The Age of Football: The Global Game in the Twenty-first Century

A Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year
'Goldblatt is the doyen of sports historians' Mail on Sunday
'A globe-trotting magnum opus' Tobias Jones, Sunday Times

In the twenty-first century, football is first. First among sports themselves, but it also now commands the allegiance, interest and engagement of more people in more places than any other phenomenon. Nations, peoples and neighbourhoods across the globe imagine and invent themselves through playing and following the game.

In The Age of Football, David Goldblatt charts football's global cultural ascent, its economic transformation and its deep politicization, taking in prison football in Uganda and amputee football in Angola, the role of football fans in the Arab Spring, the footballing presidencies of Bolivia's Evo Morales and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China's declared intention to both host and win the World Cup by 2050, and the FIFA corruption scandal.

Following the intersection of the game with money, power and identity, The Age of Football is the account of how football has come to define every facet of our social, economic and cultural lives and at what cost, shaping who we think we are and who we want to be.