Far Removed From Today’s Global Juggernaut, Soccer Was Born In The Well‑Heeled Boarding Schools Of 19th‑Century England

A soccer match in progress in 1885. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

BY THOMAS ADAM

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE,

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Over the past two centuries, soccer – or football, as it is called in much of the English-speaking world – has become a truly global phenomenon that connects fans on all continents. It is also, come World Cup time, a deeply nationalist affair that pits teams and their fans from various countries against each other.

Yet today’s deeply competitive professional and spectator sport that spans the globe has far more local origins. As an expert on global history and author of a 2025 book on the subject, I know the game’s roots date back to early 19th-century England – and with a very specific social cause.

When English high school students and teachers created football as a sport in the first decades of the 19th century, it was to provide students at prestigious elite schools such as Eton with an opportunity to let off steam and excess energy. Students at such private boarding schools – they are called public schools in the United Kingdom – came mostly from wealthy families and were sent there not just for their education but also for socializing with their peers.

But boarding school students were often hard to control. Overprivileged students had a tendency to see teachers and headmasters not as authority figures but as people of lower social standing. Rebellions were common and pitted spoiled students against helpless teachers. Enter soccer: A strenuous physical activity such as kicking the ball across a field appeared to teachers as a means to regain control over their students and to redirect their energies.

The origins of soccer

Ballgames that pitted two groups of people against each other were nothing new in Britain.

“Folk football” existed long before it became a school sport. However, these early ballgames were unregulated, raucous and violent encounters of two parties formed by inhabitants of two villages or two neighborhoods. They did not need to involve an actual ball but something that could be kicked across a field or through the streets of a town.

Such events have little in common with modern-day soccer. They could involve hundreds of people. Playing fields were not marked. And the goal was to kick the ball once across a marker, such as a hedge or a field line. These ballgames were not about scoring but about taking on the opposing team by all means available. Such sporting affairs were known to anyone in England in the first half of the 19th century.

The games migrated from there to school grounds.

At Rugby School, a public school in central England whose name was given to the modern game of rugby, students in the 1820s began playing a game that involved the kicking of a ball. Students engaged in these games because they gave them tremendous freedom.

The game was not yet codified, and teachers let students organize games without interfering in their play. Football offered both students and teachers what they craved most. Paradoxically, what for students was freedom was for teachers a useful means of control.

Teachers allowed the game to become a cherished activity of students because it took the students’ minds off other temptations. Tired and exhausted students, teachers reasoned, were good students who abstained from committing mischief and sexual behavior they deemed inappropriate.

The development of different games

Since the game lacked rules, and teachers kept a hands-off attitude toward the game, it gave students an opportunity to make their own rules. And these rules were the result of collective decisions of students.

From the 1840s to the 1860s, students produced rules that regulated how the ball could be handled, how many members a team should have and how scores were counted.

Students at Rugby School were the first to codify the game. These rules of 1844 allowed players to use their hands for controlling the ball. The rules produced by students at Eton in 1847, by contrast, outlawed the use of hands for propelling the ball.

But these were just a few of the many sets of football rules that students wrote in the three decades from the 1840s to the 1850s. And these codes did not yet clearly distinguish between a game that was focused on propelling the ball with hands – a key aspect of the modern game of rugby – versus a game that was focused on using only one’s feet, a key aspect of soccer.

The result was a great diversity of rules for a game that high school students played for fun. However, the game – mandatory for all high school students – was also used as an instrument of institutionalized bullying of younger students by older ones, with physical attacks on younger students built into the game. In effect, football of this time was a participation sport without any spectators.

Students played games on meadows and fields in the near surroundings of the public schools. These playing fields often did not have markings for borders or goals. Walls, trees and bushes marked the borders. Gates and doors were used as goals.

The codification of what became soccer

Public school graduates took their versions of the game with them to the next level. At Cambridge, students began in 1837 to iron out some of the modern-day rules. There, three iterations of unified football rules were created over the course of the next 19 years. The third set in 1856 culminated in a game of kicking a ball with one’s foot.

In 1863, representatives of football clubs from the larger London area met to discuss the formation of a football association and a common set of rules. Ebenezer Cobb Morley, who served as captain of the London-based Barnes Football Club, convinced the other participants to accept unified rules that banned the use of hands for propelling the ball.

The 1863 rules of the Football Association stipulated that players were not permitted to “carry the ball,” to “throw the ball” nor “to take the ball from the ground with his hands while it is in play.” These rules provided the basis for modern-day soccer.

The game’s professionalization

The London rules of 1863 did not replace existing football rules, and these rules did not find acceptance everywhere. The 1863 London meeting did not include representatives of the public schools that were resolved to continue playing football according to their traditional rules. Rather than unifying football regulation, the London variant added just one more set of rules.

However, the London meeting showed a maturing game. The participants did not come from boarding schools but from football clubs that had formed independently of public schools. And these participants were not teenagers but adults.

Morley was 32 years old when he presided over the meeting that had become necessary because football was transforming into a competitive sport that pitted teams of different football clubs against each other. And for such competitive games, unified rules were needed.

In 1872, the honorary secretary of the Football Association, Charles W. Alcock, suggested the creation of the Football Association Challenge Cup Competition.

The introduction of this tournament helped transform football from a pure enjoyment into a competitive sport, first played by amateurs and later by professionals. With growing crowds of spectators came stadiums.

That’s the kind of highly professionalized and dynamic game that will feature in this year’s World Cup. And what a far cry it is from the chaotic boarding school pitches of 19th-century England.

