The Business of Sport - Seminar Series
Room G01 - Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1 7HX
Wednesday 5th March 2008 at 6pm
(For directions click here)
"FIFA's World Order"
Given by:
Steve Menary
Synopsis:
In this presentation, drawing on two years of research for his critically well-received book Outcasts: The Lands That FIFA Forgot, author and journalist Steve Menary discusses why he decided to write Outcasts, the story of those footballing national teams who have been unable to win recognition by football's governing body FIFA. In particular he will discuss the entry criteria for joining FIFA and how political considerations have interacted with sporting concerns to influence decision-making, underlining how politics and sport continue to be inextricably linked in world football. Outcasts is a story of how footballing nationality, or the need to establish a national identity through sport, continues be used and distorted for political means.
In addition he addresses some of the idiosyncratic and often bizarre manifestations which occur in football's national no-man's land such as: a dentist from Greenland who risked his career to play for his 'country'; the pitched battle amongst kit manufacturers to sponsor the Tibetan national football team; and why the Gibraltan 'national' football team might just force an end to centuries of dispute over the rock between Britain and Spain.
Reviews of Outcasts:
- Outcasts has been shortlisted for the National Sporting Club football book of the year award. http://www.nationalsportingclub.co.uk/BritishSportsBookAwards08Nominate.htm
- “Sportsbooks: The little guys that Fifa forgot”. The Daily Telegraph (17th January 2008). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/01/17/sobook117.xml
- Book of the week. The Independent (December 2007) http://sport.independent.co.uk
- “One book that might intrigue the discerning reader”. The Sunday Telegraph (23rd December 2007) http://www.telegraph.co.uk
- “Once in a while, a book comes along with an unusual subject matter that captures the imagination and Menary's Outcasts falls into that category”. The Yorkshire Post. http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
- “Outcasts! is a must-read for all football fans” – Sporting Life. http://www.sportinglife.com
- “Where is the soul of football? I think it's in this book” - Adrian Chiles. Preface to Outcasts.
- “For readers who want to know their writers have given them 100%, there will be no doubts here … an absorbing, engaging and thought provoking account of the miracle which is football itself” - David Conn. Introduction to Outcasts.
Reading:
- Menary. S (2007). Outcasts: The Lands That FIFA Forgot. Know The Score. http://www.amazon.co.uk
- http://outcasts-book.blogspot.com/
- ‘When is a National team not a National Team' Sport in Society Volume 10 Number 2 March 2007
- World Soccer magazine - http://www.worldsoccer.com/
- http://londonist.com/2008/03/getting_to_know.php
Biography
Steve Menary trained as a chef but for the last dozen years or so has worked as a journalist. He was a city reporter at The Scotsman before becoming a freelance writer and author in 2001. He writes mostly about business and sport and is a regular contributor to World Soccer magazine, and has been saddled with supporting AFC Bournemouth for as long as he can remember.
For further details on this Seminar Series contact:
Sean Hamil
Department of Management
Birkbeck College
Malet Street
London
WC1E 7HX
Email: s.hamil@bbk.ac.uk or Tel: 020-7631 6763