Every four years billions of people watch the World Cup together. Families who seldom agree on politics cheer together. Children in remote villages without reliable electricity follow the scores on mobile phones. Nations clashing on the diplomatic stage shake hands before kick-off.
Non-fans among us may well be upset with television news dominated by stories of 22 men chasing a ball around a field a vast ocean away. Front pages fill with annoying match reports. Office conversations revolve around (missed) goals, players, referees and predictions, alienating those not interested. It may well be fair to ask why so much airtime is devoted to football while tragedies such as the earthquake in Venezuela are pushed to the sidelines.
News organizations have a responsibility to report events that affect lives.
For there is something deeply uncomfortable when entertainment appears to eclipse human suffering. News organizations have a responsibility to report events that affect lives, especially those involving death, displacement and injustice.
Our compassion should not be determined by television ratings. If football crowds out concern for our neighbors, then our priorities have become distorted. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue. Refugees continue to flee unbearable conditions at home to seek a better future elsewhere. Natural disasters don’t wait for the finals to be over.
The power of football... to build bridges between cultures and peoples in a fractured world.
So, while it’s fair to question the priorities of the media, there is something else worth reflecting on: the power of football in particular to build bridges between cultures and peoples in a fractured world.
Consider what happens before every international match. Players representing different histories, languages, religions and political systems line up together. National anthems are played. Hands are shaken. The contest begins, but within agreed rules. Victory is celebrated; defeat, ideally, accepted with dignity. Rivalry exists without war.
The game continually offers opportunities for reconciliation as well as competition.
Not that football always lives up to this ideal. Hooliganism, racism, corruption and excessive nationalism are all too prevalent. Commercial interests can overwhelm sporting values. Yet the game continually offers opportunities for reconciliation as well as competition.
A world without sport?
Societies have always needed ways to channel the impulse of young men.
Imagine for a moment a world without organized sport: a world perhaps of gangs, political extremism, online communities built around resentment, street violence and destructive forms of thrill-seeking. Societies have always needed ways to channel the impulse of young men to have higher levels of physical energy, competitiveness, risk-taking and desire for status.
Sport is one of humanity’s major so-called "civilizing institutions". For besides entertainment, sport performs several social functions, especially for young men. Team sports teach how to accept authority (the coach/referee), how to sacrifice personal glory for the team, how to lose without humiliation, how to compete without hatred, and how to respect an opponent.
As humans we need belonging, challenge, recognition, physical expression, shared stories, heroes and rituals. Sport has become one of the world’s most successful ways of meeting those needs.
Many of the founders of modern organized football were nineteenth-century Christian reformers in England. Leaders of the nation-wide Sunday School movement in particular saw how sport formed character.
"Muscular Christianity': the conviction that physical health, moral integrity and spiritual maturity belonged together.
They understood young people needed more than information and rules; they need communities where virtues are practiced. This was known as "muscular Christianity': the conviction that physical health, moral integrity and spiritual maturity belonged together. The football field became, in a sense, another classroom.
Christian roots
Aston Villa... was founded in 1874 by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel.
Aston Villa, for example, was founded in 1874 by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel, Birmingham. Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. began in 1877 connected with St Luke’s Church. Everton (1878) began out of St Domingo Methodist Church in Liverpool.
St Mark’s Church in an industrial area of Manchester started Manchester City in 1880. Tottenham Hotspur F.C started in 1882 associated with the Bible class of All Hallows Church in Tottenham. Southampton began in 1885 linked with St Mary’s Church in Southampton.
Football became so deeply rooted in British working-class communities because there were chapels, Sunday schools, parish rooms and young men looking for somewhere to belong, long before there were professional clubs, stadiums and television contracts.
Over time... explicitly Christian roots gradually faded from public memory.
Over time, those explicitly Christian roots gradually faded from public memory. Football became commercial, global and increasingly secular.
Yet the underlying idea remained surprisingly intact: people from different backgrounds could meet under shared rules, submit to the same referee and compete fiercely without becoming enemies. That is no small achievement.
We all long to belong.
We all long to belong. We seek identities that are bigger than ourselves—families, cities, nations and, ultimately, humanity itself. International sport allows us to celebrate our distinctiveness while recognizing our shared membership of the human family. It is one of the few global events in which billions of people willingly pay attention to the same story at the same time.
Which reminds us that we belong to one human family.
Originally published by Weekly Word. Republished with permission.
Jeff Fountain and his wife Romkje are the initiators of the Schuman Centre for European Studies. They moved to Amsterdam in December 2017 after living in the Dutch countryside for over 40 years engaged with the YWAM Heidebeek training centre. Romkje was founder of YWAM The Netherlands and chaired the national board until 2013. Jeff was YWAM Europe director for 20 years, until 2009. Jeff chaired the annual Hope for Europe Round Table until 2015, while Romkje chaired the Women in Leadership network until recently. Jeff is author of Living as People of Hope, Deeply Rooted and other titles, and also writes weekly word, a weekly column on issues relating to Europe.
Weekly Word is an initiative of The Schuman Centre for European Studies. Jeff Fountain is a New Zealander holding a Dutch passport, is currently the director of the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu), and lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Jeff graduated with a history degree from the University of Auckland (1972) and worked as a journalist on the New Zealand Herald (1972-3), and as travelling secretary for Tertiary Student Christian Fellowship (TSCF) (1973). He has lived in the Netherlands since 1975, and has travelled and spoken in almost every European country. For twenty years following the fall of communism, he was the European director for the international and interdenominational mission organisation, Youth With A Mission. He was chairman of the international, trans-denominational movement, Hope for Europe, for which he organised two pan-European congresses in Budapest in 2002 and 2011. In 2010, he established the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu) to promote biblical perspectives on Europe’s past, present and future, to encourage effective engagement in issues facing Europe today.
