Other than sports, only war and catastrophe can create this sort of national unity.

- Simon Kuper

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 t…

- Simon Kuper

It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about…

- Simon Kuper

You'd never last in South America. Fans take their radios to the stadium so they can think what the commentators think.

- Simon Kuper

Chelsea's players, coaches and agents are now football's wealthiest millionaires. Surely the billions taken from the Russian people by an oligarch in…

- Simon Kuper

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 …

- Simon Kuper

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 £1.4b…

- Simon Kuper

Whereas fanatic is usually a pejorative word, a Fan is someone who has roots somewhere.

- Simon Kuper