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Why America Is Buying Up The Premier League – And What It Means For The Future Of ‘Soccer’

BY KIERAN MAGUIRE AND CHRISTINA PHILIPPOU

When the Premier League broke away from the rest of English football in 1992, its 22 clubs generated £205 million in its debut season, and the average player earned £2,050 a week. Thirty years later, despite having two fewer clubs, the league’s revenue had increased by 2,850% to £6.1 billion and the average player earned £93,000 a week.

At the heart of this extraordinary growth is an American revolution. In the Premier League’s inaugural season, football was still in recovery from the horrors of the stadium disasters at Hillsborough and Heysel. Owners tended to be from the local area and with a business background. The only foreign owner was Sam Hamman at Wimbledon, a Lebanese millionaire who bought the club on a whim having reportedly been much more interested in tennis. The season ended with Manchester United (under Alex Ferguson) winning the English game’s top league for the first time in 26 years.

Now, if the Texas-based Friedkin Group’s recent deal to buy Everton goes through, 11 of the 20 Premier League clubs will be controlled or part-owned by American investors. The US – long seen as football’s final frontier when it comes to the men’s game – suddenly can’t get enough of English “soccer”.

Four of the Premier League’s “big six” are American-owned – Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea – while a fifth, Manchester City, has a significant US minority shareholding. Aston Villa, Fulham, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, West Ham and Ipswich Town also have varying degrees of American ownership.

And it’s not even just the glamour clubs at the top of the tree. American investment has also been significant lower down the football pyramid, led by the high-profile acquisition of then non-league Wrexham by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny, and Birmingham City’s purchase by US investors including seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady. American investment in football has reached places as geographically diverse as Carlisle and Crawley in England, and Aberdeen and Edinburgh in Scotland.

So why the American obsession with English football? And how real are concerns that these US owners could collude to “Americanise” the traditions of the Premier League – whether by reducing the risk of relegation, introducing some form of “draft pick” system, or moving matches and even clubs to other cities?

The Premier League’s first US owner

Manchester United was the first Premier League club to come under American ownership – after a row about a horse.

In 2005, United was owned by a variety of investors including Irish businessmen and racehorse owners John Magnier and J.P. McManus. Their erstwhile friend Ferguson, the United manager, thought he co-owned the champion racehorse Rock of Gibraltar with them – a stallion worth millions in stud rights. They disagreed – and their bitter dispute was such that Magnier and McManus decided to sell their shares in the football club.

The Miami-based Glazer family – already involved in sport as owners of NFL franchise the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – had already been buying up small tranches of shares in United, but the sudden availability of the Irish shares allowed Malcolm Glazer to acquire a controlling stake for £790 million (around £1.5 billion at today’s prices).

The fact Glazer did not actually have sufficient funds to pay for these shares was a solvable problem. In the some-might-say commercially naive world of top-flight English football before the Premier League, Manchester United was a club without debt, paying its way without leveraging its position as one of the world’s most famous football clubs. Glazer saw the opportunity this presented and arranged a leveraged buy-out (LBO), whereby the football club borrowed more than £600 million secured on its own assets to, in effect, “buy itself” in 2005.

Despite the need to meet the high interest costs to fund the LBO, United continued winning trophies under Ferguson – including three Premier League titles in a row in 2007, 2008 and 2009, as well as a Champions League victory in 2008. Amid this success, the club felt that ticket prices were too low and set about increasing them, with matchday revenue increasing from £66 million in 2004/05 to over £101 million by 2007/08.

Commercial income was another area the Glazers were keen to increase. United set up offices in London and adopted a global approach to finding new official branding deals ranging from snacks to tractor and tyre suppliers – doubling revenues from this income source too.

But in this new, more aggressive world of “sweating the asset”, the debts lingered – and most United fans remained deeply suspicious of their American owners. (Following their father’s death in 2014, the club was co-owned by his six children, with brothers Avram and Joel Glazer becoming co-chairmen.)

Today, despite its partial listing on the New York Stock Exchange and the February 2024 sale of 27.7% of the club to British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe for a reputed £1.25 billion, United still has borrowings of more than £546 million, having paid cumulative interest costs of £969 million since the takeover in 2005. But with the club now valued at US$6.55 billion (around £5bn), it represents a very smart investment for the Glazer family.

Indeed, while the prices being paid for football clubs across Europe have reached record levels, they are still seen as cheap investments compared with US sports’ leading franchises. Forbes’s annual list of the world’s most valuable sports teams has American football (NFL), baseball (MLB) and basketball (NBA) teams occupying the top ten positions, with only three Premier League clubs – Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City – in the top 50.

With NFL teams having an average franchise value of US$5.1 billion and NBA $3.9 billion, many English football clubs still look like a bargain from the other side of the pond.

The risk of relegation

The latest to join this US bandwagon, the Friedkin Group – a Texas-based portfolio of companies run by American businessman and film producer Dan Friedkin – is reported to have offered £400m to buy Everton, despite the club’s poor financial state.

“The Toffees” have been hit by loss of sponsorships as well as two sets of points deductions for breaching the Premier League’s financial rules, leading to revenue losses from lower league positions. While the new stadium being built at Liverpool’s Bramley-Moore dock has been yet another financial constraint, it will at least increase matchday income from the start of next season.

A wider reason for the relative bargain in valuations of European football clubs is the risk of relegation – something that is not part of the closed leagues of most US sports. While the threat of relegation (and promise of promotion) has always been an integral part of English and European football, the jeopardy this brings for supporters – and a club’s finances – does not exist in the NFL, NBA, Major League Soccer and similar competitions.

