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when we left OSRA about the World Cup, England had finally won the trophy in 1966, beating West Germany at Wembley in a final heavy with memories of war, of empire and decline. But that victory wasn't the end of the story. Afway, in many ways it was the last great World cup of the old order, European imperial and still controlled by men who assumed that football belonged to them.
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Then came Mexico. 1970, the first World cup held outside Europe and South America, the first broadcast in color to a truly global audience. And the tournament that turned Brazil into something more than a team.
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I grew up watching the videos of this and the team of Brazil was just incredible. Pele, Jesinho, Tostao Rivellinho, Carlos Alperto. All my Brazilian friends will be telling me how great I am on my Brazilian pronunciations. They were a side that showed that the world's football wasn't just going to be written in London or Romeo Berlin, but it showed that people play games for a reason and it's to have fun. And watching that team play was absolutely spectacular. And the Mexico World cup in 1970 summarized everything about why it's the world's beautiful game.
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So would you say that before that it wasn't so fun? Did the England team not like have fun fun while they were playing? It was more like a serious business.
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I'm sure that they did, but it was the way that they played without sort of consequence. They were just attack. It was just the way in which the team played. And I think it helped that it was in color. It helped that it was being televised from a different part of the world. I wasn't born when it happened, but it was the World cup that I kept being shown when I was a boy about this is what football looked like. But it also brought a new kind of politics. The 1970s African nations demanding proper representation. Like we talked about last time, afwa, apartheid has South Africa becoming a Sporting pariah. Joao, have a lunge. Realizing that the votes of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean could also transform FIFA.
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And they weren't the only ones realizing the potential to influence FIFA. Dictators were onto it too. From Brazil's military regime to Argentina's junta in 1978, football could be used to project unity, power and legitimacy, even while off the pitch violence and repression were rampant.
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So this episode, we're going to follow the World cup from Pele to Franz Beckenbauer, from Mexico in 1970 to Germany in 1974, through decolonization, dictatorship, apartheid, television, money, and the rise of the global football machine.
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Because if the post war World cup showed the empire no longer owned football, the 1970s showed something even bigger. Everyone wanted to control it.
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Hello and welcome to a new episode of Legacy. I'm Peter Frankopan.
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I'm AFWA Hersh.
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And this is Legacy, the show that explores the lives, events and ideas that have shaped our world and asks whether they have the reputations that they truly deserve.
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This is the World cup and the new World Order.
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Thanks for joining us on Legacy today to support the show. Please do sign up to us at Legacy.
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Plus, it really does make a difference for you to subscribe. Support the show and in return, you'll get early access, fewer ads, Q&As, bonus content. Like, when we talk about the legacy of the escalator, we also talk about remote controls, how they have changed, how we live, what we eat, where we buy, even. Even what we look like. And we get special guests to come and help explain the world to us.
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So sign up please, at Legacy supportingcast fm, and get to know and love me at AFWA even more than you already do. And so afwa, we've talked in the first couple of episodes in this series about race and decolonization. But in the 1970s, these things, they sharpen rather than soften. So we got South Africa joining FIFA in 1952, but facing increasing criticism because apartheid meant separate football associations for whites, for Africans, for Cape Colored, as they're called, and other communities too. How does South Africa fit into the architecture of this changing world? Digging in while everybody else is liberating?
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Well, it doesn't. It's a pariah. It's totally out of step with the entire shift of global consciousness. In 1961, South Africa is suspended from FIFA, but then it's reinstated in 1963. Then it's suspended again in 1964, and by 1976, it will be formally expelled. So football, alongside other sports, especially cricket and rugby, is another front in the struggle against racial segregation. And in South Africa's struggle to continue racial segregation.
