Why the World Cup is brilliant, why Simon Barnes is wrong

Simon Barnes is the Times writer whose view is that Sport works precisely because it is trivial, and because it doesn’t matter. Because it is trivial it allows us to pretend it is important, as a kind of shared conspiracy . We invest emotion into watching sport that can never be expressed in the unresolved, ongoing business of life. So we conspire between ourselves to pretend it’s important, even though we all know it isn’t. That’s why it jars so much when Dennis Wise takes his baby up when he gets the FA Cup, or when Avram Grant kneels on the pitch on Holocaust Day – as soon as ‘real life’ intrudes on the scene the spell is broken. The fun is all in the pretence.


Here at the World Cup the opposite is true. There’s a possibility that the World Cup actually might be important. Heads of State turn up, billions of rand are spent , laws are changed, and (cliché alert) kids go hungry as their parents buy them an official Adidas shirt . On the radio the other day they broadcast an hour long speech by the President on the anniversary of the Soweto riots and he was drawing a direct line between those events and the World Cup today.

So because it’s important everyone acts the goat. You see people everywhere here behaving stupidly, I don’t need to give examples, do I? Face painting, daft outfits, Mexican waves after five minutes, everyone spending far too much money on tat. And jumping up and down a lot.

In fact come to think of it all the things I normally hate: people treating football as a lifestyle choice, or pretending they care more than they actually do (Glazers Out!), or pretending that things like ‘goal celebrations’ are an important part of football (Coke), girls being interested in football, people turning up at games and not being interested in who’s playing. People observing events through their camera lens, people dressing up and acting up for the cameras. Companies using football to ingratiate themselves. Or indeed whole nations using football to promote a dream of unity (this nation here, for example).

Hang on, where was I? Yes, all those things I usually hate I think are great here. Why not have people who are not interested in football go to football matches every once in a while, why not have Coke bashing out a catchy tune every now and then, or the mobile company having kids jumping up and down on a stand at the stadium, why not have World Cup specials in every shop. Do you know, I even like the Mexican waves.

Because every four years football is important, so why not celebrate that by acting like it isn’t?