Soccer: A Beautiful Game Tarnished by Corruption

‘Jogo Bonito,” the Portuguese phrase Nike adopted as a marketing slogan in the build up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup, means “play beautifully.” The idea behind Nike’s multi-pronged ad campaign was to curb diving, faking, and bribery while promoting the beautiful aspects of the sport — professionalism, teamwork, integrity, skill. The great, retired French striker Eric Cantona was featured in some of the ads, reading from the “Manifesto Futbolista”: “Arguing is for politicians and diving is for swimmers.”

Aspirational words, to be sure — Cantona’s own checkered record of sportsmanship as a player made him a particularly odd choice to read them — and ones that have made little impression on the game at the executive level, a rareified stratosphere of corruption from which revelations of bribes, racketeering, wire fraud, and other greed-related crimes have become so commonplace that they no longer shock anyone. The sport is so corrupt it could put a Somali presidential election to shame.

About the Author

Marlo Safi

Marlo Safi is a Pittsburgh-based writer and a former Collegiate Network fellow with National Review.

‘Jogo Bonito,” the Portuguese phrase Nike adopted as a marketing slogan in the build up to the 2006 FIFA World Cup, means “play beautifully.” The idea behind Nike’s multi-pronged ad campaign was to curb diving, faking, and bribery while promoting the beautiful aspects of the sport — professionalism, teamwork, integrity, skill. The great, retired French striker Eric Cantona was featured in some of the ads, reading from the “Manifesto Futbolista”: “Arguing is for politicians and diving is for swimmers.”

Aspirational words, to be sure — Cantona’s own checkered record of sportsmanship as a player made him a particularly odd choice to read them — and ones that have made little impression on the game at the executive level, a rareified stratosphere of corruption from which revelations of bribes, racketeering, wire fraud, and other greed-related crimes have become so commonplace that they no longer shock anyone. The sport is so corrupt it could put a Somali presidential election to shame.