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We talked about Nkrumah and the role he plays in getting the Black stars as an instrument for forging unity across Ghana, which is this enormous country effort where although it's one people, the ethnicities, the languages, the regional loyalties within the country, it's, you know, it's an empire of its own, right? It's giant symbols of diversities. But the black stars in Ghana used as a symbol of Africa's wide emancipation. So Nkrumah attends matches regularly. He cultivates close relationship with officials as well as with players. He gets state resources dedicated towards the game, like investing in stadiums, improving training facilities and supporting overseas tours. He brings in coaches and expertise from abroad, while Ghanaian players are encouraged to think of themselves not only as representatives of a former British colony or even of Ghana, but as ambassadors of a new Africa.
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This is a really important era in West Africa because it's not only the era of newly won independence, but it's also an era of economic boom. Ghana, which was practically a monoculture for cocoa, its major exports, pork crop, was enjoying record high cocoa prices. So increments first years were this story of building, investing, nation building, identity forming. And he was able to put state funds into these projects. And that, of course, would completely turn when the cocoa price collapsed. So in many ways, this is the early high points of African football. And we'll see that story follow the cycle of economic and political turmoil throughout the second half of the 20th century. But initially it is such a good news story. Ghana wins. Well, good news for me because I've got it. Ghana wins the African cup of nations on home soil in 1963, defeating Sudan 30 in the final. And it retains the trophy in Tunisia in 1965, beating the hosts 32 after extra time. And the Black Stars also reach the football final at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. They represent Africa at the 1964 and and 1968 Olympics. And these players, like Wilberforce Mfum and Ose Kofi become continental stars not just in Ghana, but across the whole of Africa. And the Africa cup itself, which had started with just three participants in 1957, is steadily expanding. Ethiopia hosts and wins the tournament in 1962, and its trajectory follows the rising tide of decolonization. By 1968, it has eight teams, and by the end of the 1960s, it's a symbol of African identity and unity. And it's one of the reasons that these teams cemented themselves into the global footballing imagination. And the Africa cup of nations, we just had one last year in Morocco, is still a tournament that many people with no direct African connection watch and follow because there are so many incredible players. Many of them play in the Premier League and other important leagues around the world. But also because, as you were saying in our last episode, Peter, because the teams, the fans are so joyous, so colorful, so creative in their expressions of support and national pride, that it's just an incredible spectacle to watch.
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Yeah, I mean, we watched it religiously watching Senegal and, you know, and the final was. It was an absolute showstopper this, this time because it was mired in all sorts of controversy, but the joy of watching top class sport played so fantastically well, you know, it's just, it's. It's incredible. What's interesting about our story, we're going to talk about Jo Havelange in the next episode as well. But there's. There's a catalyst that helps transform global football and it's quite important, I think, to. To reflect on. On exactly how that happened. So have A Lunar is a wealthy Brazilian businessman and he's a former Olympic swimmer. And he grasped something that the European establishment doesn't grasp. He recognizes that decolonisation has transformed football's electorate. So, as we said in the first episode, in 1946, FIFA had 51 members. That goes up to 120 by 1960s. By 1974, they're 141. And most of these new votes come from countries in Africa and Asia and the Caribbean that have become independent. So he promises to do avalanche what Stanley Rouse and the old European leadership not only won't do, don't even understand that they should be thinking about it. So he promises, if he gets elected head of FIFA, more places at the World cup, more development money coming from tournaments to help grassroots football, and greater recognition for the newly independent world. And so he starts to travel relentlessly through Africa and Asia, presenting himself as the candidate in the future. And in many ways, his campaign resembles the diplomacy of the Non Aligned Movement. He's accepted because he's from Brazil, so he's not part of the old world, he's part of something new. And he's promising a vision of high levels of inclusivity and is speaking to preaching to the converted.
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But before Havalande's revolution, there is perhaps the most important World cup of all. So when we come back after the break, we are going to look at what is still regarded as one of the greatest of all tournaments, the World cup of 1970 in Mexico City.
