World Cup Fever

An Irish Times Best Sports Book of 2025 'Kuper is a wry and sharp-eyed guide' New Statesman 'A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle... an essential companion' David Goldblatt It's the biggest sporting competition on Earth. A four-yearly chance for our greatest footballers to realise their ultimate dream. A month-long spectacle that's watched by billions. But the inaugural World Cup, held in Uruguay in 1930, was semi-professional, poorly attended and haphazardly organised - so how did it become a bonanza of multinational sponsorship, dubious ethics and shadowy characters, and the ultimate stage for football's greatest drama? Simon Kuper is one of very few people to have attended every World Cup since 1990. In World Cup Fever he looks back at each tournament he's experienced - from half-empty stands at Italia 90 to the French triumph as hosts in 1998, South Africa's national dream in 2010 and the troubling legacy of 2022 - to reveal a captivating portrait of sport in a globalised world. World Cup Fever is the story of how the tournament touches and sometimes even changes our lives, by one of the best writers on the beautiful game.