What's Coming Up in 2024's 'Summer of Sport'? ft. Nicola Sbetti.

We're about to enter what has been dubbed the 'Summer of Sport' given the number of high-profile events taking place, from the Euros to the Olympics and the Copa America. Football will therefore be at the forefront of many people's minds and to explore this, co-hosts Guy and Francesco talk to Nicola Sbetti, historian of sport at the University of Bologna in Italy about what this could mean politically. Nicola explains what the main political themes will be at these tournaments, as well as providing an overview of the historical relevance of major tournaments in relation to sport and politics.

Nicola hosts the 'La storia dello sport a gamba tesa' YouTube page (in Italian).  

Transcript

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What’s Coming Up in 2024’s Summer of Sport ft. Nicola Sbetti

Guy Burton 00:09

Hello, and welcome to another edition of the FootPol Podcast, where football meets politics. I'm one of your co -hosts, Guy Burton, and I'm joined by my other co -host, Francesco Belcastro. Francesco, how are you doing today? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:19

I'm fine Guy. I'm really really excited for today's episode. I'm a big fan of our presenter today of our guest. 

Guy Burton 00:26

Yeah.

Francesco Belcastro 00:26

The topic is gonna be a very interesting one 

Guy Burton 00:29

Well yeah, so tell us a little bit about the topic and the guest, because I believe you've actually appeared on their show, haven't you? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:35

Yes, so we're kind of, we're colleagues, we work together on different things. It's Nicolas Sbetti. I mean, a lot of listeners that are familiar with the readings on sports and politics will know him already. 

Francesco Belcastro 00:50

You'll introduce him in terms of his academic profile. But the topic that we asked Nicola to guide us through to help us with, it's what we call it a summer of sports and politics because this summer there's going to be a lot of sport events and all of them have got a lot of political relevance, don't they? 

Francesco Belcastro 01:09

So we kind of asked Nicola to guide us a bit and tell us, explain to us and to listeners what we can expect really from this summer. 

Guy Burton 01:18

Yeah, and we're also kind of doing that as well now, because we're actually going to be disappearing off as well, aren't we? So we're going to be taking a short summer break from the 15th of July until the start of September to just recharge, retool, recalibrate. 

Francesco Belcastro 01:32

But work on new episodes as well. 

Guy Burton 01:34

And also we will be working on new episodes. We're sort of in the pipe. We've got we've got a bunch of them already in the pipeline, but we are going to be taking a bit of a break. 

Guy Burton 01:41

But of course, I've heard. 

Francesco Belcastro 01:43

I've heard that like in the transfer market you're you've been sold from Union Saint -Gillois, you're gonna you're gonna move to Servette, is that true? 

Guy Burton 01:49

Yeah. Well, so I've heard, so I've heard, yes. We will be relocating, at least our ends will be relocating from Brussels to Geneva. So yeah, by the time we actually start talking again in September, I will be in a different place, but there you go. 

Guy Burton 02:07

But I mean, we should also say to listeners as well that we do actually have a huge catalogue of stuff that we've done since we started this podcast, back at the beginning of October. So, especially for those who've most recently shown up and have been enjoying what they've been listening to, do take the time to listen to the stuff that we've done over the next few weeks. 

Francesco Belcastro 02:27

We've got 44 episodes waiting for you in total, so...

Guy Burton 02:30

And with that in mind, can I now sort of make the leap into talking about this episode? 

Francesco Belcastro 02:36

Please, please. 

Guy Burton 02:37

All right, so we're going to be talking to Nicola Sbetti, or Nick, as he's known. 

Guy Burton 02:44

He teaches and researches on the history and politics of sport at the University of Bologna. He has published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, mainly in Italian, but he does have a solo -authored book. 

Guy Burton 02:56

I'm not even gonna try this in Italian, but in English, the title is Diplomatic Games, Sport and Foreign Policy in Postwar Italy, which came out in 2020. And back in 2014, he was a fellow at the International Olympic Committee where he did research on Italy's activities thereafter 1945. 

Guy Burton 03:14

And since we're gonna be talking about some of the IOC stuff coming up this summer, I think it's gonna be really topical. He also runs a YouTube channel on sport, politics, and history, which of course you appeared on, Francesco, and it's called A Gamba Tesa, which I understand as being translated as with a straight leg. 

