Word: soccer
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Here's a tale for our times. Last week Ali Abbas, the 13-year-old Iraqi boy who lost his arms during an air raid on Baghdad, continued his recuperation in a hospital in Kuwait, wearing a T shirt emblazoned with a picture of his hero, an English soccer star who was about to start a promotional tour of Japan after having just been traded to a Spanish club in a deal - vital to the fortunes of a German shoe company - that merited an editorial in the New York Times and that was brokered by a sports agency owned...
...Talk about globalization. David Beckham, the soccer player in question, is almost certainly the best-known sports star in the world. He doesn't make the most money - in last week's SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, soccer guru Grant Wahl reckoned Beckham, 28, earns close to $30 million a year, which is way less than the earnings of golfer Tiger Woods and Formula One racing driver Michael Schumacher - but Beckham's agency, SFX, which is owned by Clear Channel, the radio and concert giant, hasn't done badly by the boy. It is Beckham's name that's on the title...
...pretty good soccer player too. But it isn't just for his skills that Real Madrid paid Manchester United, the club for which Beckham played since he was 14, a sum of $41 million for his services. Europe's leading soccer clubs are becoming true global brands. Measured by its value on the open market, United is the most successful sports franchise in the world; Rupert Murdoch tried and failed to buy the club for $1 billion in 1998. With a worldwide fan base - in August, it's scheduled to play exhibition games before sold-out crowds...
...There's more to this story than global branding. Just like the NBA, in whose games players from 34 nations appeared last season, European soccer leagues now recruit their stars internationally. And the fact that they do sheds more light on European economics and society than you will ever get from reading the new draft of a constitution for the European Union. Until quite recently, soccer in Europe was organized mainly on national lines. There were strict limits to the number of non-nationals a club could field in a game. In 1995 a decision of the European Court...
...truly frightened by the people described in "Goodbye, Soccer Mom. Hello, Security Mom" [NATION, June 2]. They have become so unreasonably petrified by the thought of another terrorist attack against the U.S. that they support whatever radical laws or actions our government takes in the name of protecting its citizens. Such an attitude poses a far more serious threat to this nation's health than any foreign entity. GREGORY KEENER Escondido, Calif...