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Football. The Passion for the World Cup

Just a game?

Football began as a game and essentially still is a game. But it’s also a modern epic, with its gods and goddesses, its knights and ladies, and its legendary battles in which the young David can defeat the giant Goliath. Football tells us a lot about our culture: it’s dance, competition, chance, play-acting, emotion, poetry and science. Today it’s a cultural system with strong links to other systems: entertainment, communication, politics and business. The growing commercialisation of football and its subjection to the requirements of television and marketing have even led some to fear that competition between national teams will disappear to make more room for club play. At the same time, though, as the world and football become more and more global, the World Cup has come to represent a formidable international event. This is the case today because football stands out as a world social phenomenon, a mirror of the geopolitical roles of the global powers. It’s an instrument of soft power, a way of projecting one’s values and ideas to the rest of the world, while at the same time mobilising and uniting the masses within one’s own borders.

 

Join us on our Live-Stream Vernissage on Wednesday, November 16th 2022, at 6pm.

 
 
 
17.11.2022 – 12.6.2023
NationalMuseum