Rupert Murdoch, whose SkySports broadcasts it to the world, refute the socialism assertion.

I watched my first professional game on television in 1966. England beat Germany in extra time in the World Cup final at Wembley Stadium. One of my best friends turned me on to it. I was mightily glad he did.

Eight years after Kemp made his statement, the United States hosted the World Cup. I saw two games at Chicago’s Soldier Field. I learned why people call soccer the beautiful game. Too bad the world in which it lives cannot reflect more of its beauty.