Soccer Fever Grows

For many months now radio stations in the Federal Republic of Germany have been reminding: ‘It is just 100 [or another number of] days to the World Cup.’ Businesses have been offering customers who purchase their merchandise an opportunity to win an all-expense-paid trip to Argentina for the games. About 150 fans from Scotland are making the trip in an unusual way​—by submarine.

The vast majority of fans, of course, will be watching the games on television. German TV, for instance, will show two or three games live on each of the 12 days of play. Other games will receive delayed coverage. During the 1974 World Cup, there were some 92 hours of soccer on German TV!

During the games in 1974, factories closed. Religious organizations adjusted meeting times so as not to conflict with the games. In Rio de Janeiro, criminal activities in the city reportedly hit an all-time low. In Zaïre, bus drivers abandoned their vehicles as their nation’s team took the field. In Rome, negotiations to restore the dying government were disrupted when leaders walked out to watch the games.

Soccer is at last becoming popular in the United States. Last August 14 a sellout crowd of 77,691 packed New Jersey’s Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands for a game. A major factor in this upsurge of popularity are the many famous players who have come to the United States, being lured by huge salaries. The New York Cosmos, for example, paid Brazil’s Pele $4.75 million to play for three years, and Franz Beckenbauer, who led Germany to the world championship in 1974, $3 million for four years. But what promises to make soccer a permanent major sport in the U.S. is the fact that it is catching on at the “grass roots” level. Some 5,000 high schools and 700 colleges now have teams.

The German magazine Der Spiegel said of the 1974 world soccer championship: “At least one billion persons​—from Santiago to Sofia, from Helsinki to Hobart—​are expected to be in front of their television screens for the final game.”

One billion persons! That is a quarter of the world’s population​—nearly five times the population of the United States! As Der Spiegel observed: “That is more than ever bowed their heads in the direction of Mecca at prayer time. And all the Christian churches put together have never been able to gather that many believers to their altars at one time, not even at Christmas.”

Yes, soccer is by far the world’s favorite sport. Up to 200,000 and more persons have attended a single game. “There is scarcely a subject in this country that people feel so strongly about,” notes Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. And now soccer fever is again rising rapidly, since the world soccer championship is on the line.

World Cup 1978

The attention of hundreds of millions of soccer fans is now focused on Argentina. There, during this month of June, 38 games are being played to decide who will win the World Cup, symbol of international soccer supremacy. Every four years the World Cup games are held, with a different country hosting them each time.

The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of soccer, is the sponsor of the World Cup. More than 140 nations are FIFA members. The World Cup games were first held in 1930, and they have since become the world’s most popular sports event, with the possible exception of the Olympic Games.