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Stories
We are now accepting entries for the 2018 WSC writers’ competition. By way of inspiration, here is Matt Johnson’s runner-up entry from 2017, about a a new phenomenon of global football culture sweeping the streets
Andy Brassell on the French midfielder who filmed his adventures at the 2006 World Cup
The recent screening of Vikash Dhorasoo and Fred Poulet’s film Substitute at the Institut Français’ Ciné Lumière in London was prefaced by a drinks reception in the adjoining library of the Grade II-listed Art Deco building. The elegance of the setting could make many footballers feel ill at ease. The now-retired Dhorasoo seemed more comfortable here than he would have been at some of his clubs.
Events on the pitch in Italy were overshadowed by a bribery scandal involving several top clubs. Matthew Barker looks back on a memorable season in Serie A
The long-term significance
The fallout from the Calciopoli bribery scandals has yet to settle, with a number of phone-tap recordings surfacing in recent months. Inter, at the centre of new (unproven) accusations, are under increasing pressure to relinquish the 2005-06 Scudetto, awarded to them after it was stripped from Juventus. The bianconeri’s title from the 2004-05 season stands in the record books as void. The original sentencing was announced on July 14, 2006, less than a week after the Azzurri lifted the World Cup in Berlin. Of the top-tier clubs involved, Juventus were sent down to Serie B with a nine-point (originally 30-point) deduction for the following season. Lazio and Fiorentina’s points deductions were increased on appeal, from seven to 11 and 12 to 15 respectively, though both original punishments had included demotion to the second division. Reggina were deducted 11 points (originally 15), while Milan were docked eight (44) and, following an appeal, allowed into the following season’s Champions League, which they then went on to win.
Tackling Football and Radical Politics
by Gabriel Kuhn
PM Press, £12.99
Reviewed by Tom Davies
From WSC 296 October 2011
The idea that football and politics cannot or should not mix has always been convenient nonsense. Both continually rub up against and influence each other, without either quite managing to bend the other to its will. The question of how football has been approached politically is addressed here – from an unashamedly leftist perspective – by Austrian activist and one-time semi-pro player Gabriel Kuhn in this collection of essays, interviews and excerpts from journals and pamphlets, interwoven with commentary from Kuhn himself.