IntroA simple game become a global institution

The World Cup is probably the most powerful collective ritual organized on a global scale. For several weeks, billions of individuals simultaneously direct their attention to the same object: one terrain, two teams, one balloon, 90 minutes of uncertainty and a dramaturgy whose outcome seems to be the honour of an entire nation.

The edition 2026 amplifies this dimension. Jointly organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico, it brings together 48 teams for the first time and includes 104 meetings. It exceeds, by its geographical scope, duration and potential markets, all previous editions. This extension illustrates the profound logic of contemporary football: expanding the number of participants, spectators, broadcasters, consumers and territories associated with the show.

But football cannot be reduced to an entertainment industry. It is simultaneously a game, an emotional experience, an identity space, a political resource, a global economy, a media machine, a social mobility system and a place where hierarchies are reproduced.

So football doesn't suspend society. He's focusing on her. It makes it visible, often in its deepest contradictions.

The case defends a central thesis: football does not only mask society; He's naked. Victory brings out an idealized, united, meritocratic and fraternal nation. Defeat reactivates borders, the need for culprits, prejudices and conflicts of legitimacy. Football reveals real strength — or fragility — the social link.

Main findings of the file

IThe World Cup as a total social fact

It mobilizes public administrations, security forces, transport, media, multinational companies, local authorities, diplomacy, federations, cultural industries, social networks, supporters, diasporas, tourism and hospitality. It also influences work schedules, household consumption, family conversations and government communication strategies.

Major tournaments give a sensitive form to abstract institutions: sovereignty, territory, border, flag, anthem and national community. They allow the nation to be not only thought, but sung, worn, displayed and lived emotionally.

Competition transforms the world's political map into a sporting competition. Each country becomes a jersey; each border, a color opposition; each hymn precedes a confrontation; Each win is counted as a national success. The game thus proposes a simplified representation of the international order: nations are formally equal before the rules, while they remain unequal in terms of their resources, infrastructure, training systems and ability to retain talent.

IIWhy does football produce such emotional power?

1. An immediately understandable dramaturgy

Football has an exceptional property: it can be understood without in-depth technical learning. The basic rules are simple, the number of goals is low and the result remains uncertain for a long time. A dominated team can win; A previously invisible player can become a national hero in seconds.

The rarity of the goal increases its emotional value. A single gesture can reverse the meaning of a meeting, change a historical trajectory and turn an individual into a collective symbol. The match condenses a complete dramaturgy: exposure, tension, confrontations, reversals, injustices felt, heroes, culprits and outcome.

2. Uncertainty as an engine of accession

The possibility that « small » eliminates a « Large » is one of the major symbolic resources of football. The supporter may believe that the social and economic hierarchy will be suspended for at least 90 minutes.

This promise is particularly strong for peripheral nations. A victory against an old colonial power, a rich country or a great football nation becomes a symbolic revenge. The terrain offers what economic and diplomatic relations rarely grant: formal equality, a framed confrontation and the possibility of an undeniable victory of the weakest.

3. Collective effervescence

Synchronised songs, repeated gestures, flags, colors and giant screens produce what the durkheimian sociology calls a « collective effervescence »⁴. Individuals temporarily cease to perceive themselves as isolated units and feel integrated into a higher entity: the crowd, the people or the nation.

• Wear the same colours and emblems;
• Sing the same hymns;
• Simultaneously react to the same events;
• Share hope, fear, anger and deliverance;
• Establish a temporary proximity with strangers.

This body and emotional synchronization produces an impression of fusion. It does not remove social divisions, but makes them less visible during the ritual.

IIIIs football « People's opium » ?

1. A relevant but insufficient formula

Qualifying football« opium of the people » It is in the sense that it diverts people from their real problems by offering them compensatory emotions. The argument is not unfounded: in societies facing unemployment, inequality or political tensions, a victory can create euphoria without changing social structures.

For a few hours, the daily difficulties efface conversations, the nation seems reconciled and the government can benefit from the emotional climate. Football provides immediate gratification where politics, work and the economy promise delayed and uncertain results.

