Nation-Building:
With all the lip-flapping about nation-building going on, here's a thought that is, alas, way too simple (and way too obvious) to ever be taken seriously. Aprroximately two billion people out there care more about the outcome of the World Cup than about pretty much anything else. Or, more precisely: people care more deeply about the fate of their national team than they do about damned near anything else in life. That goes for people in the Ivory Coast and for people in Germany and in Iran and in just about everyplace on earth. A hundred million dollars to build up Iraq's soccer team would do more for nation-building than any other damned thing we could possibly do -- why nobody sees this is totally beyond me.
Because it sounds like one of Tom Friedman's glib and shallow observations like his one about "no two nations with a Mcdonalds has ever gone to war with each other."
Next thing you'll want to make French their national language.
.You assume incorrectly. DavidP
You'd think this would be obvious -- but I guess if people don't want to see the obvious, they won't see it. The evidence from the actual world -- as opposed to the world that most people seem to carry around in their heads -- is that this is the best way to build national spirit (short of warfare). It is also, relatively speaking, quite harmless (unlike warfare). How silly of me to think that it really matters!
David P
But more to point, it seems that a great soccer team is simply not built by fiat plus a lot of money thrown at it. There has to be some sort of infrastructure supporting the game at many levels. That's why China, for example, cannot simply create a great soccer team while they can create great swimmers, divers, runners, etc. These sports don't depend on competition the way soccer does. That is, they are individual skills that can exist more independently of a competetive context in which people need to respond to the actions, strategies, etc. of other teams.
Second, I question whether there is any truth to the thesis that throwing $100 million in would produce such a soccer team. This is an empirical question. Has any nation in the past, with little soccer success, substantially improved its team with $100 million?
It's a fair question. I admit, the $100 million was plucked out of thin air. The empirical support, though, comes from Angola -- which [though I don't know the details] spent enormous sums of oil money on its soccer team (and, of course, reached the World Cup for the first time this year. DavidP
http://www.wie.org/bios/don-beck.asp
Teams fielded in the World Cup are predominanently continentally American (North and South) and European, that's leaving a lot of people on the sidelines.
Next, wouldn't the US be better off building up baseball teams in foreign countries? I mean why not try to build up the national pasttime in other countries, get other lands to start following baseball, look at how close we have gotten to Japan and Korea for example. It sure seems like history suggests that Baseball is the far better choice for atheletic export.
Women like football.
Yes, they do.
They do, indeed.
They need ambassadors to the world to rally behind.
-fooburger
I'm afraid this quote assumes Sunnis would make a national team. Unfortunately, they are no good at soccer and are even worse dancers from what I've read.
The problem is one similar to regulatory capture: the people who care more about exploitation and religious empire won't watch soccer.
Possibly because you haven't provided any actual evidence to support the contention.
Possibly. But exactly what kind of evidence would you like me to provide? If you have a specific suggestion, I'd like to hear it. It's not enough, I take it, that there was a ceasefire in the Ivory Coast while the World Cup was on, I guess -- or that the Germans uniformly regard this World Cup as one in which reunification finally took hold. Or that the Ghanaians now feel more Ghanaian than they did three weeks ago, prouder of their county. No, that wouldn't matter, to you. Open your eyes, Jim. DavidP
Angola. It actually did follow this strategy, using gobs of oil money, as I understand it, and it has worked. Quadruple salaries in the Iraqi (or Angolan) league, and you'll get much better players, in a hurry.
But you're right -- I don't know that it will work. Seems like we do a lot of things we don't know will work; some of them do, some don't. This one seems worth a try to me. DavidP
Possibly. But exactly what kind of evidence would you like me to provide? If you have a specific suggestion, I'd like to hear it. It's not enough, I take it, that there was a ceasefire in the Ivory Coast while the World Cup was on, I guess -- or that the Germans uniformly regard this World Cup as one in which reunification finally took hold. Or that the Ghanaians now feel more Ghanaian than they did three weeks ago, prouder of their county
Of course, you have evidence for your claim that the Germans UNIFORMLY (emphasis added) regard the World Cup this way and that the Ghanaians feel more Ghanaian. Systematic evidence, that is, not a quote in some newspaper.
"Systematic evidence" ... like what, exactly? A poll? You don't think the Ivory Coast example even worth discussing? Because it is not "systematic evidence"?
DavidP
It's worth noting, that in the 2002 World Cup, China at least qualified a team, and the World Cup was in Korea, much closer to home. That there are going to be 300 million watching this year is quite speculative given the properties of the 2002 vs 2006 World Cup.
As to the 1.1 B number, that's a little more reasonable, but still it's all extrapolated data that all in all seems fairly unrealistic, oh well...my argument against it is not so impassioned.
In any event, this post (and David's comments in the comments) just has the kind of goofy silliness that Americans come to expect from the Soccer prophets. If we all just advanced the game of Soccer, there would be world peace, people would live in harmony with their environment, the barren would be with child, cancers would go into remission, and poverty would be eliminated. Soccer...is there anything it can't do!
I don't really care all that much about soccer either way, not all that fun for me to watch, but hey if it's your cup of tea, drink up, I'll have my coffee thanks much, and don't need to be convinced that tea is better.
Incidentally, that's no longer true since whatever the hell that conflict was in the late 90s where the US was bombing the crap out of Serbia or Bosnia or Montenegro or Gzbczwcz or whatever. One of those places had McDonald's.
Yours,
Wince
Joel, you couldn't be more wrong. What is occuring now is the World Cup Finals, which features the teams that have survived a long qualification process. Both China and India competed in the Asian qualifiers, but were unsuccessful.
And having been in China during a previous World Cup finals, I can attest that the country is football mad ... as is most of Asia. China, in fact, hosted the last Asian Cup and the Chinese team lost in the final to Japan.
You need to remember that most parts of the world are less parochial than America, and their citizens will watch an event like the World Cup or the Olympics regardless of whether or not their nationals are competing. And there is no bigger sporting event than the World Cup.