First, the basics. The World Cup is run by FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Heidrun Homburg details the history of the financing of world football.

The World Cup began in 1930. In that final, Uruguay beat Argentina 4–2. But World Cup fever required a global audience, and Fabio Chisari details “When Football Went Global: Televising the 1966 World Cup.” England beat West German in the 1966 final, 4–2.

And tackling a perennial problem—or is it, anymore?—Koen Stroeken asks “Why ‘The World’ Loves Watching Football (And ‘The Americans Don’t’).” The US had a team in that first World Cup in Uruguay.

Paul Darby reminds us that politics are never far from the great game in “Africa, the FIFA Presidency, and the Governance of World Football: 1974, 1998, and 2002.”

Christiane Eisenberg admits that “the border between academic and popular studies are muddy in this area,” like the pitch, or field, sometimes, in her in-depth “International Bibliography of Football History.”