Why doesn't the United States dominate soccer internationally...and how can it?
Which is the best soccer nation on Earth?
Who has the most passionate fans?
What impact does soccer have on suicide rates?
Which sport will dominate the Earth? NFL or the English Premier League?
Why are the people who run soccer clubs so dumb?
These are some of the questions that every soccer fanatic has asked. Soccernomics answers them. Written with an economist's brain and a sports writer's skill, it applies high-powered analytical tools to everyday soccer topics, looking at data in new ways, revealing counterintuitive truths about the world's most loved game. It all adds up to a revolutionary way of looking at soccer that could affect the way the game is played internationally.
Simon Kuper’s first book,
Soccer Against the Enemy, won the William Hill Prize for sports book of the year in Britain. His second book,
Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Football in Europe During the Second World War, was shortlisted for the William Hill Prize and has been translated into six languages. Kuper writes a weekly sports column in the
Financial Times, and previously written Soccer columns for the
Times and in the
Observer. He has been interviewed hundreds of times on radio about sports-and-society issues, and many times on television. In December 2007 he won the annual Manuel Vazquez Montalban prize for sportswriting, awarded by the Colegio de Periodistas de Catalunya and FC Barcelona’s foundation. He lives in Paris, France.
Stefan Szymanski is Professor of Economics and MBA Dean at Cass Business School in London. Tim Harford has called him ?one of the world’s leading sports economists”. Stefan has a global reputation, and has published in the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Literature and Economic Journal. He has also co-authored two books: Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football and National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer. His next book, Fans of the World; Unite!, co-authored with Steve Ross and dealing with the reform of US sports leagues, will be published by Stanford University Press in autumn 2008. He has acted as a consultant to government and to several major sports organizations, such as the FIA (motor sport), UEFA (football) and ICC (cricket). He lives in London, UK.