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So Mexico 1970 is the first time the World cup is ever staged outside Europe and South America, and it's the first one broadcast globally in color. People can see their teams. You didn't grow up with this halfway, but the commentator's voice that's being carried on the radio airways to sync up with the TV pictures too. And more than any previous competition, it shows the importance of TV and global audiences. The whole world watches this all together and even the choice of Mexico as the host carries huge symbolic significance because it's the first time the World cup left at traditional Heartlands and FIFA's rejected Argentina's bid and awarded it to Mexico in a decision that reflects the fact that the world's geography in football is changing. It does signal that football does realize that something larger than than the Atlantic World exists and has given birth to it. And it's time to do something very different. And one of the things Afro is about the climate of Mexico. That's one of the reasons why it's so visually exciting to watch on the TV too.
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Mexico is completely different from previous tournaments because the atmosphere is different, the weather is completely alternative. Instead of the gray skies and restrained settings of Northern Europe, you've got this glorious sunshine, bright, bright blue Sky. And then on top of that, you've got color tv, so audiences can see the sunshine. They can enjoy the colorful opening ceremonies, the sombreros, folk dancing, the celebration that comes with this kind of sunny culture. And it creates a warmth that really brings in not just the players, but the supporters, the fans and the global audiences, too.
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And players and the supporters, they respond to that warmth, too. The cities like Mexico City and Guadalajara, the festive atmosphere, the ability to go walk around these places and have fan zones where you're not going to get rained on or get cold. It really does feel like a global carnival. And, you know, the mariachi bands, people getting familiar with Mexican culture and food and music, you know, it's so important to show the different perspectives of how people do things. And like you said, Afro, the blue skies and the sunshine, you know, it's. It's just a joy. But Europeans complain about it. They complain it's too hot. They complain that the altitude of Mexico City is too high. And critics attack FIFA having chosen Mexico, saying they didn't do it for sporting reasons, but because of politics or commercial interests. Well, that's not really the last time that ever happens. But the tournament itself, Afro gets touched by scandals. And I suppose if you're. If you're positive, anything that gets in the newspapers elevates the visibility, whether it's David Beckham's sarong in later World Cups or the wags at the World cup held in Germany, but in this case, the Tainter scandal that dominates the front pages of the papers in England.
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This is so British. I mean, think of all the crimes you could commit or be accused of committing in Bogota, Colombia, like some major criminal activity. But that's not what the England captain Bobby Moore is accused of. He is accused of stealing a bracelet from a jewelry shop. And if that sounds like a minor offense, it is, and he's also cleared of it eventually, but not before weeks of diplomatic and legal drama. The British press portray him as the victim of this elaborate setup that's motivated by these nefarious political or commercial motives. But it's actually one of the strangest episodes in World cup history.
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Peter it's one of those odd ones, but in a way, it sort of says it all. It shows that the world is a strange and difficult place where corruption is everywhere and no one is beyond suspicion. You know, Bobby Moore, one of the greatest players ever to have lived and, you know, extraordinary captain of the World cup team in 1966, too. But his tussle on the field with pele is seen as one of the great personal rivalries and as gladiators fighting each other to a standstill. Exceptional. But on the field during this World cup, you can see the old order starting to weaken. So Peru reaches the quarterfinals under their Brazilian coach, Didi, and play some of the most attractive football at the tournament. And again their team reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. Source a huge pride for Peru and for Andean cultures. Mexico reaches the quarterfinals for the first time. Uruguay reaches the semifinals, again demonstrating the extraordinary resilience of a country with fewer than 3 million inhabitants. And therefore we're not going to talk about, or not yet anywhere about Uruguay denying Ghana a place in the semifinals a few years ago, when, for the width of a couple of licks of paint on the crossbar, Ghana would have made it the semifinals instead of Uruguay. But this is a time when new empires are investing in sport. The Soviet Union develops a huge interest in expressions of soft power to go with its hard power, pouring money and expertise into sports of all kind, particularly the Olympics. But into football, they do better with the Olympics, not least thanks to the use of performance enhancing drugs. But they spend a lot of time and money on football too. And some of that is about presenting an image to the outside world. But there's internal consumption too. I mean, the Soviet Union, you mentioned that last time Afro we spoke, it's made up of 15 constituent republics. So where the players come from, what that shows about ethnicity's inclusivity in a society that's supposed to be multi ethnic and multi tolerant and highly tolerant, which is a long way from the reality. But it offers an opportunity to show unity at home. Soviet Union reached the quarterfinals before being knocked out by that mighty mighty mouse, Uruguay too. But still African nations struggle to get the finals.
