Skip to content
from JSTOR, nonprofit library for the intellectually curious
  • Newsletters
  • Become a member
  • Membership
  • About JSTOR Daily
  • Support JSTOR Daily
  • Teaching with Reveal Digital’s American Prison Newspapers Collection
  • Newsletters
  • Arts & Culture
    • Art & Art History
    • Film & Media
    • Language & Literature
    • Performing Arts
  • Business & Economics
    • Business
    • Economics
  • Politics & History
    • Politics & Government
    • U.S. History
    • World History
    • Social History
    • Quirky History
  • Science & Technology
    • Health
    • Natural Science
    • Plants & Animals
    • Sustainability & The Environment
    • Technology
  • Education & Society
    • Education
    • Lifestyle
    • Religion
    • Social Sciences
  • Reading Lists
  • Syllabi
  • Columns
  • Shared Collections on JSTOR
  • Contact The Editors
Politics & History

The History of the World Cup

Academic takes on the global football tournament.

A Budapest Honved FC player tries to keep possession of the ball against an Ujpest FC's player's attempt at a side tackle.
Share
Copy link Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Reddit WhatsApp Email
By: Matthew Wills
July 1, 2014 July 28, 2023
1 minutes
The icon indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR.

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.

JSTOR Daily Membership AdJSTOR Daily Membership Ad

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.”

Have a correction or comment about this article?
Please contact us.
soccersportsAfrica TodayAnthropology TodayHistorical Social Research / Historische SozialforschungZeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte / Journal of Business History
JSTOR logo

Resources

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR.

Financing World Football. A Business History of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
By: Heidrun Homburg
Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte / Journal of Business History, 53. Jahrg., H. 1. (2008), pp. 33-69
Verlag C.H.Beck
When Football Went Global: Televising the 1966 World Cup
By: Fabio Chisari
Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, Vol. 31, No. 1 (115), Football History: International Perspectives / Fußball-Geschichte: Internationale Perspektiven (2006), pp. 42-54
GESIS - Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Center for Historical Social Research
Why 'The World' Loves Watching Football (And 'The Americans' Don't)
By: Koen Stroeken
Anthropology Today, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Jun., 2002), pp. 9-13
Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Africa, the FIFA Presidency, and the Governance of World Football: 1974, 1998, and 2002
By: Paul Darby
Africa Today, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 2003), pp. 3-24
Indiana University Press
International Bibliography of Football History
By: Christiane Eisenberg
Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, Vol. 31, No. 1 (115), Football History: International Perspectives / Fußball-Geschichte: Internationale Perspektiven (2006), pp. 170-208
GESIS - Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Center for Historical Social Research

Join Our Newsletter


    Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday.


    Privacy Policy   Contact Us
    You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message.

    Read this next

    FIFA logo
    Dasein of the Times

    A Marxist Take on FIFA

    FIFA is a corporation--the current crisis of football fits perfectly into the model of capitalist expansion and inevitable crisis predicted by Marx.

    Trending Posts

    1. Racist Humor: Exploratory Readings
    2. Could You Stand on the Surface of Jupiter? Exploring the Enigmatic Outer Planets
    3. Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?
    4. “The Poet Is a Man Who Feigns”
    5. Kahlil Gibran: Godfather of the “New Age”

    More Stories

    Thomas Jefferson
    U.S. History

    Making Malt Liquor at Monticello

    Thomas Jefferson thought whiskey was harmful to the country. Together with enslaved brewer Peter Hemings, he experimented with making less potent drinks.
    A row of British women sitting under hairdryers in a Paris salon
    World History

    A Short History of Hairdryers

    The beauty parlor became a place of sociability for women in the twentieth century, partly aided by modern technology of hair drying.
    Cotton plantation
    Economics

    Understanding Capitalism Through Cotton

    Looking at the development of cotton as a global commodity, explains historian Sven Beckert, helps us understand how capitalism emerged.
    William Maclure

    A Boatload of Knowledge for New Harmony

    Leaders of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences voyaged down the Ohio River in 1825–1826, taking academic education on a journey in search of utopia.

    Recent Posts

    1. Kahlil Gibran: Godfather of the “New Age”
    2. The Serpentine Career of Loïe Fuller
    3. Teaching AI, AKA Artificial Intelligence
    4. Wild Florida, Neanderthals, and Rubens’s Models
    5. Making Malt Liquor at Monticello

    Support JSTOR Daily

    Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news.
    Become a member

    About Us

    JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers.

    • Contact The Editors
    • Masthead
    • Newsletters
    • About JSTOR Daily
    • Submission Guidelines
    • RSS
    • About the American Prison Newspapers Collection
    • Submissions: American Prison Newspapers Collection
    • Support JSTOR Daily on Patreon
    • Unsubscribe
    • JSTOR.org
    • Terms and Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Cookie Policy
    • Cookie Settings
    • Accessibility
    logo

    JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.

    © ITHAKA. All Rights Reserved. JSTOR®, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA® are registered trademarks of ITHAKA.

    Sign up for our weekly newsletter


      Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday.


      Privacy Policy   Contact Us
      You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message.