Football as a mirror of the global economy

In 2018 I published a book in Spanish (thanks to Alternativas Económicas) broadly about football (soccer) and economics, as a result of a course that I was teaching on the topic: “Pan y Fútbol” (bread and football). Its subtitle was “football as a mirror of the global economy.” The book talked about game theory, referees, coaches and Sports institutions, and what I had in mind with the subtitle was that football was becoming a leading indicator of the tectonic geopolitical changes that were impacting the global economy. That was before the Qatar World Cup, where the President of FIFA Infantino, the successor of the corrupt Blatter and the friend of Donald Trump, shrugged off the implications of subsidizing a corrupt and medieval regime.

The football industry has become gradually globalized in the last decades. First it was its labour market with the almost free movement of players, then it was the globalization of demand, with TV rights of the best leagues and tournaments sold in every continent (and some “national” games such as Supercups played in other nations). More recently, it has been the globalization of ownership, whereby the owners of a local club may come from anywhere in the world. This globalization has allowed the football industry to grow and to provide audiences and spectators with better TV and sporting quality. But given the unregulated and non-democratic nature of the global economy, the price has been an industry more and more plagued by corruption and populism.

Modern football illustrates that success and corruption are compatible (look at Spain), when powerful structures and opportunistic individuals take advantage of their positions to extract rents from a very successful phenomenon (to which success these individuals contributed nothing).

The erosion of democracies and democratic values allows these leaders (many of them as populist as Trump) to show without embarrassment their deals with Qatar, Saudi Arabia or the Republic of Congo. Much of the corporate media benefits from many of these deals, and at most many of them will promote false equivalences showing different views but presenting collusion with autocracies as something legitimate. Like economist Paul Krugman says when some media outlets are confronted with flat-earthers, the headline will be: “Views differ on the shape of the Planet.” And thus we can see in a newspaper owned by a prestigious media organization in Barcelona an interview with a sports minister in Congo with a proven past of criminality (without mentioning this past).

This combination of sportswashing, populism and corruption is allowed by the model of economic globalization that expands when global democracy contracts. The consequence is irresponsible leadership, erosion of institutions and loss of human talent at the club and higher levels. In 2017 I finished my book with some optimistic calls for reform. Today I am more pessimistic. It will take longer than I thought to change the system. Meanwhile, let’s enjoy the game while we can (although perhaps we should feel more guilty for it).