Roger Domeneghetti in TLS: ‘Before a ball was even kicked, the 2026 men’s football World Cup had redefined the notion of a mega-event. The numbers speak for themselves. Forty-eight teams, up from thirty-two in 2022; 104 games, up from sixty-four. Attendance figures are projected to top 5.5 million, dwarfing the record set the last time the tournament was held in North America, in 1994.’

And: ‘Football, and the quadrennial World Cup, has supercharged this trend. Like Boykoff, McGee identifies the complicity of the game’s governing bodies, who have allowed competitions and stadia to be renamed by betting firms, players to become brand ambassadors, club shirts to become billboards. McGee reaches what he calls a “troubling conclusion”: that the “sport had a hand in its own hijacking”.’

Also: ‘The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, notes “the glittering social beauty of soccer somehow survives”.’

The glittering social beauty of money and athletes.

(a sf 2173)