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Morocco becomes the first African nation to qualify since Egypt in 1934. That's a massive gap in African representation. And it's still only the second African representative in in World cup history. And although Morocco fails to progress in this World cup, just the fact of their arrival on football's greatest stage is a big story. And you could say as well that the fact that 1970 belongs to Brazil has a good dose of African pride in it, because more enslaved Africans were trafficked to Brazil than to any other country on earth. And to many people, brilliant. Brazil is kind of an African country too.
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And then they're players, you know, I mentioned them already, you know, Pele, Jazinho, Tosto Rivellinho, Carlos Alberto. When you look at the highlights, real Lafuer and you, you need to do that. I'm sure you've done that as your research already, but if you haven't, I will send you a link. Each match they play, each goal, it's just an absolute joy. The magical skills these players have, the way they connect, the way they play to each other, the way they can read where they are on the pitch. It is just seeing sport played in a kind of new level by kind of by gods, you know, you can't imagine that would be ever played that well. And Brazil defeat Czechoslovakia for one. They beat England in one of the group stages in a match only by 1 nil, but remembered for probably the greatest save, or certainly the most famous save ever. Gordon Banks diving to his right to push Pele's towering header over the bar. And then that battle between Pele and Bobby Moore ended, ending in handshakes, and the two mighty warriors recognizing each other's abilities. And then in one of the great matches in World cup history, destroying Italy 4:1 in the final with one goal more spectacular than the other. But there is a profound symbolism to the identity of the semi finalists to say on their own. So you have Brazil and Uruguay and Peru representing Latin America, and only Italy for Europe. So the fact that three of the world's four best teams in 1970 come from outside the continent, that has invented, codified the modern game, it shows that the world is also changing. Tell me about what happens in Brazil, the response to the game.
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I actually, I have watched that Brazilian team and it's. I don't know much about football, but it's like they're dancing. I mean, the way they play it. And you know, you can watch other teams who are technically competent, and you can kind of see all the component parts of their game. But when you watch that Brazilian team, you. All you can see see is it just flows, it just looks beautiful. If you know nothing about football, I challenge you to watch that and not find it enticing to watch. It's just gorgeous. And it creates something that is really bigger than the sum of its parts, because obviously in Brazil, it's a huge deal. Millions pour into the streets. Pele becomes perhaps the most famous athlete on earth. And the celebrations have the backing, of course, of the military regime of Medici, who'd ruled since 1960 at that point. But Brazil is not a free country, and there are so many political prisoners in jail. There's torture, there's censorship. So it's. It's a complex victory because in a way, it is giving Hope to people who are under a military regime. But it's also papering over the cracks and allowing people to gloss over the brutal reality of life in Brazil at that time. But then also it creates this global sensation around Brazil. And, you know, if you've ever seen people or if you've ever worn a Brazilian T shirt or clothes with a Brazilian flag, this kind of brand, Brazil, Brazil is this icon of global culture, I think stems from this 1970 World cup team. It's becoming an iconic nation because it has something magical about the way it plays football. And I think that's never gone away. You know, much as in this World cup so far, we're speaking at an early stage. The Brazilian team is not looking like the most promising Brazilian team ever. Certainly no rival to 1970. But Brazil has cemented itself into our imaginations, I think, for generations to come.
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It all takes time.
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Yeah.
