Death or Glory: The Dark History of the World Cup – Jon Spurling

There’s nothing like a topical review. And this is nothing… etc etc. A Christmas present I’ve only just got round to reading, Jon Spurling’s work should be required reading for those – generally motivated by finance – who justify competing against questionable regimes, or in questionable locations, with the trite “we shouldn’t mix sport and politics line”. The central theme running through the book is the extent to which governments and leaders (predominately autocratic) have used the World Cup to attempt to rally support behind their regime, often having identified its potential usefulness early on. Spurling uses this idea to cleverly provide a different perspective on some of the more almost clichéd, iconic images of the tournament; the 1970 triumph of Brazil and Argentina’s tickertape triumph of 1978 are set in the context of the Medici and Videla dictatorships taking hold and seeking legitimacy in those countries, while the cartoon footage of Zaire’s Mwepu Ilunga clearing the ball uninvited against Brazil in 1974 is partially explained by the extreme pressure the players had been put under by President Mobutu.

With a cast list including the aforementioned Mobutu, Mussolini, Erich Honecker, North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung, Haiti’s ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, the Medillin drug cartels and Idi Amin, there is no shortage of interesting insight into the various methods, often brutal, used by these individuals to internally punish or repress and externally influence events to their own ends (although if I were to offer one criticism the closing chapter of the book, devoted to Uganda and Amin, is a bit thin and weak, and seems to have been included more due to the dictator’s notoriety).

Overall this is an excellent research piece that provides a bit of welcome shade to the blinding light of good that the World Cup has historically been assumed to provide. And just as an aside, given how frothy mouthed and pious some of the coverage of the selection of the host country was for the 2018 and 2022 tournament, it would be interesting to see how the press would have reacted if England had been in the same situation as Honduras in 1969. As recounted in the book, with relations between Honduras and El Salvador on the brink of breakdown into war, the former arrived in San Salvador for a World Cup play off, defending a 1-0 first leg lead. With the pitch surrounded by an armed National Guard, the playing of the national anthems and raising of the home team’s flag was followed by not the raising of the Honduran flag, as was customary, but “a dishrag covered in shit”. That right there is your dictionary definition of intimidation.