Guy Burton 03:33

But I'm sure Nick will explain to us what that means. And of course, we will link to that in the show notes. Nick, hi, welcome to the show. 

Nicola Sbetti 03:40

Hi, hi, guys. It's a pleasure to be to be here. I'm a fan of the podcast. So I'm very glad to be here with you discussing a sport and 

Guy Burton 03:50

Well, thank you for this wonderful love fest, but could you tell us a little bit about the podcast that, sorry, about your YouTube channel as well, the one that you do? 

Nicola Sbetti 03:58

The YouTube channel is just something that I do for fun. I started with working on the newspaper of 100 years ago, sports newspaper of 100 years ago. And I was looking at the history, a sport history about 100 years ago. 

Nicola Sbetti 04:19

Then it was too heavy and I had the work to do. So doing this just for fun was too complicated. So I decided to invite friends and discuss about the Olympic games. So I create this space called Road to Paris and I discuss about the relation between Olympic and politics and Olympic in general on YouTube in a quite informal way. 

Guy Burton 04:47

Right. Yeah, of course, yeah, sadly in Italian, but for our Italian speaking listeners out there, it will be fantastic. And definitely check out Francesco's appearance on that as well. Nick, one other thing we've also, we like to ask guests, do you have a football team? 

Guy Burton 05:01

And if so, who are they and how are they doing? 

Nicola Sbetti 05:04

Yeah, our football team is Venezia, Venice, the team of the city where I grew up, they are doing well because they got promoted from second division to Serie A, and so I celebrated this promotion, unfortunately, I couldn't be there for the last match because they won in the playoff, but I was there for the playoffs in the final against Palermo and it was already a great atmosphere. 

Guy Burton 05:30

And also tell me because I from I mean, I don't know a lot about Venice the football team But they seem to have sort of captured the football kit imagination in the last few years haven't they because I know that...

Francesco Belcastro 05:40

Their jerseys are very beautiful, yeah. 

Guy Burton 05:45

Do you have a few Nick?

Nicola Sbetti 05:45

 Yes, I have quite the old one. Unfortunately, this marketing stuff was quite problematic for the Venetians because somehow the former marketing leader invested a lot on the rebranding Venice as a global team, penalizing quite a lot the local identity. 

Nicola Sbetti 06:15

And two years ago, the team was really close to be relegated to the third division, there was a huge contestation. So this element was a little bit left alone, and now they have recreated a strong link between the global aspect but also local aspect. 

Nicola Sbetti 06:37

And this is, I think, the winning recipe for a team like Venice with very few fans compared to other cities in Italy but with an amazing location and an iconic city that they represent. 

Guy Burton 06:55

Yeah, well, that's fascinating and I know that Francesco is our resident, you know football kit collector So I'm sure he'll be you know at one of our future episodes donning, you know, yeah... 

Francesco Belcastro 07:07

I don't have one yet, but it's on my list. 

Guy Burton 07:09

Yeah, but I mean, thanks, Nick, also for sort of just, you know, not just talking about the football team, but also bringing in the politics about it as well, which I appreciate that! So listen, but can we get a bit started with the work that you're doing and the reason we brought you on to the show? 

Guy Burton 07:23

So, you know, your work in the existence of the podcast show that you have shows that politics and sport is interconnected. And this summer, of course, we've got the Euros and the Olympics, as well as Copa America taking place. 

Guy Burton 07:35

And this happens at a time when we've got war raging in both Gaza and Ukraine, which makes the connection between sports and politics that much harder to ignore. For listeners who have been paying less attention, could you tell us a bit about the main themes of this summer of sports and politics, as Francesco pointed out, the episode was going to be? 

Guy Burton 07:54

And with your historian hat on, I mean, how much of this is new? 

Nicola Sbetti 07:59

Yeah, I think now very few people, very few naive people can believe that sport can be separated to politics and your listeners are not among these few naive people, I'm sure. So from an historical perspective, sport and politics have always been interconnected. 

Nicola Sbetti 08:19

Now, if we think only about the structure of international sport, the Olympics, the World Cup, we can see now that they reflected this idea of a world divided in national state in competition among each other. 