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I mean, this is the time where Brazil is the third World cup out of four that Brazil have won. And that you can't argue with. That's the thing about sport. You can't argue with those kinds of statistics. But like you said, afraid people looking at the Brazil team, they tend to look past quite quickly what's happening in Brazil itself, where political prisoners are in jail and newspapers are being censored. Torture is pretty widespread. And also past the fact that Brazil's government uses this as proof of national unity and greatness. So they keep using the slogan este pais. No one can stop this country, which kind of captures the mood. One of the things that's funny about Brazil is because no one pays attention to its politics. No one really hears that outside Brazil. So it has domestic consumption, but it doesn't really make any difference for anybody else in the world because Brazil, like lots of countries, including many of those who become independent, are still peripheral on the pages of daily newspapers in New York or London or Paris, because it's obvious that they're just not important. So you're right. Europeans have looked at Brazil as being exotic, undisciplined, and racially mixed in ways that seem to be very suspicious. But by 1970, they're the most admired team in the world precisely because of that society. So when we come back, we're going to look at the 1974 World cup and see what that tells us, too, about the changing world football and how political overlordship and propaganda plays such an important part in this shaping of the new world order.
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By 1974, the post colonial revolution has reached football itself. The previous three decades have seen empires collapse. Dozens of new states emerge across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. These countries have joined the United nations and eventually they've also joined FIFA. So FIFA goes from 51 members in 1946 to 141 members in 1974. It's almost tripled in size. And that means the old European powers no longer have any control over the numbers. The balance of power is shifting and you can see that transformation on the pitch because in 1974 West Germany hosts the tournament. But probably the most talked about participants are Zaire. Zaire, which has only been independent from Belgium at that stage since 1960, and now is the first team from what's often called sub Saharan Africa, Black Africa, to qualify for a World Cup. And it is governed then by President Mobutu Sese Seko, who is a pretty brutal military dictator. And he embraces the leopard as the symbol of his program, nationwide program, authenticity, which is a kind of spin on Pan Africanism. And I struggle to really credit him with Pan Africanism, because Pan Africanism is antithetical to brutally oppressing your subjects, but it does reject colonial influences and project promote this idea of Africanness. And it's so interesting, Peters, we are recording in 2026, the DRC team has come full circle and is now once again entering a World cup with these leopard skin skin outfits. So they've kind of reached back to the iconography and the imagery of that era. And in 1974, the players abandoned European names and adopt African names. So their qualification for the World cup is taken as a symbolic act of resistance against the ongoing legacy of colonial ideas. And it is embraced by Africans and people of African descent everywhere. And again, this is such a common story in football. Sometimes the actual result on the pitch is secondary to the story of the players and the whole image they project. And I would liken that actually in this World Cup a bit to Haiti, who are massive underdogs. I mean, Haiti is a failed state as we're speaking, you know, it's never been in a worse state. It is suffering politically, economically, humanitarian situation is absolutely dire. But this incredible designer, Stella Jean, has created these kits and outfits for Haiti that have completely swept the fashion world by storm. And it's made people rally around the Haitian story in a way that whatever happens on the pitch will never be able to change the way Haiti has announced itself on the world stage.
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And that's so important. I mean, we talked the very first episode of the series about teens from all over the world staying in college towns across the United States of people learning about countries and cultures they never heard about before. You know, Haiti has long struggled with its challenges about being able to address their identity in the United States, not least with Donald Trump's categorization, racialization of what he thinks Haitians are, what they do. So it's true that Haiti's results on the pitch are not great. They lose all their three matches. But what happens off the pitch far outweighs the importance of those results. The image of a black African team competing on football's greatest stage marks another important departure from these overwhelmingly only European tournaments. And like you said, afwa, it's the second time that there's been an African team coming to play in the World cup at all. And the fact that that's the case is just extraordinary. There are other geopolitical tensions that reflect this time of 1974 too, of different kinds of empires that again, we don't tend to categorize often when we look at things from the west, we tend to think about the legacies of Western European empires. But those in the east too are pronounced in particular because of the Soviet Union and it's and the Warsaw Pact. How about East Germany Afro and how they played in this tournament in 1974.