But the formula becomes abusive when it assumes that supporters would necessarily be dupe or passive. Individuals can celebrate while being aware of their difficulties. Rather, sports fervour is a temporary space of relaxation, pleasure and sociability.

2. Football as a social valve

Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning have analysed modern sport as a form of « controlled control of emotions »³. Ordinary society imposes restraint; sport temporarily authorizes emotional release within a codified framework.

The stadium and collective retransmission allow to shout, sing, cry or kiss an unknown. The problem arises when the boundary between symbolic confrontation and real confrontation disappears: violence, racism, aggression and overburdens then signal the failure of the regulatory framework.

3. Organized diversion?

Instrumentalization becomes more problematic when power deliberately uses sports emotion to saturate the media space, mitigate social conflict or associate its image with national success.

IVThe nation embodied by eleven players

1. The jersey as symbolic transfer

A national team is composed of a small number of players, but it is presented as the incarnation of millions of inhabitants. This transfer is based on a collectively accepted fiction: « they play for us ».

The supporter says « We won », « We were stolen » or « we are eliminated ». He appropriates a performance in which he did not materially participate. However, after a defeat, he can declare: « They disappointed us. » or « they didn't respect the jersey ». In case of success, the team is integrated into the « we » ; in the event of failure, it may be rejected in the « they ».

2. The periodic manufacture of the nation

The nation is an imagined community² Most citizens do not know each other, but represent themselves as members of the same group. Football allows them to live the same story at the same time. The flag becomes omnipresent, the hymn is sung, the colors invade public space and the media tell a collective destiny.

3. A temporary horizontal nation

The head of the enterprise, the worker, the student, the unemployed and the senior executive wear the same jersey and sing the same anthem. This horizontality is real, but temporary. The next day, everyone regains their position, neighbourhood, resources and constraints. Football offers symbolic equality more easily than material equality.

V« Black-White-Beur » : integration by victory, exclusion by defeat

1. Victory as proof of integration

In France, the 1998 victory was interpreted through the formula « Black-White-Beur ». The diversity of the team was presented as a symbol of a society capable of overcoming its ethnic and cultural divisions. Football can actually expand the representation of « national » giving citizens from migratory trajectories a central and prestigious position.

2. Conditional inclusion

However, this inclusion remains fragile when it depends on performance. The winning minority player is presented as fully French; who loses can be returned to his origin, religion, neighbourhood or supposed lack of loyalty.

3. Sports scapegoat

The collective defeat confronts the group with its impotence. To reduce this frustration, supporters and media are looking for a wrong player, an incompetent coach, a biased referee or a minority supposed to be foreign to the group. The scapegoat turns a complex failure into a simple causality.

Sport does not necessarily create racism; it can provide it with a trigger event, massive visibility and a custom target.

VIFrom popular love to symbolic violence

1. Support him as an imaginary co-owner

The supporter invests time, money and part of his identity in his team. He therefore believes that he holds a moral right over her: the requirement of commitment, courage, fidelity, respect for the jersey and results. The player becomes a hero, but also a symbolic property of the group.

2. Thema after defeat

A winning team is described as brave, generous, supportive and heroic. A defeat team becomes lazy, arrogant, individualistic or unworthy. The sporting result is interpreted as proof of virtue or vice. The crowd turns random failure into moral fault because it is hard to explain or control defeat.

3. Social networks and speeding up judgment

Each action is now commented on, slowed down, extracted, diverted and politicized in real time. Platforms abolish the duration of reflection. A player can receive thousands of support messages and then, after a mistake, suffer a wave of insults and harassment.

• Polarisation of opinions;
• Disinhibition and anonymity;
• Collective harassment;
• Rationalization of criticism;
• Accelerated manufacture of heroes and perpetrators;
• Circulation of conspiracy or nationalist narratives.

VIIThe political recovery of victories

1. Victory as a political capital

A sporting victory produces three scarce resources: massive media attention, a positive emotion and a momentary representation of national unity. The rulers logically seek to associate themselves with it through visits to changing rooms, calls to players, presidential receptions, decorations and speeches about youth and the nation.