Nicola Sbetti 08:34

So as also several of your guests already underline, sport is an excellent point of view to understand the complexity of the world. However, I think it's important always not to forget that we should not overestimate the power of sport because for the governments and for the politicians, sport is like peripheral. 

Nicola Sbetti 09:06

What does it mean? It means that sport doesn't touch any vital element of a nation. So despite any type of sport sanction and so on, a government can survive. So sports sanction alone can be quite ineffective. 

Nicola Sbetti 09:31

Having said that, I think it's important at the same time to understand that while sport can be politically peripheral, at the same time, it can be politically relevant because of its quality. We all know that sport is highly visible, that sport creates emotion, creates an identitarian bond. 

Nicola Sbetti 09:58

And so the growth of the visibility of the sport makes sport more politically relevant. So from an historical point of view, we can say that the more sport has grown, the more sport has become politically relevant. 

Nicola Sbetti 10:16

And we can do an example. If we look at Mussolini in the 1934 and 1938 World Cup, it's doing less compared to Emmanuel Macron in 2018 and 2022 because football has become much more important today than in the 30s. 

Nicola Sbetti 10:43

So this is an element. And the other element, I think it's relevant to understand better this summer is something that you have already mentioned, is that when we have international tensions going on, when we have wars going on, the space for political neutrality, that is something that sports organizations try to obtain, try to use as a form to defend themselves, become very narrow. 

Nicola Sbetti 11:18

So with wars going on, there's no space for political neutrality. And we have seen it in the past with the two world wars that have stopped international sport, but also with other peripheral wars that had an impact on international sports. 

Nicola Sbetti 11:36

So with this two world going on, I think it's definitely be a very hot summer from our topic. 

Francesco Belcastro 11:47

Yeah, can I ask you one thing? Thanks for placing this in historical context. Now, from the European point of view, at least, the two big events that we're going to be seeing are the Euros that have just started in these days and the Olympics that start in a couple of weeks. 

Francesco Belcastro 12:00

Now, from an outsider, it seems that almost FIFA and UEFA have been criticized more for their sort of, I don't know, lack of consistency. It's the right word for intervening in some context and not in some others. 

Francesco Belcastro 12:20

And the International Olympic Committee, I'm not saying it's not being criticized, but has been seen by some as managing this tension that you referred to a bit better. Would you say this is the case, Nick? 

Francesco Belcastro 12:33

Is there a discrepancy there? Does it have to do with the popularity of football that makes it harder to, or do we really see different behaviors? 

Nicola Sbetti 12:43

It's a good and tough question because I think there are two things to take into account. The first one is the way the IOC, compared to the other, all the other, I will say, the International Sports Federation deal with diplomacy is completely different. 

Nicola Sbetti 13:12

The IOC has a better diplomacy department than any other sports federation and it's something that we have discussed with you Francesco in our, when we discuss on my YouTube channel, to underline the different approach that the Palestinian sports leader, Rajoub, that is both president of the Palestinian Football Association and president of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, the different approach that Rajoub has toward Israel in these two different organizations. 

Nicola Sbetti 13:56

So while in FIFA, Rajoub has asked for the sanction against Israel, the IOC has publicly stated that it's not going to challenge the presence of Israel in Paris and this is because IOC has been proactive and has definitely, we don't know exactly the deal, but has definitely promised some money for the reconstruction, some more extra space for Palestinian athletes, some representation in the IOC. 

Nicola Sbetti 14:34

I won't be surprised if a Palestinian swimmer that is running to be elected as a IOC member among the athletes will definitely be elected. I won't be surprised, maybe not, but could be part of this deal. 

Nicola Sbetti 14:53

Now, the second element that I think it's very important to underline is the fact that the international sports organization have one priority and this priority is to survive. So sometimes football is the most visible sport as you have correctly underlined and so if you want to underline this hypocrisy, because it's something that we haven't mentioned yet, but we have gave it for granted, but in this moment, 

Nicola Sbetti 15:34

Russia is under sanction because of the invasion on Ukraine while Israel has not any sanction for the invasion of Gaza. And this double standard, it's a clearly double standard, clear double standard from an ethical point of view, maybe also from a juridical point of view, I'm not an expert, but I have listened different comment on this, but if we really look at the way sports organization works, 

Nicola Sbetti 16:11

I won't say that there is an hypocrisy, no, not an hypocrisy, something they are not incoherent with themselves. I think both the IOC and FIFA are not incoherent with themselves in their approach toward Russia and toward Israel. 