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East Germany qualify in this World cup for the first and only time and they defeat their capitalist Neighbors, West Germany 1 nil, thanks to a goal by Jurgen Sparwasser. It is such a symbolic moment because this is the height of the Cold War. East Germany is by every definition an underdog against West Germany. It's also, of course, being weaponized by its communist leaders as one of the Warsaw Pact states who want to use this victory as proof of the superiority of socialism and who want to max out the embarrassment to West Germany of this defeat. It's a bit of a short lived period of gloating, though, because West Germany ultimately goes on to win the whole tournament, defeating the Netherlands 21 in the final in Munich. So you can see how desperate the gdr, East Germany is to take advantage of anything it can use to suggest that it's doing better than West Germany because the reality is that its population is still trying to flee to the west in droves under the repressive Soviet regime.
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That's exactly right. And I think that those symbols of the victory against West Germany gets used for the next decade as a sign that East Germany doesn't just compete, but can defeat. And even though, as you mentioned, West Germany go on to win, a fantastic team of people like Paul Breitner, Gerd Muller and Franz Beckenbauer, of course, winning the final in Munich, the fact that they beat the Dutch is itself interesting because although these are two European teams, of course, the Dutch are reinventing how they think about themselves in a country that has once been a major colonial power and now is trying to find different ways of presenting the fact it's still alive and well and capable of producing ideas and culture and innovation back at home rather than empire. I spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and hugely impressed by how the Dutch culture, how Dutch people think about inclusivity and about progress. It's very different to how we do things here in Britain. And their great symbol is Johann Cruyff. A very thoughtful. Well, a brilliant footballer, but very thoughtful man. Clever, intelligent. I mean, a bit of a heavy smoker too, but they inspire people because they present as underdogs. It's a small population, the Dutch, but they play in this incredible way too. They become like the Brazil of Europe, not being afraid to attack, but off the field. Afra, another important battle is unfolding. We've mentioned Stanley Rouse, the Englishman who embodies the old establishment before. Tell me a bit about what's happening in the battle to reshape the game off the pitch.
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A former referee and very committed traditionalist, Rouse believed football should stand above politics. And we see that sometimes in football today, this narrative, that it's an apolitical space. You should be able to leave politics outside and just enjoy the game. My critique of that, Peter, is that there is no such thing as an apolitical space space. And Rous is a brilliant example. His idea of keeping politics out of football was to maintain relations with apartheid South Africa. Now, black South Africans who were excluded, oppressed and segregated by apartheid would probably think that endorsing the South African regime was a very political thing for Raus to do. But to many newly independent countries, he represented this very paternalistic, outdated world that was preserving the status quo and kind of Gaslighting everyone who knew that that had a politics of its own. So into that space steps a very different character. Peter, we've mentioned Joao Havalange from Brazil before, but his backstory itself is fascinating. He is the son of a Belgian arms dealer who emigrated to Rio, and he himself was an Olympic swimmer who competed in Berlin in 1936. And his background, his life experience, gives him a very different lens on football, on what decolonization means for the future of the game, and what the role of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, all of the nations outside Europe should be in this transformed football world stage.
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Yeah. And football writers, historians, journalists. It can often be cynical, and rightly so, about whether when people rise to the top of organizations, it's because they want to accumulate power for their own good. Havalange is not without his own controversies, but he understands what it takes to become elected in the first place. So he travels around the developing world, he promises more World cup places, investment in youth tournaments, coaching programs, financial assistance, and his message resonates with countries that long felt marginalized. And the South Africa issue that you mentioned, Afro, is a particularly important one, because newly independent African states, they start to insist that apartheid is incompatible with international sport. And for South Africa to still be within the family of football nations, they think it's unforgivable. And they argue that FIFA doesn't have the spine or the backbone to make difficult decisions. At that decisive moment comes at the FIFA congress in Frankfurt in June 1974. It was probably one of the most consequential elections in sporting history, where Haverlodge defeats Rous by 68 votes to 52. And the result doesn't just represent a change of leadership. It marks the end of nearly 70 years of European dominance over world football administration. So perhaps the first time since the game had been probably codified in Victorian England, the center of gravity has shifted. And it's largely because Havalanche owes his victory to the support of Africa, of Asia, and of the Caribbean nations, and that newly independent world that has discovered that its numbers matter. Decolonization reaches FIFA in a way that doesn't just affect the game of football. It affects the way in which decolonized countries think about solidarities and alignments between each other.
