Simon Kuper Quotes
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Chelsea's players, coaches and agents are now football's wealthiest millionaires. Surely the billions taken from the Russian people by an oligarch in questionable privatisations couldn't be better spent?
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It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about the same event. A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies.
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Whereas fanatic is usually a pejorative word, a Fan is someone who has roots somewhere.
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You'd never last in South America. Fans take their radios to the stadium so they can think what the commentators think.
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Other than sports, only war and catastrophe can create this sort of national unity.
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I remember World Cups in 1982 and 1986 when we weren't there and we'd support Belgium or Denmark, .. They had some players who played in Holland and they were a bit like the Dutch.
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Football is not merely a small business, it's also a bad one. Anyone who spends any time inside football soon discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the football business.
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Even before 2007, this half of a small island was the richest football country on earth. In 2005-2006 the Premiership's total revenue was about £1.4bn, 40 per cent more than its nearest rival, Italy's Serie A. That was before take-off. Now foreign television channels are sending so much cash that the Premiership is expected to take in nearly £1.8bn this season. Even the team that finishes bottom of the table (Wigan might be a good bet) will get £26.8m from TV. That's more than all of Argentine or Belgian football put together.
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