Football’s consolidation as the world’s most popular sport is the result of both the inherent attributes of the game, that is, its simplicity and universality, as well as the historical processes that have contributed to the expansion of this sport throughout time. Although the game has undergone very little structural transformation in the last decades, one of most notable developments in the world of football has taken place in the new application of the sport as a tool for social change. This has generated a true global social movement encompassing a multitude of actors such as national governments, the private sector, international organizations and NGOs, around the issue of development and peace through sport. With this background, the purpose of this book is two-fold: 1) Provide an overview of the history, evolution and global expansion of football, 2) bring to light the recent transformation experienced by the game as a social movement and as an agent of community change. This part includes the grassroots project “Goals for Peace” in Colombia and the Philippines, which aims at assessing the ways and extent to which this sport can be a transformative tool.

“Beautifully researched and engagingly told, this book captures the bitter conflicts and surprising continuities that marked the emergence of a national style in Brazil as it tells the story of the men and women who, despite their many differences, together created ‘the beautiful game.’”—Roger Kittleson, author of The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil “Compellingly shows how each segment of Brazilian society—players, club owners, and spectators, especially the usually neglected female fans—was touched by the sport that it eventually came to proudly embrace as its own.”—Amy Chazkel, coeditor of The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History, Culture, Politics “Highlights the narrative power of soccer, showing how Brazilians—from elite sportsmen and nationalist intellectuals to common men and women—infused the sport with both personal and national importance.”—Joshua Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America Although the popular history of Brazilian football narrates a story of progress toward democracy and inclusion, it does not match the actual historical record. Instead, football can be understood as an invention of early twentieth century middle-class and wealthy Brazilians who called themselves “sportsmen” and nationalists, and used the sport as part of their larger campaigns to shape and reshape the nation. In this cross-cutting cultural history, Gregg Bocketti traces the origins of football in Brazil from its elitist, Eurocentric identity as “foot-ball” at the end of the nineteenth century to its subsequent mythologization as the specifically Brazilian “futebol,” o jogo bonito (the beautiful game). Bocketti examines the popular depictions of the sport as having evolved from a white elite pastime to an integral part of Brazil’s national identity known for its passion and creativity, and concludes that these mythologized narratives have obscured many of the complexities and the continuities of the history of football and of Brazil. Mining a rich trove of sources, including contemporary sports journalism, archives of Brazilian soccer clubs, and British ministry records, and looking in detail at soccer’s effect on all parts of Brazilian society, Bocketti shows how important the sport is to an understanding of Brazilian nationalism and nation building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

FIFA, the world governing body of association football, declared 'The Future is Feminine' in a 1995 press release. Since then, football has been claimed as the fastest growing participation sport for women globally. An estimated twenty million women play the game around the world, and that figure is on the rise. However, the history of women's participation goes back to at least 1895 and in our enthusiasm for the present, the memory of that longer history can be overlooked or forgotten.A Beautiful Game examines contemporary women's football internationally, with case studies from England, the United States, China and Australia. In each case study, Jean Williams considers the evolution of the women's game against a backdrop of issues, such as media representation, access to facilities, lack of resources, coaching, sponsorship, talent identification, training and professionalisation. The author examines contentious questions, such as why women are absent from the highest levels of professional football, combining source material from archives, oral history and artefacts.A Beautiful Game analyses the status and image of the women's game from the late nineteenth century to the shifting social values of the present.

While kicking a ball through the dusty streets of his Brazilian hometown, young Edson Arantes do Nascimento was given the nickname Pelé so casually that no one remembers its meaning. Today, the name is famous worldwide as belonging to history's greatest soccer player. Here, in Pelé's own words, is his incredible life story: his five goals in the last two games of the 1958 World Cup at the tender age of 17, his glory years with his Brazilian club FC Santos, his role in four World Cup tournaments, his comeback as a member of the storied New York Cosmos, and his lifelong role as goodwill ambassador for the world's favorite sport. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

The world's most popular sport, soccer, has long been celebrated as “the beautiful game” for its artistry and aesthetic appeal. Picturing the Beautiful Game: A History of Soccer in Visual Culture and Art is the first collection to examine the rich visual culture of soccer, including the fine arts, design, and mass media. Covering a range of topics related to the game's imagery, this volume investigates the ways soccer has been promoted, commemorated, and contested in visual terms. Throughout various mediums and formats-including illustrated newspapers, modern posters, and contemporary artworks-soccer has come to represent issues relating to identity, politics, and globalization. As the contributors to this collection suggest, these representations of the game reflect society and soccer's place in our collective imagination. Perspectives from a range of fields including art history, sociology, sport history, and media studies enrich the volume, affording a multifaceted visual history of the beautiful game.