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But this is also a parallel for the story of decolonization, that under Avalanche, we're seeing FIFA decolonize in the sense that it's finally taking seriously the participation of nations that were colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. But then we're seeing the rise of A new, different kind of empire within the sport. And I would say that the era of corporate power, corporate sponsorships of Adidas, Coca Cola, these giant companies that now start to wield huge influence through their role, is now beginning. And you know, I think that is a metaphor for the way that we have seen imperialism shift from these formal political control from Westminster or Paris into these big global conglomerates, many of them American. And they are now entering the stage for the future of football. That is also a future where television rights and revenues become hugely lucrative, where countries that stood on the margins can benefit in a way from these commercial opportunities. In a sense that can be quite democratizing. But at the same time, there is no democratic accountability, even within the problematic structures of FIFA, for how these corporate entities are entering the game. So after 1974, we are into a completely new era in football. And that is one we are going to explore more. Peter in the next episode.
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Yeah, join us next time. We're going to talk about the World cup and the age of dictators. We're going to do an episode, or maybe even two, about the World cup and money, just because I think that's something that deserves to be looked at. But you're right, Afwa, 1974, it's the end of the old imperial geopolitical age in football. That story that's begun with merchants and sailors and expat communities carrying the game across the world turned into something else. The people who've inherited football are now beginning to control it. So come and join us again next time on Legacy. And thank you for listening to Legacy.
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If you would like to go deeper into the show to support support our work, sign up to Legacy Plus. It's so important that we have you as subscribers. We value you so much and love seeing you in our exclusive Legacy plus club where you get to enjoy bonus episodes, early access, fewer ads, Q&As and more. Go to Legacy Supportingcast FM.
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I'm so pleased. That's why I lost that coin toss about who gets to do the pleased come and support our work. Because you do it, you're able to. You're able to smile encouragement. So do it for afwa's sake, if not for mine. And don't forget that you can watch all of our episodes on Spotify and YouTube too. And for everything else, including our substacks and updates on TikTok and Instagram, just check out the show notes or search Legacy Podcast. I'm Peter Frankopen.
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I'm Afwa Hash. We will see you on the next episode of Legacy.
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Today we'll attempt a feat once thought impossible, overcoming high interest credit card debt. It requires merely one thing a SOFI Personal loan. With it, you could save big on interest charges by consolidating into one one Low fixed rate monthly payment. Defy high interest debt with a SOFI personal loan. Visit sofi.com stunt to learn more. Loans originated by Sofi Bank NA member FDIC terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.
Date: June 30, 2026
Hosts: Afua Hirsch & Peter Frankopan
In this installment of Legacy, Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan uncover how the World Cup of the 1970s became a catalyst—and mirror—for global transformation. Through stories of giants like Pelé, the rise of African football, Cold War symbolism, and the tectonic shifts in FIFA's power structure, the hosts probe how football evolved from a European imperial pastime to a truly global phenomenon, intertwined with narratives of decolonization, soft power, dictatorship, and the entry of corporate influence. The episode travels from the sun-soaked spectacle of Mexico 1970 to the seismic political changes manifest at West Germany 1974, revealing both the promise and the peril of football’s new world order.
This episode chronicles how the World Cup became “the beautiful game” for the whole world and why football—a sport founded on empire and exclusion—was transformed by the very forces of independence and globalization that defined the 20th century. The conversation closes with the hosts promising the next episode will delve into dictatorships and the power of money, as football’s new world order continues to unfold.