The Premier League, with its three relegation spots at the end of each season, has featured 51 different clubs since it launched in 1992. Only six clubs – Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton – have been ever present, with Arsenal now approaching 100 years of consecutive top-flight football.

Other Premier League clubs have experienced the dramatic cost-benefit of relegation and promotion. Oldham Athletic, who were in the Premier League for its first two seasons, now languish in the fifth tier of the game, outside the English Football League (EFL). In contrast, Luton Town, who were in the fifth tier as recently as 2014, were promoted to the Premier League in 2023 – only to be relegated at the end of last season.

While it is difficult to compare football clubs with basketball and American football teams, the financial difference between having an open league, with relegation, and a closed league becomes apparent when you look at women’s football on both sides of the Atlantic.

Angel City, a women’s soccer team based in Los Angeles, only entered the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in 2022 and is yet to win an NWSL trophy. But last month, the club was sold for US$250 million (£188m) to Disney’s CEO Bob Iger and TV journalist Willow Bay – the most expensive takeover in the history of women’s professional sport.

In comparison, Chelsea – seven-time winners of the English Women’s Super League and one of the most successful sides in Europe – valued its women’s team at £150 million ($US196m) earlier this summer. While there are a number of factors to this price differential, the confidence that Angel City will always be a member of the big league of US soccer clubs – and share very equally in its revenue – will have made its new owners very confident in the long-term soundness of their deal.

A further attraction for American investors is the potential to enter two markets – one mature (men’s football) and one effectively a start-up (the women’s game) – in a single purchase. In the US, the top men’s and women’s clubs are completely separate. But in Europe, most top-flight women’s teams are affiliated to men’s clubs – with the exception of eight-time Women’s Champions League winners Olympique Lyonnais Feminin, which split from the French men’s club when Korean-American businesswoman Michele Kang bought a majority stake in the women’s team in February 2024).

While interest in, and hence value of, the WSL is now growing fast, the women’s game in England is dwarfed by viewer ratings for the Premier League – the most watched sporting league in the world, viewed by an estimated 1.87 billion people every week across 189 countries.

These figures dwarf even the NFL which, while currently still the most valuable of all sporting leagues in terms of its broadcasting deals, must be looking at the growth of the Premier League with some jealousy. This may explain why some US franchise owners, such as Stan Kroenke, the Glazer family, Fenway Sports Group and Billy Foley, have subsequently purchased Premier League football clubs.

Ironically, for many spectators around the world, it is the intensity and competitiveness of most Premier League matches – brought on in part by the threat of relegation and prize of European qualification – that makes it so captivating. However, billionaire investors like guaranteed numbers and dislike risk – especially the degree of financial risk that exists in the Premier League and English Football League.

European not-so-Super League

In April 2021, 12 leading European clubs (six from England plus three each from Spain and Italy) announced the creation of the European Super League (ESL). This new mid-week competition was to be a high-revenue generating, closed competition with (eventually) 15 permanent teams and five annual additions qualifying from Europe. According to one of the driving forces behind the plan, Manchester United co-chairman Joel Glazer:

By bringing together the world’s greatest clubs and players to play each other throughout the season, the Super League will open a new chapter for European football, ensuring world-class competition and facilities, and increased financial support for the wider football pyramid.

The problem facing the Premier League’s “big six” clubs – and their ambitious owners – is there are currently only four slots available to play in the Champions League. So, their thinking went, why not take away the risk of not qualifying? However, the proposal was swiftly condemned by fans around Europe, together with football’s governing bodies and leagues – all of whom saw the ESL proposal as a threat to the quality and integrity of their domestic leagues. Following some large fan protests, including at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, Manchester City was the first club to withdraw – followed, within a couple of days, by the rest of the English clubs.

Under the terms of the ESL proposals, founding member clubs would have been guaranteed participation in the competition forever. Guaranteed participation means guaranteed revenues. The current financial gap between the “big six” and the other members of the Premier League, which in 2022/23 averaged £396 million, would have widened rapidly.

For example, these clubs would have been able to sell the broadcast rights for some of their ESL home fixtures direct to fans, instead of via a broadcaster. All of a sudden, that database of fans who have downloaded the official club app, or are on a mailing list, becomes far more valuable. These are the people most willing to watch their favourite team on a pay-per-view basis, further increasing revenues.

At the same time, a planned ESL wage cap would have stopped players taking all these increased revenues in the form of higher wages, allowing these clubs to become more profitable and their ownership even more lucrative.

American-owned Manchester United and Liverpool had previously tried to enhance the value of their investments during the COVID lockdowns era via ProjectBig Picture – proposals to reduce the size of the Premier League and scrap one of the two domestic cup competitions, thus freeing up time for the bigger clubs to arrange more lucrative tours and European matches against high-profile opposition.

Most importantly, Project Big Picture would have resulted in changing the governance of the domestic game. Under its proposals, the “big six” clubs would have enjoyed enhanced voting rights, and therefore been able to significantly influence how the domestic game was governed.

Any attempt to increase the concentration of power raises concerns of lower competitive balance, whereby fewer teams are in the running to win the title and fewer games are meaningful. This is a problem facing some other major European football leagues including France’s Ligue 1, where interest among broadcasters has dwindled amid the perceived dominance of Paris St-Germain.

So while to date, American-led attempts to change the structure of the Premier League have been foiled, it’s unlikely such ideas have gone away for good. The near-universal fear of fans – even those who welcome an injection of extra cash from a new billionaire owner – is that the spectacle of the league will only be diminished if such plans ever succeed.

