Foul Play by Joe Humphreys

 

A Chinese man watching a football match runs out of a burning building with his TV set in his arms, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves. A French tennis coach drugs his children's opponents, causing one death. An England supporter, upset at his team's exit from a football tournament, stabs a Russian student for 'sounding German'.

What is it about sport that makes people behave so irrationally?

Joe Humphreys challenges the idea that sport is a positive influence on athletes, spectators and the world as a whole. Tracing the history of organised game-playing, he points out that football alone has more followers today than either Christianity or Islam. But does that make sport a religion, or a dangerous cult?

Drawing on thinkers from Plato to Bill Shankly, Foul Play shows how sport is bad for your health and damaging to your character, as well as being the last refuge of sexism, racism, homophobia and animal cruelty.
Foul Play is for anyone who believes that their head is not just for keepie-uppies.