Will Lionel Messi’s arrival spark a football renaissance in the USA?

 Will Lionel Messi’s arrival spark a football renaissance in the USA? Bala Chambers writing for TRTWorld thinks it might in this article, for which he spoke to soccer mad boffin Dr Alex G. Gillett.

Alex references the NASL and Pele, the 1994 FIFA World Cup, as well as the more recent involvement of David Beckham with the MSL.

To read the article please click anywhere on this line of text.

For more from the soccer mad boffins about football in the USA see the following articles, click on the titles and a link should open, although the first one might not be fully open access so you may need a university library login or personal account:

Hybrid Goals (1994 FIFA World Cup)

The Growth of Major League Soccer

New Book Chapter: Moments, Metaphors, Memories Defining Events in the History of Soccer

 

We are pleased to announce a new book based on the Special Issue of 'Soccer & Society' journal that we had a paper in, about the 1966 FIFA World Cup:

As the most popular mass spectator sport across the world, soccer generates key moments of significance on and off the field, encapsulated in events that create metaphors and memories, with wider social, cultural, psychological, political, commercial and aesthetic implications. Since its inception as a modern game, the history of soccer has been replete with events that have changed the organization, meanings and impact of the sport. The passage from the club to the nation or from the local to the global often opens up transnational spaces that provide a context for studying the events that have 'defined' the sport and its followers. Such defining events can include sporting performances, decisions taken by various stakeholders of the game, accidents and violence among players and fans, and invention of supporter cultures, among other things. 

This volume attempts to document, identify and analyse some of the defining events in the history of soccer from interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives. It revisits the discourses of signification and memorialization of such events that have influenced society, culture, politics, religion, and commerce. 

This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Soccer & Society.

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd 
ISBN: 9780367696160 
Number of pages: 235 
Dimensions: 246 x 174 mm

About our chapter: 

Our paper, included here as a chapter, is: "'‘Filip’or flop? Managing public relations and the Latin American reaction to the 1966 FIFA World Cup'.

"The 1966 FIFA World Cup has become part of the iconography of its hosts and champions, England. Extant literature has tended to focus on the cultural and symbolic legacy of the tournament, or engaged with diplomatic relations between Britain and North Korea. Contrastingly, we use archival sources from footballing and government institutions to explore the less studied topic of how the tournament was reported and perceived in Latin America, where England had commercial interests and influence, but where there were allegations that FIFA, the FA and even the UK government manipulated the tournament to the advantage of England and other European teams. We provide fresh perspectives on the social and cultural significance of the 1966 FIFA World Cup by analysing how the tournament’s organizers attempted to manage the situation and resulting negative public relations, and how 1966 fits within longer-term footballing and diplomatic relations between England and Latin America.

New Article Published by 'Soccer & Society'

We are pleased to announce that our latest paper '‘Filip’ or flop? Managing public relations and the Latin American reaction to the 1966 FIFA World Cup' is now available online.

It is published by the journal 'Soccer & Society' and will when available in print it will be included in a Special Issue on the topic of 'Moments, Metaphors, Memories: Defining Events in the History of Soccer'.

First 50 readers using this weblink get FREE access to our article by clicking HERE

Thereafter you can find it by clicking HERE

ABSTRACT

The 1966 FIFA World Cup has become part of the iconography of its hosts and champions, England. Extant literature has tended to focus on the cultural and symbolic legacy of the tournament, or engaged with diplomatic relations between Britain and North Korea. Contrastingly, we use archival sources from footballing and government institutions to explore the less studied topic of how the tournament was reported and perceived in Latin America, where England had commercial interests and influence, but where there were allegations that FIFA, the FA and even the UK government manipulated the tournament to the advantage of England and other European teams. We provide fresh perspectives on the social and cultural significance of the 1966 FIFA World Cup by analysing how the tournament’s organizers attempted to manage the situation and resulting negative public relations, and how 1966 fits within longer-term footballing and diplomatic relations between England and Latin America.