Jumpers for Goalposts

The Age of Football, an upcoming book by best-selling author David Goldblatt, is an epic exploration of society, politics, and economics in the twenty-first century through the prism of football, by the critically acclaimed author of The Ball is Round.

In the 21st Century football is first. First among sports themselves, but it now commands the allegiance, interest and engagement of more people in more places than any other phenomenon. In the three most populous nations of the earth – China, India and the United States where just twenty years ago football existed on the periphery of society – it has now arrived for good. Everywhere nations, peoples and neighbourhoods imagine and invent themselves through playing and following the game.

In The Age of Football, Goldblatt charts football’s global cultural ascent, its economic transformation and deep politicisation, taking in prison football in Uganda and amputee football in Angola, the role of football fans in the Arab Spring, the footballing presidencies of Bolivia’s Eno Morales and Turkey’s Recip Erdogan, China’s declared intention to both host and win the World Cup by 2050, as well as the FIFA corruption scandal.

Following the intersection of the game with money power and identity, like no previous sports writer or historian, Goldblatt’s sweeping story is remarkable in its scope, breath-taking in its depth of knowledge, and is a brilliantly original perspective of the 21st Century. It is the story of how football has come to define every facet of our social, economic and cultural lives and at what cost, shaping who we think we are and who we want to be.