World Cup Fever

A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments

Simon Kuper

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Paperback

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English

Profile Books Ltd
02 October 2025

Football (Soccer, Association football); World Cup

The football World Cup is the biggest sporting competition on Earth - a chance every four years for the greatest players to win international glory, and a month-long media spectacle that's watched by an audience of billions.

But the tournament has changed beyond recognition since the inaugural event in Montevideo, Uruguay, in July 1930. What was once a semi-professional meeting beset by haphazard play has evolved to become a game of multinational buyouts, dubious ethics and questionable aims - and the new era of football has much to tell us about the globalised world.

Simon Kuper is among the vanishingly small number of writers who have attended every World Cup since 1990. World Cup Fever is his journey to find the heart of football, through the nine tournaments he's experienced first-hand - from watching matches in half-empty stands during Italia 90, a tournament that at times felt like a village fete, to witnessing the French triumph at home in 1998, South Africa's national dream in 2010 and the troubling legacy of Qatar 2022.

Told on the pitch and in the stands, and in the pubs, front rooms and on the streets, this is the story of how football has changed the world.

By: Simon Kuper
Imprint: Profile Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Export/Airside
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 440g
ISBN: 9781805224112
ISBN 10: 1805224115
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 02 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Simon Kuper is an author and Financial Times journalist, born in Uganda and raised around the world. An Oxford graduate, he later attended Harvard as a Kennedy Scholar. He has written for the Guardian,Observer, and The Times and is also the author of Chums, The Happy Traitor, Football Against the Enemy and Barça. He lives in Paris with his family.

Reviews for World Cup Fever: A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments

A delightful memoir, travelogue, and journal, Simon Kuper's World Cup Fever is a wry and sharp-eyed account of the world's now biggest public ritual. A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle, it remains alert to the game's ever closer pact with money and power. It is an essential companion to the tournament, for it allows us to look at the sun and not be blinded -- David Goldblatt, author * The Ball is Round * Praise for Barça: A masterfully written history of the world's greatest football club -- Gary Lineker An instant classic -- Bill Buford Simply unmissable -- Amy Raphael A masterclass on football -- John Carlin Praise for Soccernomics: Magnificent * Guardian * An Arsène Wenger of a book - more thoughtful than most of its rivals and, by football standards, positively intellectual. * The Times *