The first book to use the world's most popular sport to test economic theories and document novel human behavior A wealth of research in recent decades has seen the economic approach to human behavior extended over many areas previously considered to belong to sociology, political science, law, and other fields. Research has also shown that economics can provide insight into many aspects of sports, including soccer. Beautiful Game Theory is the first book that uses soccer to test economic theories and document novel human behavior. In this brilliant and entertaining book, Ignacio Palacios-Huerta illuminates economics through the world's most popular sport. He offers unique and often startling insights into game theory and microeconomics, covering topics such as mixed strategies, discrimination, incentives, and human preferences. He also looks at finance, experimental economics, behavioral economics, and neuroeconomics. Soccer provides rich data sets and environments that shed light on universal economic principles in interesting and useful ways. Essential reading for students, researchers, and sports enthusiasts, Beautiful Game Theory is the first book to show what soccer can do for economics.

After an unfortunate accident tears Manny from a nearly perfect life, he retreats to his childhood home in South America. There, memories spring up, weaving together sport, a search for forgiveness and contemporary history. The action of this short novel lies not only on the soccer pitch but also in the mind of a narrator trying to reconcile two halves of a crosscultural life. Flashbacks smoothly draw the past into the present until Manny faces an overwhelming family secret. Fencer uses circumstances and setting to explore the idea of grace in a game, and in life, when debts are too great to be paid.

For years, the clich?s of the football world have been used as everyday boardroom language, with phrases such as 'what's the score?' and 'we're playing the long game' becoming commonplace. Business and the Beautiful Game cleverly applies the analogy of football to the world of business and in doing so compares and contrasts the key elements in the world of commerce to the parellels of the beautiful game. This unique book uses signposts founded in football folklore to help the reader absorb as much information as possible. For example, 'Tactics' replaces the customary 'Summary' signpost to emphasise the key points whilst maintaining the football theme. Chapter headings draw on essential components of the beautiful game that can be equally well applied to management, for example 'Captaincy' represents 'Middle Management'. This clever and non-linear structure allows readers to dip in and out of the sections they want to focus on. Combining the vital elements of wit and wisdom, this book makes useful observations without taking the business world too seriously. It's an entertaining read for anyone wanting a fresh outlook on the world of business.

Every year many wrong decisions are made by Referees during football matches; as a result, teams are knocked out of Champions Leagues by fake goals – penalties are awarded to players who dive in the penalty area; offside goals are allowed and legitimate goals are ruled out as offside goals. Many nations miss out on World Cup qualifications because of red cards that were issued to their players for fouls the players had not committed; and in leagues all around the world, teams are relegated because of refereeing errors while teams that may have been relegated, remain in higher divisions. Sadly, there have been death threats made on Referees after video replays showed that they made mistakes which cost teams and nations valuable points, qualifications and trophies. And these death threats are not only irresponsible but criminal. But If Referees are humans and not angels as FIFA wants us to believe; do they need help, and can video technology be the answer? Should video replays be approved to help Referees avoid these monumental errors or should the game continue as it is without video technology or video replays? This book is one of the most unique books you ever read; rather than using words or phrases as titles of chapters as it is in almost every book you and I have read; the titles of chapters of this book are actually sentences; yes, each chapter title, is a sentence – they are sentences made by fictional commentators in four of the more popular football or soccer leagues in the world. Each title sentence covers a specific Referee decision in football. Chapter one is titled with a sentence that covers the award of a penalty to a player who dives in the penalty box. Chapter two has a sentence title that exemplifies a commentator’s reaction when a fine goal is disallowed, and chapter three’s sentence title, deals with the issue of an unwarranted second yellow card to a player whilst the title of chapter four, is: a sentence that shows a commentator’s lamentation when a player is unjustly sent off; and finally chapter five carries in its title, a sentence of a commentator describing the worst decision he has ever seen in three decades of football commentary while calling for football authorities to consider the introduction of video replays to aid Referees.