World Cup Fever (Hardback)
A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments
Preorder from
The story of how football transformed the world, told through nine World Cups - by one of our most talented football writers
'A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle... an essential companion' David Goldblatt
It's the biggest sporting competition on Earth. A four-yearly chance for our greatest footballers to realise their ultimate dream. A month-long spectacle that's watched by billions. But the inaugural World Cup, held in Uruguay in 1930, was semi-professional, poorly attended and haphazardly organised - so how did it become a bonanza of multinational sponsorship, dubious ethics and shadowy characters, and the ultimate stage for football's greatest drama?
Simon Kuper is one of very few people to have attended every World Cup since 1990. In World Cup Fever he looks back at each tournament he's experienced - from half-empty stands at Italia 90 to the French triumph as hosts in 1998, South Africa's national dream in 2010 and the troubling legacy of 2022 - to reveal a captivating portrait of sport in a globalised world.
World Cup Fever is the story of how the tournament touches and sometimes even changes our lives, by one of the best writers on the beautiful game.
World Cup Fever (Ebook)
A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments
Preorder from
The story of how football transformed the world, told through nine World Cups - by one of our most talented football writers
'A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle... an essential companion' David Goldblatt
It's the biggest sporting competition on Earth. A four-yearly chance for our greatest footballers to realise their ultimate dream. A month-long spectacle that's watched by billions. But the inaugural World Cup, held in Uruguay in 1930, was semi-professional, poorly attended and haphazardly organised - so how did it become a bonanza of multinational sponsorship, dubious ethics and shadowy characters, and the ultimate stage for football's greatest drama?
Simon Kuper is one of very few people to have attended every World Cup since 1990. In World Cup Fever he looks back at each tournament he's experienced - from half-empty stands at Italia 90 to the French triumph as hosts in 1998, South Africa's national dream in 2010 and the troubling legacy of 2022 - to reveal a captivating portrait of sport in a globalised world.
World Cup Fever is the story of how the tournament touches and sometimes even changes our lives, by one of the best writers on the beautiful game.
World Cup Fever (Audiobook)
A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments
Preorder from
The story of how football transformed the world, told through nine World Cups - by one of our most talented football writers
'A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle... an essential companion' David Goldblatt
It's the biggest sporting competition on Earth. A four-yearly chance for our greatest footballers to realise their ultimate dream. A month-long spectacle that's watched by billions. But the inaugural World Cup, held in Uruguay in 1930, was semi-professional, poorly attended and haphazardly organised - so how did it become a bonanza of multinational sponsorship, dubious ethics and shadowy characters, and the ultimate stage for football's greatest drama?
Simon Kuper is one of very few people to have attended every World Cup since 1990. In World Cup Fever he looks back at each tournament he's experienced - from half-empty stands at Italia 90 to the French triumph as hosts in 1998, South Africa's national dream in 2010 and the troubling legacy of 2022 - to reveal a captivating portrait of sport in a globalised world.
World Cup Fever is the story of how the tournament touches and sometimes even changes our lives, by one of the best writers on the beautiful game.
Reviews for World Cup Fever
David Goldblatt, author The Ball is Round
Jonathan Wilson, author Inverting the Pyramid
Gary Lineker
Bill Buford
Amy Raphael
John Carlin
Guardian
The Times
Simon Kuper
Simon Kuper is a British author and journalist for the Financial Times. Kuper was born in Uganda of South African parents in 1969, and moved to the Netherlands as a child. He studied History and German at Oxford University, and attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar. He has written for the Observer, The Times and the Guardian, and also writes regularly for Dutch newspapers. He lives in Paris with his family.
Related books
Good Chaps
Simon Kuper
From the bestselling author of Chums, a powerful analysis of how corruption shapes British politics
Impossible City
Simon Kuper
An unsparing memoir of the city in the twenty-first century, from a long-time Parisien d'adoption
The Happy Traitor
Simon Kuper
A 'humane and informative' (according to John Le Carré) biography of George Blake, the most notorious double agent in British history….