This operation involves converting sports capital into political capital.

2. Asymmetric responsibility

When the team wins, power highlights its investments and the strength of sport policy. When she loses, responsibility is transferred to the coach, federation, players, arbitration or bad luck. Power claims the paternity of successes and outsources failures.

3. The mega event as an international prestige

Organizing a World Cup allows a state to present itself as modern, stable, efficient, hospitable and influential. This strategy is a soft power strategy. When it is also intended to divert attention from rights violations or a democratic deficit, it is described as sportswashing.

The effectiveness of this strategy is never automatic. An event improves the visibility of the country, but it can also draw international attention to its controversies, social practices and violations of fundamental rights.

VIIIThe marketing of football

1. A global economy of attention

Football has become one of the most successful industries in attention capture. Its value lies in its ability to bring together a massive, predictable and emotionally engaged audience. This attention is transformed into audiovisual rights, sponsorship, advertising, ticketing, hospitality, derivatives, video games, betting, data and tourism.

2. Inflation of organisational costs

Organizing a World Cup requires considerable expenditure: stadiums, security, transport, telecommunications, fan areas, tourist reception, customs arrangements, urban planning and control technologies. The promoters cite tourism benefits, employment, attractiveness and infrastructure modernisation. Independent analyses, however, suggest a distinction between gross activity, net profit, temporary effects and lasting effects.

3. Who pays and who wins?

4. The dispossession of the popular supporter

The rise in prices, the development of premium services and the transformation of stadiums into commercial spaces are gradually reducing the access of popular categories. The supporter remains indispensable to produce the atmosphere and authenticity of the show, but it may be pushed back to screens and fan areas while the stadium welcomes more solvent customers.

The people produce the culture of football; the market markets access.

IXFootball, social classes and mobility

1. The meritocratic dream

Football is a powerful promise: a child from a modest background could, through talent and work, become a world star. It seems to offer a relatively independent path of ascent to family heritage, diplomas and professional networks.

2. Real but exceptional mobility

For every star, thousands of young people never achieve professionalism. Some neglect their schooling, pay intermediaries, migrate in precarious conditions, undergo brutal selections or leave training centres without qualifications. Visibility of success creates a statistical illusion: the exceptional trajectory seems common because it is constantly shown.

3. The body as capital

For players from modest backgrounds, the body becomes a potential economic capital. But this capital is fragile, perishable, dependent on performance and exposed to injuries. The player is simultaneously subject, wage earner, economic asset, advertising image and object of financial valuation.

XMale, male and social order

Football remains structured by traditional male standards. The good player is expected as a combative, pain-resistant, aggressive but controlled, courageous and loyal to the group. The vocabulary itself reproduces that of war: attack, defense, duel, battle, conquest, sacrifice, captain and victory.

This culture can produce solidarity, discipline and courage. It can also reinforce the rejection of vulnerability, homophobia, stigmatization of weakness, glorification of aggressiveness and marginalization of women in decision-making spaces.

The progress of women's football is gradually challenging this male appropriation. It shows that passion, tactics, competition and national representation are not intrinsically male. However, differences in remuneration, visibility, infrastructure and governance indicate that recognition remains incomplete.

XIFootball as a language of globalization

1. A universal code

A child from Dakar, Rio, Paris, Tokyo or Mexico City can recognize a jersey, a celebration, a great star or a world club. This movement produces a common transnational culture and accompanies economic, media and migration globalization.

2. Globalized clubs and national teams

Club football is based on the international mobility of players, capital, sponsors and supporters. The national team relies on citizenship, origin, territory, flag and anthem. The World Cup thus reintroduces symbolic boundaries into a highly globalized industry.

Players playing all year in the same clubs suddenly become adversaries on behalf of different nations. This tension between the world market and the national imagination is one of the structural contradictions of contemporary football.