Nicola Sbetti 16:30

Why? Because their real goal is to survive themselves and they are under a big amount of pressure because of the international situation. And the IOC, if it could, it would have loved not to sanction Russia because sanction in Russia somehow undermines its universality, its ability to be an hegemony power in the international sports arena. 

Nicola Sbetti 17:05

However, the IOC and almost all the International Sports Federation have been obliged to sanction Russia because if they didn't do so, international sports arena would be stopped with boycott protests and so on. 

Nicola Sbetti 17:25

And now they have found this compromise that some Russian athletes that have not publicly stayed in favor of the world and they are not part of the Russian army, they can participate as neutral if the single sports organization accepts them. 

Nicola Sbetti 17:52

For Israel, we haven't seen a pressure, a significant amount of pressure in this sports organization in order to exclude Israel. There have been protests and effort to do so, but the numbers were always in minority and what matters more, the presence of Israeli athletes so far has not been really challenged. 

Francesco Belcastro 18:29

Mm -hmm 

Nicola Sbetti 18:31

I think the only federation that has sanctioned Israel, but only for security reason, not for political reason, is the ice hockey one. They could not participate to a World Cup of second, third for the division because of security reason. 

Francesco Belcastro 18:49

Can I just say, Guy, sorry, just one second. 

Francesco Belcastro 18:52

Thanks for mentioning sort of the elephant in the room, which is, you know, these tension tensions here, Nick. I just want to remind listeners that we have an episode on Gaza and football with Karim Zidane and Kat Pijetlovic that we published a month ago. 

Francesco Belcastro 19:06

Is that correct, Guy? 

Guy Burton 19:07

Yeah. 

Francesco Belcastro 19:07

And then we just just last week we had one on Ukraine and football that kind of listeners should check out because they also show the different views from academics and colleagues that research on that topic. 

Francesco Belcastro 19:24

Sorry, Guy. I interrupted. 

Guy Burton 19:25

Sure. And that's actually something, you know, what Nicola was saying, I wonder if we can sort of just develop this idea a little bit more, because you were talking about organizations being their priority being to look after themselves. 

Guy Burton 19:37

But the Euros have just started. We've just had the first weekend. And that tournament, which is taking place in Germany, Russia, as we know, has already been, was excluded from the qualifiers. Ukraine made it through the qualifiers to the tournament itself. 

Guy Burton 19:52

And Israel almost did. I think they were in the qualifiers, in the qualifying playoffs. Do you, I mean, so do you feel that the organizers are happy that Israel didn't qualify, given the potential for protests? 

Guy Burton 20:06

Do we see the possibility of other protests, either, you know, around the war or other things happening vis -a -vis, you know, European politics at the tournament? And if so, what might those be? 

Nicola Sbetti 20:20

I think the organizers are delighted that Israel couldn't make it. And of course, they are not, they cannot say that. But if also Ukraine didn't make it, they could be even happier. Not because they are pro -Palestinian or pro -Russia, but because both Israel, Ukraine, but even even Palestine, that is not in Europe, of course, but and Russia are in this moment a problematic presence in international sport because they attract protest. 

Nicola Sbetti 20:56

They attract politicization. And again, what we were saying before, sports neutrality is not something that a sports organization can really reach, but is a part of their ideology. Is what allowed them to survive in an international context, to pretend that sport is neutral, allowed them to create a safe environment for athletes that represent the nation, that I won't say are in war with each other, 

Nicola Sbetti 21:37

because if they are in war with each other, they don't do sport against each other, but they are a lot of tension among each other. And so sports neutrality, it's a really hypocritical ideology, but is fundamental for the survival of international sports. 

Nicola Sbetti 22:02

So from this point of view in Europe, I think they are happy that Israel is not there. It could cause more protests than already are. And also football. And here we go back to what we were saying at the beginning of the podcast, because it's highly visible, it's very attractive for both those who want to reinforce the status quo, but also for those who want to challenge the status quo. 

