FOOTNOTES: The Anthropology of Football

From players using ChatGPT to negotiate £20,000 bonuses to clubs seeding synthetic fanbases to manufacture 24/7 hype, are we moving toward a version of the game that is perfectly optimised but emotionally hollow? 

Football has always been a game of follow the leader. From formations like 4-4-2 to the uptake of pressing, we’ve spent a century copying the best human managers. But for how much longer will the leader be human? This episode of FOOTNOTES looks at how clubs are already using AI, how these could be used to find gaps in the game that no human coach can see, and why Elon Musk’s Neuralink might be the...

With Trump’s talk of a US annexation of Greenland wreaking havoc, the ‘Boycott 2026’ movement is picking up steam.  But the truth is, FIFA doesn’t really care if your country doesn’t show up.  This episode looks at why the 2026 tournament is basically ‘boycott-proof.’  I look at two historical examples of World Cup walkouts to show why this kind of moral posturing usually backfires - punishing the...

In tennis, they call for silence. In golf, they hold their breath. In football? We call it “atmosphere”. But where do we actually draw the line? This episode of FOOTNOTES looks at the dark arts of football fandom, where supporters take their role as the 12th man to the extreme.  From the neon lasers of AFCON to the pepper spray of La Bombonera, this episode asks why football is the only sport wher...

Would you sell your blood to keep your football club alive? In Berlin, this isn't just a figure of speech. Back in 2004, supporters of FC Union Berlin literally sold their plasma to pay the club’s registration fees. Years later, they showed up with cement mixers to put in 140,000 hours of unpaid manual labour just to save their stadium from crumbling. This episode of FOOTNOTES looks at the "shared...

What happens when a couple hundred sunburnt Englishmen invade a sterile football match? This episode is inspired by a strange Sunday afternoon at AAMI Park when the Barmy Army hijacked a Melbourne City vs. Perth Glory fixture. They didn't know the players' names, but they owned the stadium for 90 minutes, proving that the true "product" of football isn't always the 22 men on the pitch. This episod...

The FIFA World Cup likes to present itself as a celebration for football fans everywhere. But as the 2026 tournament in the US, Canada and Mexico approaches, the question for many supporters isn’t Do I want to go? It’s Can I? In this episode, I use World Cup 2026 as a starting point to look at who has actually been able to travel to World Cups over time, who hasn’t. From Uruguay 1930 to Brazil 195...