And there is evidence from the women’s game that the US closed league format is coming under more pressure from football’s global forces. The NWSL recently announced it is removing the draft system that is designed (as with the NFL and NBA) to build in jeopardy and competitive balance when there is no risk of relegation.

Top US women’s football clubs are losing some of their leading players to other leagues, in part because European clubs are not bound by the same artificial rules of employment. In a truly global professional sport such as football, international competition will always tend to destabilise closed leagues.

Why do they keep buying these clubs?

Does this mean that American and other wealthy owners of Premier League clubs seeking to reduce their risks are ultimately fighting a losing battle? And if so, given the potential risks involved in owning a football club – both financial and even personal – why do they keep buying them?

The motivations are part-financial, part technological and, as has always been the case with sports ownership, part-vanity.

The American economy has grown far faster than that of the EU or UK in recent years. Consequently, there are many beneficiaries of this growth who have surplus cash, and here football becomes an attractive proposition. In fact, football clubs are more resilient to recessions than other industries, holding their value better as they are effectively monopoly suppliers for their fans who have brand loyalty that exists in few other industries.

From 1993 to 2018, a period during which the UK economy more than doubled, the total value of Premier League clubs grew 30 times larger. And many fans are tied to supporting one club, helping to make the biggest clubs more resilient to economic changes than other industries. While football, like many parts of the entertainment industry, was hit by lockdown during Covid, no clubs went out of business, despite the challenges of matches being played in empty stadiums.

Added to this, the exchange rates for US dollars have been very favourable until recently, making US investments in the UK and Europe cheaper for American investors.

So, while Manchester United fans would argue that the Glazer family have not been good for the club, United has been good for the Glazers. And Fenway Sports Group (FSG), who bought Liverpool for £300 million in 2010, have recouped almost all of that money in smaller share sales while remaining majority owners of Liverpool.

Despite this, the £2.5 billion price paid for Chelsea by the US Clearlake-Todd Boehly consortium in May 2022 took markets by surprise.

The sale – which came after the UK government froze the assets of the club’s Russian oligarch owner, Roman Abramovich, following the invasion of Ukraine – went through less than a year after Newcastle United had been sold by Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund for £305 million – approximately twice that club’s annual revenues. Yet Clearlake-Boehly were willing to pay over five times Chelsea’s annual revenues to acquire the club, even though it was in a precarious financial position.

Clearlake is a private equity group whose main aim is to make profits for their investors. But unlike most such investors, who tend to focus on cost-cutting, the Chelsea ownership came in with a high-spending strategy using new financial structuring ideas, such as offering longer player contracts to avoid falling foul of football’s profitability and sustainability rules (although this loophole has since been closed with Uefa, European football’s governing body, limiting contract lengths for financial regulation purposes to five years).

Chelsea’s location in the one of the most expensive areas of London, combined with its on-field success under Abramovich, all added to the attraction, of course. But there are other reasons why Clearlake, along with billionaire businessman Boehly, were willing to stump up so much for the club.

From Hollywood to the metaverse

While some British football fans may have viewed the Ted Lasso TV show as an enjoyable if slightly twee fictional account of American involvement in English soccer, it has enhanced the attraction of the sport in the US. So too Welcome To Wrexham – the fly-on-the-wall series covering the (to date) two promotions of Wales’s oldest football club under the unlikely Hollywood stewardship of Reynolds and McElhenney.

The growth in US interest in English football is reflected in the record-breaking Premier League media rights deal in 2022, with NBC Sports reportedly paying $2.7 billion (£2.06bn) for its latest six-year deal.

But as well as football offering one of increasingly few “live shared TV experiences” that carry lucrative advertising slots, there may also be more opportunity for more behind-the-scenes coverage of the Premier League – as has long been seen in US coverage of NBA games, for example, where players are interviewed in the locker room straight after games.

According to Manchester United’s latest annual report, the club now has a “global community of 1.1 billion fans and followers”. Such numbers mean its owners, and many others, are bullish about the potential of the metaverse in terms of offering a matchday experience that could be similar to attending a match, without physically travelling to Manchester.

Their neighbours Manchester City, part-owned by American private equity company Silverlake, broke new (virtual) ground by signing a metaverse deal with Sony in 2022. Virtual reality could give fans around the world the feeling of attending a live match, sitting next to their friends and singing along with the rest of the crowd (for a pay-per-view fee).

Some investors are even confident that advancements in Abba-style avatar technology could one day allow fans to watch live 3D simulations of Premier League matches in stadiums all over the world. Having first-mover advantage by being in the elite club of owners who can make use of such technology could prove ever more rewarding.

More immediately, there are some indications that competitive matches involving England’s top men’s football teams could soon take place in US or other venues. Boehly, Chelsea’s co-owner, has already suggested adopting some US sports staples such as an All-Star match to further boost revenues. Indeed, back in 2008, the Premier League tentatively discussed a “39th game” taking place overseas, but that idea was quickly shelved.

The American owners of Birmingham City were keen to play this season’s EFL League One match against Wrexham in the US, but again this proposal did not get far. Liverpool’s chairman Tom Werner says he is determined to see matches take place overseas, and recent changes to world governing body Fifa’s rulebook could make it easier for this proposal to succeed.

The potential benefits of hosting games overseas include higher matchday revenues, increased brand awareness, and enhanced broadcast rights. While there is likely to be significant opposition from local fans, at least American owners know they would not face the same hostility about rising matchday prices in the US as they have encountered in England.

When the Argentinian legend Lionel Messi signed for new MLS franchise Inter Miami in 2023, season ticket prices nearly doubled on his account. And while there is vocal opposition to higher ticket prices in England, this is not borne out in terms of lower attendances for matches against high-calibre opposition – as evidenced by Aston Villa charging up to £97 for last week’s Champions League meeting with Bayern Munich.