Nicola Sbetti 22:40

And so sport offers a great football, and Europe will offer a great platform for those who want to make their voice loud. Among those, there are, of course, supporters, but also potentially athletes that now with social media have more voice than ever, but unfortunately also other actors. 

Nicola Sbetti 23:13

And again, speaking about elephant in the room, the real threat of any big sports event is terrorism. 

Francesco Belcastro 23:24

Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, we're very important. We also we didn't mention, but the role of the athletes seems to be one that that could be important for the Euros. And and at the other event, I want to ask you about which is the Olympics. 

Francesco Belcastro 23:37

Now, the Olympics already looked like a like a sort of quite complex situation. And we just had the news last week that we're going to have elections in France, which are going to finish just the beginning of July. 

Francesco Belcastro 23:48

So that kind of throws another another level of complexity to this sport, politics, sport, and politics dimension. Now, one of the things that we notice is that, again, from a football point of view, there's going to be there is going to be Israeli athletes at the Olympics. 

Francesco Belcastro 24:06

And also Israel will play the men's football tournament. And perhaps, you know, football crowds are a bit harder to control, harder to control than other sports. And France has seen probably not to the scale of other countries, but significant protests on the Gaza crisis. 

Francesco Belcastro 24:22

Couple of these with whatever tension might might end up from the from the elections are going to be late June and beginning of July. What are we what are we in for? Nicola, I know it is always difficult to to guess, but are we are our listeners interested in sport and politics in for a for an absolute treat? 

Francesco Belcastro 24:46

These Olympics? 

Nicola Sbetti 24:48

For an historian is always very, very hard to predict future is something that is better not to do. However, there are some elements that I think it's important to underline. The first one, we already mentioned it. 

Nicola Sbetti 25:05

Rajoub and the Palestine delegation have promised publicly to the IOC that won't use the Olympics to protest against Israel in a very, in a non -Olympic way, let's say. So they can do something in the framework of the Olympic way. 

Nicola Sbetti 25:31

Otherwise, there will be some problem and probably won't happen. On the contrary, the presence of the Israel delegation, it's definitely a target, I hope, only for a democratic protest, of course. However, you correctly mentioned the football tournament because I think there's discussing with Fabien Archambault that is a colleague that live in Paris, another sport historian, a great sport historian. 

Nicola Sbetti 26:07

He mentioned that among the ticket with a very low price, there are very few that were more for propaganda reason rather than a real opportunity for poor people to access the Olympics. However, among this low ticket price, there are those of the peripheral football match, not the great one. 

Nicola Sbetti 26:31

And so it's possible then that the match against, in which the Israeli football, male Israeli football team will participate, there will be some protest if you have to bet, probably, it's a good bet. 

Nicola Sbetti 26:52

Even though it's interesting to see that, especially among the volunteers, there was a very strong control. And so I think there will be very strong controls before this type of match. And the security level at the Olympics, so at the Euros, is always very, very high. 

Nicola Sbetti 27:20

The other point that you mentioned, and I think it's very, very important, is related to the decision of Emmanuel Macron to do a new election for the parliament. And from this point of view, I think the Olympics will be part of the electoral campaign because one point of Macron will be definitely, we should organize, the Olympics are a matter of state, we should make sure that the presidency and the government and the parliament are on the same line. 

Nicola Sbetti 28:04

So you should vote for, let's say, for the Liberal Party rather than the extreme. So probably this is his bet from an electoral perspective. 

Francesco Belcastro 28:20

Can I just say... Guy, sorry, the chat with Fabian Archambault is available on your on your YouTube channel right for people that want to want to check it out it's in Italian I guess.

Nicola Sbetti 28:30

Yeah. 

Francesco Belcastro 28:30

But people that speak italian and want to find more information about this should really go and check it out it's it's a very interesting one. Guy, sorry. 

Guy Burton 28:37

Yeah, well, I've just been listening to Nicola talking about, you know, the organizers, you know, sort of the Palestinian delegation, you know, sort of the volunteers and the crowds. These could all be a potential problem. 

