Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey - and Even Iraq - Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport PDF
Preview Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey - and Even Iraq - Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport
1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page i SOCCERNOMICS 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page ii ALSO BY SIMON KUPER Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe During the Second World War (Orion, 2003) Football Against the Enemy (Orion, 1994) Retourtjes Nederland (Atlas, 2006) ALSO BY STEFAN SZYMANSKI Fans of the World, Unite! A Capitalist Manifesto for Sports Consumers (with Stephen F. Ross; Stanford University Press, 2008) Il business del calcio (with Umberto Lago and Alessandro Baroncelli; Egea, 2004) National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer (with Andrew Zimbalist; Brookings Institution, 2005) Playbooks and Checkbooks: An Introduction to the Economics of Modern Sports (Princeton University Press, 2009) Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football (with Tim Kuypers; Viking Books, 1999; Penguin Books, 2000) Books Edited: Handbook on the Economics of Sport (with Wladimir Andreff; Edward Elgar, 2006) Transatlantic Sports: The Comparative Economics of North American and European Sports (with Carlos Barros and Murad Ibrahim; Edward Elgar, 2002) 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page iii SOCCERNOMICS Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey— and Even Iraq—Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski A Member of the Perseus Books Group New York 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page iv Copyright © 2009 by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski Published by Nation Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Nation Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016-8810. Books published by Nation Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. Designed by Brent Wilcox The Library of Congress has catalogued this book as follows: Kuper, Simon. Soccernomics : why England loses, why Germany and Brazil win, and why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey and Even Iraq are destined to become the kings of the world’s most popular sport / by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-56858-425-6 (alk. paper) 1. Soccer—Social aspects. I. Szymanski, Stefan. II. Title. GV943.9.S64K88 2009 796.334—dc22 2009023502 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page v From Simon: To Pamela (who doesn’t know about football, but knows about writing) for her astonishing tolerance. And to Leila, Leo, and Joey, for all the smiles. From Stefan: To my father We never saw eye to eye, but he taught me to question everything. 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page vi 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page vii CONTENTS 1 Driving with a Dashboard: In Search of New Truths About Soccer 1 2 Why England Loses and Others Win 7 The Clubs PART I Racism, Stupidity, Bad Transfers, Capital Cities, the Mirage of the NFL, and What Actually Happened in That Penalty Shoot-Out in Moscow 3 Gentlemen Prefer Blonds: How to Avoid Silly Mistakes in the Transfer Market 47 4 The Worst Business in the World: Why Soccer Clubs Don’t (and Shouldn’t) Make Money 75 5 Need Not Apply: Does English Soccer Discriminate Against Black People? 97 6 The Economist’s Fear of the Penalty Kick: Are Penalties Cosmically Unfair, or Only If You Are Nicolas Anelka? 113 7 The Suburban Newsagents: City Sizes and Soccer Prizes 133 8 Football Versus Football 157 vii 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page viii viii CONTENTS The Fans PART II Loyalty, Suicides, Happiness, and the Country with the Best Supporters 9 The Country That Loves Soccer Most 181 10 Are Soccer Fans Polygamists? A Critique of the Nick Hornby Model of Fandom 203 11 A Fan’s Suicide Notes: Do People Jump Off Buildings When Their Teams Lose? 221 12 Happiness: Why Hosting a World Cup Is Good for You 235 Countries PART III Rich and Poor, Tom Thumb, Guus Ghiddink, Saddam, and the Champions of the Future 13 The Curse of Poverty: Why Poor Countries Are Poor at Sports 255 14 Tom Thumb: The Best Little Soccer Country on Earth 275 15 Core to Periphery: The Future Map of Global Soccer 291 Acknowledgments 307 Select Bibliography 309 Index 313 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page 1 1 DRIVING WITH A DASHBOARD In Search of New Truths About Soccer This book began in the Hilton in Istanbul. From the outside it’s a squat and brutalist place, but once the security men have checked your car for bombs and waved you through, the hotel is so soothing you never want to go home again. Having escaped the 13-million-person city, the only stress is over what to do next: a Turkish bath, a game of tennis, or yet more overeating while the sun sets over the Bosporus? For aficionados, there’s also a perfect view of the Besiktas soccer stadium right next door. And the staff are so friendly they are even friendlier than ordinary Turkish people. The two authors of this book, Stefan Szymanski (a sports econo- mist) and Simon Kuper (a journalist), met here. Fenerbahce soccer club was marking its centenary by staging the “100th Year Sports and Sci- ence Congress,” and had flown them both in to give talks. Simon’s talk was first. He said he had good news for Turkish soc- cer: as the country’s population mushroomed, and its economy grew, the national team was likely to keep getting better. Then it was Stefan’s turn. He too had good news for Turkey: as the country’s population mushroomed, and its economy grew, the national team was likely to 1 1568584256-Kuper_Design 9/2/09 1:18 PM Page 2 2 SOCCERNOMICS keep getting better. All of this may, incidentally, have been lost on the not-very-Anglophone audience. The two of us had never met before Istanbul, but over beers in the Hilton bar we confirmed that we did indeed think much the same way about soccer. Stefan as an economist is trained to torture the data until they confess, while Simon as a reporter tends to go around interviewing people, but those are just surface differences. We both think that much in soccer can be explained, even predicted, by studying data—especially data found outside soccer. For a very long time soccer escaped the Enlightenment. Soccer clubs are still mostly run by people who do what they do because they have al- ways done it that way. These people used to “know” that black players “lacked bottle,” and they therefore overpaid mediocre white players. Today they discriminate against black managers, buy the wrong players, and then let those players take penalties the wrong way. (We can, by the way, explain why Manchester United won the penalty shoot-out in the Champions League final in Moscow. It’s a story involving a secret note, a Basque econ- omist, and Edwin van der Sar’s powers of detection.) Entrepreneurs who dip into soccer also keep making the same mis- takes. They buy clubs promising to run them “like a business,” and dis- appear a few seasons later amid the same public derision as the previous owners. Fans and journalists aren’t blameless, either. Many newspaper headlines rest on false premises: “Newcastle Lands World Cup Star” or “World Cup Will Be Economic Bonanza.” The game is full of unex- amined clichés: “Soccer is becoming boring because the big clubs al- ways win,” “Soccer is big business,” and, perhaps the greatest myth in the English game, “The England team should do better.” None of these shibboleths has been tested against the data. Most male team sports are pervaded by the same overreliance on traditional beliefs. Baseball, too, was until very recently an old game stuffed with old lore. Since time immemorial, players had stolen bases, hit sacrifice bunts, and been judged on their batting averages. Everyone in baseball just knewthat all this was right.
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