Villa’s director of operations, Chris Heck, defended the prices by saying that difficult decisions had to be made if the club was to be competitive.

For much of the 2010s, with broadcast revenues increasing rapidly, many Premier League owners made little effort to stoke hostilities with their loyal fan bases by putting up ticket prices. Indeed, Manchester United generated little more from matchday income in the 2021-22 season, as football emerged from the pandemic, than the club had in 2010-11 (see chart above).

However, this uneasy truce between fans and owners has ceased. The relative flatlining of broadcast revenues since 2017, along with cost control rules that are starting to affect clubs’ ability to spend money on player signings and wages, has changed club appetites for dampened ticket prices. This has resulted in noticeable rises in individual ticket and season ticket prices by some clubs.

However, season ticket and other local “legacy” fans generate little money compared with the more lucrative overseas and tourist fans. They may only watch their favourite team live once a season, but when they visit, they are far more likely not only to pay higher matchday prices, but to spend more on merchandise, catering and other offerings from the club.

Today’s breed of commercially aware, profit-seeking US Premier League owners – pioneered by the Glazer family, who saw that “sweating the asset” meant more than watching football players sprinting hard – understand there is a lot more value to come from English football teams. The clubs’ loyal local supporters may not like it, but English football’s American-led revolution is not done yet.

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‘Equivalent To Winning A World Cup!’ Did Cristiano Ronaldo Issue A Message To Lionel Messi After Scoring 900th Career Goal?

Christiano Ronaldo (Facebook)

BY RITAYAN BASU

Cristiano Ronaldo had a message for Lionel Messi after reaching 900 career goals. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner made history after scoring against Croatia in the UEFA Nations League. The landmark goal also enabled Portugal to win the fixture 2-1 against Croatia. After the match, Ronaldo was asked about the prospect of playing in the upcoming edition of the FIFA World Cup. The former Real Madrid and Manchester United footballer insisted that the World Cup did not bother him much since he had already lifted the European Championship in 2016. “Portugal winning Euros is equivalent to winning a World Cup,” Ronaldo said, as per multiple outlets.

Cristiano Ronaldo remained unhinged about the prospect of finishing his career without a FIFA World Cup title. The Portuguese icon would be 41 years old should he choose to compete in the next edition of the FIFA World Cup, scheduled to be held in the United States in 2026. Speaking in the post-match conference after defeating Croatia, Ronaldo did not reveal if he was going to feature in the next edition of the FIFA tournament. But he voiced his contentment in a couple of titles he won with Portugal. “I’ve already won two trophies for Portugal that I really wanted. I’m not motivated by that. I’m motivated by enjoying football and the records come naturally,” he said.

Cristiano Ronaldo also spoke about the landmark 900th goal he scored against Croatia. As per multiple outlets, he said, “Only me, and the people around me know how difficult it is to work daily to be physically and psychologically well and reach goal 900. It’s a unique milestone in my career and it was with a lot of emotion I celebrated that goal. It represents a lot. It was the number I wanted to achieve for a long time and I knew I would achieve it because, as I continue to play, it would happen naturally.”

The FIFA World Cup trophy is a major crown that has eluded Cristiano Ronaldo’s trophy cabinet. The farthest Ronaldo has managed to reach in the tournament was the semi-finals in 2004. They were eventually knocked out by France back then. Portugal failed to crack the Round of 16, in the following edition and lost 0-1 to Spain.

In 2014, Portugal could not get past the group stage whereas Lionel Messi’s Argentina went on to play in the final. Portugal were eliminated by Uruguay in 2018 thanks to a brace from Edinson Cavani. In Qatar, two years back, Portugal conceded a defeat to Morocco in the quarter-finals. Meanwhile, Argentina completed a dream run to win the FIFA World Cup title in 2022.

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France’s Headscarf Ban In The 2024 Summer Olympics Reflects A Narrow View Of National Identity, Writes A Scholar Of European Studies

Basketball player Diaba Konate in the first round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament at McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane, Wash. Steph Chambers/Getty Images

BY ARMIN LANGER

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN 

STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris have sparked a discussion about whether female Muslim athletes who wear a headscarf should be allowed to compete.

In September 2023, the International Olympic Committee, upholding freedom of religious and cultural expression for all athletes, announced that athletes participating in the 2024 Paris Games can wear a hijab without any restriction.

French athletes, however, are bound by France’s strict separation of religion from the state, called laïcité. French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said that French athletes would be barred from wearing a hijab during the Paris games to respect this commitment to the principle of laïcité.

Human rights organizations argued that such a ban infringes upon the religious freedoms of Muslim athletes, perpetuating discrimination and marginalization. The United Nations human rights office stated that “no one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear, or not wear.”

This debate highlights the conflict between laïcité and the right to express one’s religious beliefs. As a scholar of European studies, I know about laïcité’s impact on sports, politics and society in general. In my view, laïcité, which historically upheld individual rights and freedoms, increasingly denies minority rights today, as seen in the ban on French athletes wearing hijabs at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Laïcité yesterday and today

Before the 1789 revolution, France was an absolute monarchy, where religion and the state were deeply intertwined.

The close relationship between the French monarchy and the Catholic Church began when King Charlemagne was crowned by the pope in 800 A.D. Over the centuries, the church became very powerful, owning land and controlling education and health care. It formed strong political alliances, with many nobles holding top positions within the church.