Guy Burton 28:50

But what about the players themselves? I mean, you know, is there any scope, any possibility that players might make protests either at the Euros or at the Olympic Games? And what would they face if they did that? 

Nicola Sbetti 29:05

We have seen already some athletes that that took position. I think that the one, the most radical one, was the one of El Gabzi, this Mainz player... Dutch player that after having spoken out against the massacre of the Israeli massacre in Gaza has been, has lost his job with with Mainz. 

Nicola Sbetti 29:33

And now, as recently organized with other colleagues, a friendly match in London in order to support, I think the title was the Children of Gaza, but to help the population in general. So definitely there are some football players, some European football players that support the Palestinian cause. 

Nicola Sbetti 30:09

To be fair, the majority of these players are all Muslim or with Arabs, Arab background because they are more near to this tragedy, not only, but the majority seems to be like this. It's very hard to think about what can be happening in future, but we know that now players have much more opportunity to speak out at the same times. 

Nicola Sbetti 30:49

Like an Instagram post or a tweet is less powerful than any type of gesture that you can do in the Olympic stage. Unfortunately, or I don't want to value this, but the IOC has a rule that is the 50 rule, the rule 50 that somehow penalize and it makes illegal not to do any type of political or religious protest in the Olympic arena. 

Nicola Sbetti 31:28

That is a way to defend itself, of course. And I think it's fair to penalize. At the same time, I think that with this rule, if you really want to take a political stance, this political stance is even more powerful because you know that you risk yourself and your career in order to promote a political issue. 

Nicola Sbetti 32:09

And so I think it's also, it reinforce any type of political protest, the existence of this rule against political protest. And I think we all remember now the protest of John Carlos and Tommy Smith in the Olympic podium in 1968 with the Black Power salute. 

Nicola Sbetti 32:33

And this was one of the most powerful protests also because of the consequence. These athletes lose everything in order to do this type of protest. That in the long run has been seen as a victory of the civil rights movement, but for themselves, it had a terrible consequence for their life. 

Guy Burton 32:58

And actually, that reminds me as well, Francesco, about an episode we did a couple of months ago when we talked about the politics of Mo Salah, right? When we talked about, and his, you know, whether or not he was, you know, an active campaigner on the Gaza issue or actually not. 

Francesco Belcastro 33:15

How good he was at dribbling politics, really. 

Guy Burton 33:18

So, Nick, we've been talking about the Euros and the Olympics, and this has been somewhat of a Eurocentric episode so far, and so I wonder if we can just broaden the horizon a little bit, because of course, around the same time, we've got the Copa America taking place in the United States, and do you see any space there for political activism in or around the tournament itself? 

Guy Burton 33:44

And beyond Copa America, are there any other sort of football -related activities and events that listeners should be keeping an eye on, given that we've been saying this is a guide to the summer of football and sport? 

Nicola Sbetti 33:59

There is always a space for political activism in sport and football and is effective when it's not predictable. So before going to Copa America, I think that the space in football where activism is more effective in these last years is women's football. 

Nicola Sbetti 34:26

Women's football, I think we can see a real mature politicization of athletes, of footballers. When you listen, a great football player like Aitana Bonmati, which has won the Ballon d'Or, she's the political and social maturity that the average male football player doesn't have. 

Nicola Sbetti 35:06

Having said that, I think Copa America is quite interesting. I'm not an expert of South America and if we have been Eurocentric, it's definitely my fault because it's where I focus more my studies. Unfortunately, I cannot speak other languages apart from Italian, French and English and so this means that I miss a lot of information and I'm convinced that when you have to study a country, you need to know the language. 

Nicola Sbetti 35:46

Otherwise, it's better that you live to more specialist person and scholar. Anyway, regarding Copa America, I think it's very interesting one element because we have seen in the past year that Copa America opened up also to Asia, Japan and Qatar participated to Copa America, but this Copa America will be held in the United States. 

Nicola Sbetti 36:17

It will be the second time in four editions that the United States will host Copa America. Let's not forget that the origin of Copa America is the competition of South America, of CONMEBOL, not of CONCACAF. 

