Comments on: From Soccer to Politics

By: pearl

pearl — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:25:07 +0000

Turks wish he would stay as a football player and not deal with politics.

By: kerope ondronik

kerope ondronik — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:45:29 +0000

Turkish PM, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an had played for Kas?mpasa Sk in Turkey in his youth. He was abut to be transferred to the Turkish giant football team Fenerbahçe before he quit playing.

Sometimes Turks wish he would stay as a football player and not deal with politics.

By: Ignacio Sanchez

Ignacio Sanchez — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 05:05:58 +0000

I seem to remember having read that Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police) was an avid soccer player and I believe played semi-pro before moving on to other things

By: Jason.Burke,Murphy

Jason.Burke,Murphy — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:16:08 +0000

Lillian Thuram has said quite a bit about the violence in France’s “suburbs”. Many have speculated that he could have a political career, though it can be hard to enter a French party any higher than an “entry-level”, which is usually as a student.

By: seanachie

seanachie — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:06:57 +0000

It was brought to my attention today that former Milan and Italy great Gianni Rivera, who played in the 1970 World Cup final, was an MP in his home country and served as an under-secretary for defence in Romano Prodi’s first government. He is currently an MEP with the centre-left Olive Tree alliance.

By: John

John — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:37:13 +0000

George Weah is the most high profile player in Liberia and a lot of soccer fans still remember his outstanding service to the country.

Forget about the education. If he has the charisma and character to do the job, why not? If he can call on militants to put down arms, again why not?

By: Around the Soccersphere: November 10, 2007 — ThroughBall.com

Around the Soccersphere: November 10, 2007 — ThroughBall.com — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:01:10 +0000

[...] Soccer and politics really are inextricably bound [Culture of Soccer] [...]

By: seanachie

seanachie — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:09:08 +0000

Former French international (and still Paris Sain-Germain joint-top all-time goalscorer with Pauleta) Dominique Rocheteau never stood for election, but he is a life-long member of the French Communist Party and is currently head of the French Football Federation’s Ethics Committee.

One Labour MP, Brian Quinn, has just been replaced by another – the iron-fisted former Home Secretary John Reid – as Chairman of Celtic. Former Northern Ireland international Derek Dougan has stood for election for the Liberal, non-sectarian Alliance Party, while County Meath Gaelic Footballer Graham Geraghty – who once played a trial game with Arsenal – has been a parliamentary candidate for the centre-right Fine Gael party.

There has, of course, been no shortage of politically-minded footballers, on both sides of the divide. Legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was, like many Scottish footballers, a lifelong socialist and his most famous quote ‘football’s not a matter of life and death – it’s much more important than that’ has long been taken out of context by pedantic dullards; his tongue was firmly in his cheek when he said it.

Interestingly, most Argentines I know, have a loathing for Bilardo, considering both his style and personality fascist, while viewing the flamboyant chain-smoking manager of the 1978 side César Menotti, as a dogged left-wing opponent of the then military junta. How true that is, I’m not sure.

A great book on football and politics is Simon Kuper’s Football Against the Enemy, though it’s rather thin on football-playing politicians.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:38:39 +0000

Interesting stuff. The relative scarcity of former footballers in the ranks of successful politicians is surprising given the enormous importance so many former players have in their respective national cultures. There seem to be more people associated with football who choose to exert political influence in more roundabout ways, like Tostao with his newspaper column in Brazil, or Roman Abramovich with his money–I mean, with his deep spiritual kinship with Vladimir Putin.

After reading this post, I remembered a report that effectively answered the opposite question: why don’t more politicians become footballers? From the UEFA website, here’s the account of a match played by members of the British House of Commons against a group of UEFA administrators. It ended 4-2 to UEFA. No bookings were issued.

http://www.uefa.com/uefa/keytopics/kind=32768/newsid=552993.html