After the French Revolution succeeded and the monarchy was abolished, the revolutionaries still resented religion for its long relationship with the crown. They saw the church as a source of unfairness in society and wanted to reduce religion’s influence in public life and push their ideas of freedom, fairness and unity.

They nationalized church properties and introduced secularism to create a separation between religious and governmental affairs. Since then, France has maintained laïcité as one of the republic’s core values.

The evolution of laïcité in France coincides with significant demographic shifts in the latter half of the 20th century. As France transformed into a diverse nation with various religions and ethnicities, including a significant Muslim population, the interpretation and application of laïcité faced new challenges. With millions migrating from former French colonies in northern and western Africa in search of economic opportunities, France now hosts the largest Muslim community in Europe, comprising about 10% of its population. This demographic change has sparked debates about the role of religion in public life and the extent to which laïcité should accommodate religious diversity.

While laïcité was originally introduced alongside principles such as freedom and equality, as times changed, so did its meaning. Initially, laïcité meant keeping religion separate from the state. Lately, however, it is often interpreted to mean that citizens should refrain from showing their religious identities in public.

This shift has led to bans on religious symbols in public schools and spaces, disproportionately affecting Muslim women who wear veils.

A debate about the Olympics – and beyond

Activists and scholars have argued that today’s laïcité poses a threat to both human rights and religious freedom. In their view, it promotes a narrow view of republican values and national identity, rejecting diversity and unfairly targeting Muslim women who wear headscarves.

Laïcité can be seen as discriminatory because it often treats Christian customs as just part of everyday culture, while it treats visible signs of other religions, such as the hijab worn by some Muslim women, as unacceptable. This means Christian symbols and traditions are more easily accepted, but non-Christian ones are often not allowed.

It is also important to note that Christian traditions focus mostly on beliefs, which are private, while Islamic and Jewish traditions emphasize practices, such as wearing headscarves, that are visible. This means laïcité affects people differently, often more strictly targeting visible signs of non-Christian religion.

A 2023 survey showed that almost 80% of French Muslims believed that their country’s secular laws are discriminatory. Research shows that laïcité disproportionately affects Muslim girls from marginalized communities, perpetuating social inequalities. For example, the ban on headscarves in schools forces Muslim girls to choose between their education and their religious beliefs, leading to feelings of exclusion and isolation. This policy can also hinder their academic performance and personal development, limiting their future opportunities.

Banning hijab for players

French Muslim athletes have faced challenges on the field for a long time. For example, in 2023, the French Soccer Federation decided not to adjust meal and practice timings during Ramadan, even though it occurred during a break when there was no competition.

This decision effectively prevented Muslim players from fasting and led to notable departures, such as Lyon midfielder Mahamadou Diawara leaving the France under-19s camp. Other French players, too, left French professional sports. Basketball player Diaba Konate also opted to pursue her career in the United States because of the French ban on wearing the hijab.

In 2004, France prohibited religious symbols in public schools, including the hijab, Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans and large Christian crosses.

The nonprofit Human Rights Watch criticized it as an unjustified restriction on religious practice. In 2010, France extended the ban to face-covering headgear in public places, including the burqa and niqab, which are garments worn by some Muslim women that cover the face and body. Last year, France banned the abaya in schools.

A ban on cultural pluralism?

The hijab debate extends beyond the realm of sports, touching upon broader issues of identity and belonging in multicultural societies. For many Muslim women, the hijab is not just clothing – it is an expression of religious identity and empowerment.

Banning it from the Olympics could be seen as limiting their freedom of expression and denying their right to fully engage in society while staying true to their religious and cultural backgrounds.

France’s ban on religious symbols in official sports activities highlights the struggle to balance religious freedom with national values. This becomes especially complicated in the Olympics, where athletes’ individual expressions clash with their roles as representatives of their countries.

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Franz Beckenbauer Was A Player Out Of Time Who Made Football Evolve With Him

West German captain Franz Beckenbauer raises his arms in celebration as they become World Champions for the second time in history, beating Holland 2-1 in the 1974 World Cup Final in Munich, West Germany. Image: Popperfoto via Getty Images.

BY JONATHAN WILSON

Germany and Bayern Munich could not quite fathom where to play the young Beckenbauer, so he effectively invented a role for himself

“For me,” Helmut Schön said of Franz Beckenbauer in February 1965 after calling him up to the West Germany team for the first time, “he is the player of the future. Maybe not in midfield, perhaps up front.”

People were always looking at Beckenbauer and seeing in him a being from another age, and that meant that, for a long time, nobody really knew what to make of him. He was handsome, charismatic and languid, a player of effortless elegance guaranteed to enrage those who believed the game was about industry, sweat and graft. He was technically gifted. He saw things others didn’t. He had grace and intelligence.

From his teens it was obvious Beckenbauer would be a player of the highest level. But in what position? Nobody could work it out. And so he effectively invented a role for himself. Beckenbauer is now considered the great example of the libero, but he was not a libero in the Italian sense, sitting behind a tough-man marker and initiating attacks with long-range passes. As he himself said, if he resembled anybody in Helenio Herrera’s great Internazionale side that popularised the idea of a libero by winning two European Cups with their catenaccio, it was the left-back Giacinto Facchetti, a fine defender who would surge forward to create angles in midfield and join the attack.

Beckenbauer’s early career was a tale of a player seeking a role. When he made his Bayern debut in 1964 as an 18-year-old, in the promotion playoffs against St Pauli, he operated on the left wing. In his next game, against Tasmania Berlin, he dropped back to play as a centre-half when Rainer Ohlhauser was pushed up front as Bayern chased an equaliser and did well enough to play there again against Borussia Neunkirchen. In the second group game against St Pauli, he started as a half, then dropped in to the defence to help deal with the threat of Guy Acolatse, and ended up as a forward as Bayern chased a winner.