Nicola Sbetti 36:31

Now CONCACAF and the United States in particular before was Mexico, but the United States in particular have invested on football or how they call it soccer. And I think It's very interesting to reflect on the role of the United States in global sports, because they are not investing only in their sports, so American football basket and ice hockey, baseball and so on, but they are investing in the most popular team sports. 

Nicola Sbetti 37:15

In this moment, there is not only the Copa America going on, this summer there is also the Twenty-20 cricket World Cup in the United States. So two of the most popular team sports, football, the first one, cricket, the second one, have competition held in the US, and the US will host also the World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games in LA. 

Nicola Sbetti 37:47

And also speaking about women, women football, the United States are the team that have hosted the majority of women's World Cup. And so the United States seems to be very active in the domain of sport politics, in the domain of sport diplomacy, and going back to be Eurocentric, if we look at Serie A and the Italian Championships in general, because also in the second division we can see a similar situation, 

Nicola Sbetti 38:25

we have a significant number of foreign property in Italian football, and the majority of them are from the United States. In the rhetoric, we always, in the newspaper and the Italian newspaper, you can read about, oh, the Arabs will buy us, Saudi Arabia is a problem for football, but in the end, the real powerhouse in the global future for the next years, in my opinion, and this is like a kind of bet, 

Nicola Sbetti 39:00

but looking at what is happening now, will be the United States that are the more and more active also in football. 

Francesco Belcastro 39:10

That's very interesting and it's something that really we should we should think about having you back Nick to discuss a bit more this return of some of the big powers on the sport arena, maybe. Can I ask you before we let you go to tell us a bit what you're working on at the moment? 

Francesco Belcastro 39:27

What should listeners be expecting from you in the next couple of years? 

Nicola Sbetti 39:33

Yeah, I'm not working to this type of topic. Of course, I will follow the Olympic Games and probably I will write something but more on, let's say, not at academic level. As a serious staff, I'm working on three projects at the moment. 

Nicola Sbetti 39:52

The smallest one is to focus on Italian sport in 1943 from the fall of Mussolini to the 8th September. So just a couple of days in a moment of weeks, in a moment when sport was not really the priority of the Italian population. 

Nicola Sbetti 40:16

But it's an interesting article that I'm writing. And then the main research that I'm doing now with a colleague, his name is Daniele Serapiglia. We are working on the Superga tragedy, but more than the tragedy itself, the Superga tragedy for those who doesn't know is when in 1949 the airplane with the team of Turin crashed in the Superga hill and all the team died. 

Nicola Sbetti 40:51

And that day, the 4th of May, will became the DIA of football because the Chilean Federation right to FIFA proposing that they will be remembered as the football day because of the impact of this tragedy. 

Nicola Sbetti 41:17

And finally, another topic that I've worked in the past, but now it's time to write something down, is on the 1956 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina. 

Francesco Belcastro 41:29

This is a call for all of our academic colleagues: now it's summer, it's time to write for all of us! Absolutely fascinating. 

Guy Burton 41:39

Yeah, maybe we could have you come back and talk about the you know, the Torino tragedy as well. That's that would be...

Francesco Belcastro 41:43

Yeah. Yeah. There's an interesting parallel well with Man United that people often do and I think the impact on Italian society at the time was massive, wasn't it Nick? So it's... 

Nicola Sbetti 41:57

Yeah, and what we are looking is more about the memory, so the evolution. This year was the 75th anniversary, and in the public discourse there was a lot of space to remember this team. Just to conclude, because it's quite funny, when you read how this team used to play, because no one really saw it playing, because videos are very few, so he played like the Netherlands in the in the criteria, like Barcelona in the Guardiola era, 

Nicola Sbetti 42:39

so he played with exactly as the best team of the time when the writer wrote the article. 

Guy Burton 42:48

Well, I'm interested, I'd like to know more. Listen, but Nick has been so, I mean, very helpful and very informative to the conversation with you today. I feel much more prepared now for the summer of sports. 

Guy Burton 43:00

Don't you, Francesco? 

Francesco Belcastro 43:02

I think you can go to dinner parties now, Guy, and impress your fellow diners with your knowledge of this summer of sport and politics. So, Nick, thank you very much. 

Nicola Sbetti 43:14

Thank you. And I apologize also for my Italian English. 

