Who Really Rules The World

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Football Rules
It's Pure Passion
Truly Global
Real Honour
Role Models
Planet's Panacea

Football Rules
Football rules the world because its reach is truly global. It's the universal language that can cross borders and appeal to all creeds, classes, communities and nations.

For millions of football addicts around the world, it's a culture and a philosophy, giving purpose to their lives and satisfying the basic human need for identity and belonging.

It's a genuine source for good, built on a noble and moral tradition, fostering loyalty, integrity, honesty and unity.

Football is a rallying point for people of all walks of life. It’s a symbol of hope and the last vestige of national pride.

Ultimately, football is a truly global phenomenon, with the ability to unite us all like nothing else. And that's why it rules the world.

Martin Brookes tells us why football rules the world. He is an author, a one-time scientist, and a lifelong supporter of Manchester City.

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It's Pure Passion
Every Saturday it’s the same. The same mix of hope and trepidation. The buzz that comes with daring to dream. The memory of so many nightmares. This is where my week begins and ends, where precious emotions are unwrapped and fed to the fickle fate of a football match. By around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, the issue is usually resolved.

A victory, particularly a resounding one away from home, sends me sky high. Life takes on a warm and rosy glow. I am talkative, friendly and optimistic. A heavy home defeat, however, triggers a free-fall into the abyss; into a bleak and hostile world infused with Orwellian gloom.

Nothing else has such a powerful hold on me. I could be anywhere in the world, but if I know that my beloved team is playing (and I always do) then I must know the result. And nothing can shift my mood with such unremitting certainty. An idyllic beach holiday in the Seychelles, for instance, would be ruined by news of a woeful performance and three more points squandered. Football rules my life. It’s an addiction. And I share it with millions of others.

For multitudes of avid fans, football is a culture, a philosophy and a creed that gives purpose to their lives. It's a place where, for a brief period on a Saturday afternoon, strangers joined by nothing more than the love of their local team can meet to share a collective experience.

It's about fulfilling those most basic of human needs – identity and belonging. Where else can you meet with 50,000 other people to sing, laugh and hurl good-natured abuse at the opposition? In these sterile, modern times of rules and regulations, football feels like the last sanctuary of rebellion. No wonder it’s so popular. Football is pure catharsis.

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Truly Global
To those who say that football is only a game, I say think again. Football is a universal language that connects people in ways that no other cultural phenomenon can. Capitalism, communism, Christianity? None of these can hold a candle to the common denominator of football. What else appeals to all creeds, classes, communities and nations? Only in the context of football can we really talk about a ‘global community’.

Statistics show a mesmerizing world-wide phenomenon. The 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea was by far the most watched televised event in history, with a cumulative audience of over 30 billion people, from 213 countries. Predictably, men outnumbered women, but viewing figures in Japan were divided equally between the sexes. Each game attracted an average audience of 356 million, while the final itself was watched by an estimated 1.1 billion. These are the kind of numbers that televangelists can only dream about. In terms of world-wide appeal, nothing comes close to football.

Talk to people in Nigeria, Brazil, or Romania, for example, and they will tell you what football means to them. When a country slips into economic or political turmoil, football remains a rallying point, a symbol of hope, the last vestige of national pride. The people may grow weary of politics and religion but when they give up on football then you know that things are really bad.

Across the world, football is a huge social force, an engine for change, and a mirror on the state of society. Politicians understand its power and they frequently court its popularity. Even in a country as dogmatic as Iran, the authorities are only too aware of its potency. After the Islamic revolution, Iranian women were banned from watching football matches. But the ban prompted outrage and women pressed for reform. In 1987, the ruling clerics were forced into a compromise. Women could watch football on television, they declared, provided that they had the sound turned down. Many women continued to defy the ban, sneaking into grounds disguised as men. But all pretence was finally blown when Iran qualified for the World Cup in 1997. Then it was the authorities' turn to watch, as women broke through the police ranks to join in the wild celebrations.

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Real Honour
Football, of course, attracts its fair share of idiots. Large crowds have always been good recruiting grounds for extremists. But racism, nationalism and hooliganism, the three scourges of the modern game, are not unique to football; they are issues for society as a whole. Football alerts us to these problems, but it doesn’t create them.

In fact, the game plays a constructive role in helping to expose and tackle social problems. When, for instance, Spanish fans disgraced themselves by singing racist chants at the recent match against England, Spain suddenly found itself with some serious explaining to do.

And far from being a breeding ground for all of society’s ills, I would argue that the culture of the football fan honours a strong moral tradition, embracing such noble and old-fashioned virtues as integrity, honesty and unity.

Football supporters display immense loyalty to their club, its history and traditions. Players may grab all the headlines, but they are ephemeral and contribute little to the soul of a club. Of course, great players are always remembered with fondness, even reverence, but this is a team game where collective effort means more than individual performance. Talent counts for little if a player doesn’t wear his club shirt with pride. All the fans ask is that the players' passion on the pitch is equal to their passion in the stands. It’s an entirely reasonable request, though one that too many of today’s overpaid stars often seem to forget.

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Role Models
Football players are an important element in the social and cultural force of football, both on and off the pitch. They are role models for the younger generation of fans. They visit local schools, and help to promote community relations. Sometimes they can even find themselves as social and political ambassadors at the centre of international disputes.

Take the case of Bert Trautmann, the German goalkeeper who joined Manchester City just after the Second World War, in 1949. The signing provoked a hostile reaction. Many supporters were appalled that the club would even consider signing a German. But Trautmann impressed in his first few games and the fans soon warmed to him.

He went on to make more than 500 appearances for the club, including a memorable performance in the 1956 FA Cup final, when he famously broke his neck and played on. Trautmann became something of a folk hero in Manchester; his testimonial drew a crowd of more than 60,000 people. There is no doubt that his presence in an English club helped foster better relations between Britain and Germany in the difficult post-war years.

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Planet's Panacea
Finally, while it is clear that religion has influence in global power broking and through the ubiquity of personal belief, religion also exercises power in an inverted sense (anti-power power). The people who have real power are not those running governments or consumers spending billions everyday. Instead, real power is found amongst the dispossessed and disenfranchised of the world.

This may sound strange – how can people with no economic or social strength have power? Some believe that the poor are closer to God because God always sides with the marginalised and downtrodden. The Bible, for instance, refers to the 'preferential option for the poor', wherein God recognises that those without material wealth need to be protected and supported not only because they are poor but also because God cares about the weak.

Therefore the poor have power because their concerns make them closer to God than the rich. And given that most of the world is materially poor, we can argue they have the greater influence over God.

Added to this, real power is found amongst those who don't crave it, are willing to renounce it and who seek power in powerlessness. For example, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism all assert ascetic belief systems that promote simple living, self-sacrifice and even poverty as a means of seeking spiritual purity and awareness. Within these traditions, power is gained every time it is renounced or given away. By doing so, these people feel rich in spirit.

What all this adds up to is that religion rules the world because religious power is manifest at every level of human activity. This is so whether we consider religion in the narrow or broad definition, and whether we view power as a top down or as a bottom up force

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