West German sides in those days tended play an adaptation of the W-M, in which one of the halves would drop back behind the centre-half to play as an Ausputzer – literally, a cleaner – but he had no creative brief as he would have done in Italy. Rather, the centre-half picked up the opposing centre-forward but had a limited licence to step forward, knowing he had cover behind him. Beckenbauer took that far further than anybody had before.

Bayern missed out on promotion by a point that season, but cruised into the Bundesliga the following campaign with Beckenbauer as the regular centre-half despite constant newspaper talk that he might be better deployed as one of the more creative midfielders.

Zlatko Cajkovski, the Bayern coach, seemingly had similar doubts and, that summer, signed the combative Dieter Danzberg to operate as his centre-half, allowing Beckenbauer to move further forward. But Danzberg was sent off in the opening game of the following season, a derby against 1860 Munich, and banned for eight weeks. Beckenbauer stepped into his position and never left it, the crowning glory of a fine first top-flight campaign coming against SV Meiderich in the 1966 German Cup final.

Beckenbauer’s forward surges had been restricted by having to deal with centre-forward Rüdiger Mielke, but with eight minutes remaining and Bayern leading 3-2, Ohlhauser won the ball back and suddenly became aware Beckenbauer had set off. He picked him out, Beckenbauer ran on and scored the decisive goal from the edge of the box. His role as a libero was confirmed and, with Georg Schwarzenbeck an essential but largely unsung stopper alongside him, would go on to underpin all Bayern’s success in the 1970s.

For the national team, Beckenbauer’s role was more contested. For that first game, in February 1965, an unofficial friendly against Chelsea, Beckenbauer operated in midfield as Schön experimented with a back four. Other than two games on a tour of South and Central America in 1968, when Willi Schulz was used as a man-marker and Beckenbauer had to take his role in the back four, that was where he remained until 1971 when Schön finally agreed to allow Beckenbauer to play as the libero.

The following year, Beckenbauer was at the heart of the West Germany side that, in beating England 3-1 at Wembley in the first leg of the Euro ‘72 quarter-final, produced a mesmerisingly brilliant half hour. It was, L’Équipe said, “football from the year 2000”. This, at last, was Beckenbauer’s age.

The truth, though, was however advanced West Germany appeared by comparison with Alf Ramsey’s fading England, it was football of the early 70s. Trying to keep the game in the shade of the main stand in the heat of Léon during the 1970 World Cup, it’s said, had taught West Germany how possession could be manipulated, and the freedom Beckenbauer had in stepping out of the backline, offering an extra man, was critical in allowing them to operate like that. The style, a sort of Total Football without the pressing, brought both the 1972 Euros and the 1974 World Cup.

Time eventually caught up with the man from the future. As a coach Beckenbauer was a conservative. “A defensive stance,” he said, “corresponds to Germany nature ... we get stuck in, we story the opponent’s game and the force our game onto him.”

When Klaus Augenthaler suggested switching to a back four, Beckenbauer insisted “our character, our system” was a libero plus markers. It brought two World Cup finals in 1986 and 1990, the latter of them won, but probably delayed the advent of pressing, leading to the lost decade of the 90s (the weird outlier of winning Euro 96 notwithstanding) and subsequent reboot.

But why would Beckenbauer have been a great theorist? Why would he, as a manager, have been part among the tactical avant garde? As a player, by being who he was, without having to conceptualise it, he had changed the way the game was played. He emerged as a player out of time, and made football conform to him.

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Undercover Observers Track Racism, Discrimination At European Soccer Games

FILE - A group of Lazio fans make the fascist salute ahead of an Europa League group E soccer match between Lazio and Celtic, in Rome's Olympic Stadium, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. Among the thousands of fans in the stands at Europe's biggest soccer games are a few people operating undercover. Trained volunteer observers listen for racist chants and watch for extremist symbols on banners. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

BY JAMES ELLINGWORTH

DUESSELDORF, GERMANY (AP) — Blend in. Stay alert. Feign excitement if you must.

Among the thousands of fans in the stands at Europe’s biggest soccer games are a few people operating undercover. Trained volunteer observers listen for racist chants and watch for extremist symbols on banners.

“You have to be aware of the environment and fit in without standing out. You have to be discreet,” one observer, who has worked at games involving some of soccer’s best-known clubs and national teams, told The Associated Press.

“Obviously nothing gets published on social media. You have to be anonymous. You have to just sort of blend in. Don’t engage in conversations with anybody.”

The observer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the job requires it, is part of a program run on behalf of European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, by the Fare Network, a prominent anti-discrimination group. Fare monitors about 120 games per season in Europe’s main three men’s club competitions, executive director Piara Powar told the AP, and more around the world in national team events like World Cup qualifying.

Evidence from the program, including photos taken surreptitiously from the stands, is used in disciplinary cases against clubs or national teams whose fans display racist behavior in European competitions like the Champions League.

It’s not a career, but a way to make soccer better for the future, the observer said.

Observers work on a volunteer basis, with expenses covered, and are expected to keep tabs on hardcore fan groups’ social media to track where incidents may occur.

Inside the stadium, an observer watches the stands for signs of racist, homophobic, sexist or other discriminatory chants or banners, while also keeping an eye on the action on the field, which shapes what happens among fans.

“If you get a disgruntled fan base and they’re getting beaten 5-0 and they get knocked out of a competition that they felt that they were going to progress in, then that could be another catalyst,” the observer said. “You have to constantly read the situation as it unfolds.”

