Soccer's Neoliberal Pitch: The Sport's Power, Profit, and Discursive Politics

A powerful cultural critique of soccer's public rhetoric

American sports agnostics might raise an eyebrow at the idea that soccer represents a staging ground for cultural, social, and political possibility. It is just another game, after all, in a society where mass-audience spectator sports largely avoid any political stance other than a generic, corporate-friendly patriotism. But John M. Sloop picks up on the work of Laurent Dubois and others to see in American soccer-a sport that has ach...