Guy Burton 43:19

It's fine. I have to... 

Francesco Belcastro 43:21

That's two of us!

Guy Burton 43:23

...I have to live with it, with Francesco, every week! So, you know, it's all right. 

Francesco Belcastro 43:26

He's used to it! Guy is used to it. Nick, thank you very much. 

Guy Burton 43:31

Thanks, Nick. Thank you. 

Francesco Belcastro 43:32

Guy, we need to remind a few things to listeners. 

Guy Burton 43:35

Yes, first of all, we said it at the very start, but just to remind listeners again that we will be heading off for our summer holidays from the 15th of July, but we will be back at the beginning of September, won't we? 

Francesco Belcastro 43:48

We shall. Yes. Then we need to remind them, because we are working on new episodes already, you in particular, I've been slacking, but you've been, you've been working hard. I know, I know. Yeah. 

Guy Burton 44:00

What we do is because we some of our best episodes actually come from listeners as well so you know we do always ask listeners to you know for feedback you know for what they liked what they didn't like about about the show you know topics that they'd like us to explore some of the best topics we've actually done have been from from listeners haven't they and then we go out and we try and find people to come and come on and talk about it in a way and they can get in touch with us well I was about to say that Francesco they can do that by reaching out to us and all the social media that we have we have a Facebook page we probably mostly active on Twitter we so we always we get messages there you can send us messages there I have I mean I also post occasionally from time to time on LinkedIn I know you have a LinkedIn profile as well, face face FootPol doesn't have a LinkedIn one but you can reach out to us individually. 

Francesco Belcastro 44:55

The listeners want you to join TikTok for a while, but you've not made it. 

Francesco Belcastro 44:58

And you're not going to to make me join TikTok! 

Guy Burton 44:59

Maybe we should start...

Francesco Belcastro 45:01

To reach younger crowds!

Guy Burton 45:03

Maybe we should start a YouTube channel, Francesco. What do you think? 

Francesco Belcastro 45:08

I see you as more as a Tiktok guy, but yeah so so so again... 

Guy Burton 45:13

Please please please reach out to us through all those social media and also we do have a web page at Buzzsprout which is where we post all of these episodes and you can listen to them there and we would also really like people to not only if they liked it or disliked it but to share it with everybody that they know... 

Francesco Belcastro 45:30

Yeah.

Guy Burton 45:30

...to also you know consider leaving a review that helps us get up the chart...

Francesco Belcastro 45:33

Follow us...

Guy Burton 45:34

Yes, and follow us and also subscribe to future episodes as well And if you do that now it means that when September we come back in September It will automatically appear in your inbox. 

Francesco Belcastro 45:46

Yeah, a nice September surprise to cheer you up from the end of holiday blues. And I mean, there is another great news that we have for listeners, because next week is a special one. We don't have one episode. 

Francesco Belcastro 45:56

We've got two of them. 

Guy Burton 45:58

What a treat for our listeners! 

Francesco Belcastro 46:00

We've got a double Maradona header, don't we? We've got Maradona in Italy with Luca Bifulco and then Maradona as a global actor with Mariano Paz. 

Guy Burton 46:11

Yes. I'm really impressed because Mariano Paz is sort of the doyenne of what is supposedly called Maradona studies, right? I mean, who knew that Maradona had actually started his own kind of field of research, but... 

Francesco Belcastro 46:23

I don't think he started it himself Guy! 

Guy Burton 46:25

It's true, it's true but these but to be fair, both of them are actually pretty prominent figures in the study and the analysis of Maradona. They've both published extensively on the subject, and they're both authors of books about Maradona. 

Francesco Belcastro 46:40

So it's gonna be good two good ones 

Guy Burton 46:42

Yeah, so look out for that next Monday when we come back. 

Francesco Belcastro 46:46

So what is left to say is thank you very much, Nicola, for your time and for your generosity with the answers. And you have to, we'll see you at some point in next season, right? 

Nicola Sbetti 46:56

I would love to, thank you. 

Guy Burton 46:59

Yeah, and thanks again to you, Francesco. Looking forward to speaking to you next week. Speak to you again next week. Bye -bye. 

Francesco Belcastro 47:05

Bye -bye.