Observers are expected to be familiar with symbols used by nationalist groups, especially the logos and number codes — like 88 for Heil Hitler — they use to send surreptitious messages.

Games are given risk ratings to determine how many observers are needed, and up to three observers can work at the highest-risk games.

Sometimes a game rated “medium-risk” can “blow up in your face” unexpectedly, the observer added. That sets off a scramble to document the evidence and send it to a UEFA delegate in the stands — not always easy on overloaded stadium Wi-Fi.

That documentation can then be used by the UEFA disciplinary unit for “further investigation and possible proceedings,” the European soccer governing body said in a statement to the AP.

Hooliganism incidents have decreased in European soccer in recent decades, but some fan groups have a reputation for racist behavior and violence. For security reasons, the identity of the observers at a game are known to as few people as possible.

The observer described feeling “ill at ease” in some situations, but never in personal danger. Observers are not expected to infiltrate close-knit, hardcore fan groups, but to watch from a distance.

“You need to get as close as you can, but be as far away as your safety requires,” the observer said.

Fare’s work isn’t always welcome.

In a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport over a banner at a 2019 game that was judged to contain a coded racist message, Georgian club Dinamo Tbilisi sought to challenge Fare’s assessment, arguing that the observer collecting the evidence was “professionally trained to recognize potentially racist symbols and is therefore biased.”

The panel rejected the argument and pointed out that even if the banner’s message wasn’t clear to most fans, it still broke rules against racist messages.

Like referees, Fare observers can’t work at games involving clubs they support. The observer said the goal is to make the atmosphere at games safer and more inclusive for the future.

Over several years working games, the observer has seen change for the better, but so far only “baby steps.”

“It’s a professional endeavor. It’s not going for the sake of it,” the observer said.

“I’m indifferent to the results. When a goal’s scored, sometimes I have to stand up to feign excitement, but they are teams that I have zero emotional moments with.”

AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Cup of Nations: Keeper Mweene scores as Zambia hold Nigeria

African Cup of Nations Group C, Mbombela Stadium – Zambia 1 (Mweene 85) Nigeria 1 (Emenike 57).

EURO SPORT

Zambia goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene scored a controversial late penalty as Zambia came from behind to draw 1-1 with Nigeria in Group C of the African Cup of Nations.

Mweene, who had saved a John Obi Mikel spot-kick in the first half, coolly blasted the ball into the top right after Nigeria defender Ogenyi Onazi was harshly adjudged to have fouled Emmanuel Mayuka.

Nigeria had led through a 57th-minute strike from the impressive Emmanuel Emenike, with the Super Eagles on balance the better side but Zambia having also spurned some great chances before finally drawing level.

The result means defending champions Zambia and two-times winners Nigeria have drawn their opening two matches at these finals, with Ethiopia and Burkina Faso playing later.

What had promised to be an enthralling clash between the defending champions and one of Africa’s traditional powerhouses was hampered by a dreadful pitch in Nelspruit, the same surface that led to farcical scenes in Zambia’s opening Group C clash with Ethiopia.

Both sides tried their best to play football, but aside from an early half-chance for Raymond Kalaba, the bobble was ruining any attempts to keep it low.

That resulted in a fairly ‘direct’ contest, one which Nigeria should have taken control of when CSKA Moscow forward Ahmed Musa was clumsily brought down by Davies Nkausu.

The referee correctly pointed to the spot but, with Emenike apparently reluctant to take responsibility, Mikel stood up only to place a weak kick off the hand of Mweene, shaving he post and wide.

Zambia almost made them pay immediately, Vincent Enyeama saving well from Chisamba Lungu, while Reading target Stophira Sunzu put a free header wide from a Kalaba free-kick.

Indeed, by the end of the first half Zambia were creating the better chances, although they could not find a finish, with Isaac Chansa’s poor effort straight at Enyeama the final act of the 45.

Nigeria upped the tempo in the second half and they should have gone ahead four minutes in when Musa’s cross shot bobbled away from Emenike. Musa should have got his initial effort on target and, with Emenike anticipating a tap-in, the pitch was again a factor as the final bounce took it off theSpartak Moscow striker’s toe.

Indeed, the Super Eagles were piling the pressure on as Emenike in particular started to cause problems, flicking one finish inches wide after holding off two challenges and flying in on Kennedy Mweene.

And he soon got his breakthrough when, after a mix-up in the Zambia defence, Mikel released the 25-year-old, who took one touch and fired a rasping effort into the bottom left corner.

Nigeria were all over the Zambians, with Emenike again seeing an effort deflected wide, but Zambia did occasionally threaten on the break, with Kalaba denied by an excellent Enyeama saved after his superb flick put him through.

Indeed, they should have drawn level with eight minutes remaining but substitute Collins Mbesuma lazily side-footed his finish straight at Enyeama with just the keeper to beat.

It was a dreadful effort but Zambia levelled soon afterwards, although not without controversy.

Mayuka had the ball on the edge of the box, and he was backing into Osazi with both players grabbing on to the other’s shirt.

Egyptian referee Ghead Grisha pointed to the spot, even though no-one had appealed and any foul looked outside the box.

Mweene, who takes spot-kicks for his club in South Africa but had not previously done so for Zambia, stepped up and with almost serene nonchalance ambled towards the ball before drilling it into the top corner.

That bizarre turn of events pretty much finished the match, with neither side threatening in the final minutes.

Both Nigeria and Zambia now need to win respective matches against Ethiopia and Burkina Faso, who play later in a great opportunity to move a step towards the quarter-finals.

--------EURO SPORT

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