‘The beautiful game has never looked more beautiful on the pitch, or more ugly off it,’ Simon Skinner writes in the latest LRB. Each World Cup seems more tainted by corruption than the last, but is that a nostalgic illusion? The second competition, held in Italy in 1934, was a podium for Mussolini and, as Skinner puts it, ‘an early advertisement of the tournament’s potential service to politically repressive hosts’ that has continued through the years to Russia 2018, Qatar 2022 and the ‘Fifa-MAGA pageant’ of 2026.

In this episode Simon Skinner and Natasha Chahal join Tom to talk about the long relationship between football and politics and why Roberto Baggio can offer us no consolation.

Read more:

Simon Skinner: https://lrb.me/worldcuppod1

Natasha Chahal: https://lrb.me/worldcuppod4

John Lanchester on Qatar: https://lrb.me/worldcuppod2

Thomas Jones on Maradonna: https://lrb.me/worldcuppod3

More from the LRB:

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