XIIAfrica and football: pride, projection and dependency

1. An exceptional symbolic power

In Africa, national selections are often higher than local clubs. They help to project national dignity, youth, creativity and recognition on the world stage. A performance can produce pride well beyond the usual amateur circle.

2. Victory as postcolonial revenge

When an African selection confronts an old colonial power or a large western nation, the meeting can be given historical significance. Supporters can see revenge, symbolic reparation, a demonstration of equality or an affirmation of sovereignty.

3. The Paradox of Sports Dependence

African selections largely depend on players trained in Europe, employed by European clubs and valued in international markets. The continent provides a high-quality human resource, but does not always master the value chains surrounding its training, financing and marketing.

Africa produces a share of talent; the transformation and capture of value are still largely carried out elsewhere.

4. Political use of victories

In some countries, victory is used to divert attention from a crisis, strengthen patriotism, rehabilitate unpopular power, or build an image of presidential proximity. Spectacular rewards for players can coexist with insufficient basic infrastructure. This punctual generosity often reflects a symbolic policy rather than a structured sport policy.

XIIISports betting: a new popular football economy

Merchandising now turns it into a bet. Each phase of the match becomes an opportunity to bet: score, scorer, cards, corners, intermediate result. Supporter no longer only looks at his team; it monitors variables with which it has associated a financial interest.

Football is simultaneously becoming entertainment, a simplified financial product and a mechanism for capturing popular income. Vulnerable populations are particularly exposed, as the promise of rapid gains joins the dream of social ascent already carried by sport.

Coherent regulation requires the control of advertising, the protection of minors, deposit ceilings, the prevention of addiction, the transparency of operators, the limitation of partnerships with clubs and the fight against the manipulation of meetings.

XIVWorld Cup 2026: a new stage in hyperindustrialization

The 2026 edition marks a break in scale: 48 teams, 104 meetings, three countries and 16 host cities. This continental architecture combines the expansion of sports representation and the expansion of commercial profitability.

1. A Continental Tournament

Considerable distances reinforce logistical challenges, travel costs, dependence on air transport, and differences in accessibility between supporters and the environmental footprint.

2. Greater sports inclusion

The increase in the number of teams allows more nations to participate. It diversifys national narratives, increases the visibility of emerging federations and extends the geographical representation of the tournament.

3. Greater profitability

Each additional meeting constitutes audiovisual content, an advertising inventory, a ticketing opportunity, a sponsorship activation, a data source and a tourist event. Sports inclusion and commercial expansion are progressing together.

4. A universal but socially selective celebration

The tournament can be universal through its broadcast and remain selective in its physical access. The combined cost of tickets, transport and accommodation reserves the direct experience to a relatively solvent portion of the public.

XVWhat victory reveals

Victory not only produces joy; It reveals the symbolic needs of a society. An exceptional fervour may indicate a lack of unity, a demand for recognition, a need for heroes, social frustration or a willingness to believe in collective success.

The more public life is dominated by distrust and pessimism, the more the victory appears as a repairing event. It seems to prove that the country can succeed, that citizens can unite, that diversity can work and that collective effort can produce a result.

The company sometimes asks eleven players to produce the unit that its institutions fail to create sustainably.

XVIWhat defeat reveals

The defeat shows that intolerance has failed, the need for culprits, the fragility of unity, the persistence of racism, the violence of expectations and the difficulty of accepting randomity.

When defeat reactivates prejudice, it shows that the previous communion had not removed the fractures: it had only suspended them. The rapid shift from heroism to humiliation indicates that the team had an impossible mission: to ensure the collective esteem of an entire population.

XVIICan football really unite a society?

Yes, but within specific limits. Football can produce an encounter between social groups, a common narrative, positive visibility of diversity, shared pride and collective memories. It alone cannot reduce structural discrimination, correct economic inequalities, resolve identity tensions or replace a policy of integration.

Victory acts as an emotional developer and accelerator, not as a social reform. The formula « Black-White-Beur » Could express a real moment of optimism; it became illusory when it made a sporting result proof that discrimination was resolved.

XVIIIFor socially responsible football governance