Once, football claimed to stand for passion, community, honour, even beauty. Today, football is about money. Its richest clubs  earn about GBP200 million per year; yet since 1992 thirty-six of the Football League's seventy-two clubs have been insolvent. The game is in danger of losing its lifeblood — and its soul. A respected investigative journalist sets out on a journey through the heart of the British national game, exploring how the sport has failed — and who is to blame. Travelling to football's every outpost, David Conn interviews players, managers, chairmen and fans, building up a picture of a game mired in crisis. At its heart, football is a game deeply loved by millions. This is a book for those who believe that the sport itself, stripped of the greed and self-interest, still has values, and can still be beautiful. The Beautiful Game makes the effort to understand what is happening in the whole world of football — to the minnows as well as the sharks. The stories he tells are scandalous, touching, and encouraging. Find extracts that fit your project! Author: David Conn (known from The Independent and Radio Five Live). (411 pages)
Level : B/Interdisciplinary projects

The Beijing Olympiad may well turn out to be the greatest mega sporting event in history. Still, the Beijing Games raise important questions with implications for a range of contemporary issues: Will the Beijing Games be successful or will they be hit by troubles? Who they will benefit. Will they mainly serve the purposes of the dominant political and economic elite? Or the wider population? What consquences will they have for the human rights situation in China? What will they tell us about the rise of China as a superpower? What will they mean for the future of the Olympic Movement? For globalization? For the North-South divide? Authors: Paul Close, David Askew, Xu Xin. (248 pages)
Level : A/Interdisciplinary projects

Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Towards an Analytical Framework 3. Olympism, Individualism and Nationalism 4. The Olympics, the Nation-State and Capitalism 5. Beijing and the Olympic Social Compact 6. The Olympic Games as a 'Coming Out Party': Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and the Asian Olympic Discourse 7. Righting the Games: Human Rights and the Beijing Olympic Games 8. China's Long March for the Olympics 9. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

If you're 18, love Beckham and can bend a ball like him, the world's your oyster right? Wrong. If you're Jess – 18, Indian and a girl – you can forget it. Her wedding-obsessed parents have quite different ideas for her. But Jess joins a ladies football team and gets spotted by a talent scout." This is a book that will appeal to both girls and boys. It is the entertaining and inspiring story of a girl who is determined to follow her dream. It also deals with serious matters, such as the culture clashes that many young Asians have to live with. Author: Narinder Dhami. (167 pages)
Level: 8.-9. klasse.

What in the world has the power to liberate women in Iran while provoking antagonism between Catholics and Protestants in Scotland, to heat up class warfare in the US heartlands, to profit local gangsters and create local — and international — celebrities? Franklin Foer tours the politics and culture of football from Milan to Tehran. He examines the game’s role in sustaining ancient hatreds and rivalries (Serbia's Red Star and Croatia's Dinamo); in supporting the migration of players and the rise of the football oligarchs (such as Silvio Berlusconi, President of AC Milan); and in defending the virtues and vices of old-fashioned nationalism. As Foer points out, the Balkan War, anti-Semitism, Jewish identity, racism, social integration, media manipulation, and American patriotism have all been influenced by, or had a dramatic effect on, football. On his travels, Foer encounters a collection of fans that is stranger than fiction, not least a fan club in Serbia that turns into a brutal anti-Muslim paramilitary unit. The result is an unforgettable parade of uniquely memorable fans, each set into his — or her — unique political and cultural context. Perhaps football doesn't fully explain the world, but Foer has written a witty, insightful snapshot of world football. Whether you use excerpts or the whole book, there are lots of good things here: a grotesque game in Theresienstadt concentration camp; fascinating interviews on the Rangers-Celtic rivalry; Iranian women struggling against strict edicts to attend matches; a short description of his own upbringing, describing why his liberal, middle-class parents, living in a prosperous suburb of Washington DC, pushed him towards playing soccer rather than basketball, baseball or American football: because “soccer came to represent the fundamental tenets of yuppie parenting, the spirit of Sesame Street and Dr Benjamin Spock.” (255 pages)
Level: Gymnasiet etc/Library/Depot/A great resource for interdisciplinary projects about sport or globalisation

“A behind-the-scences look at the politics, the scandals and the glory of the games”:
This is a penetrating, insightful and humorous look at the world of the Olympics in general rather than the Beijing Olympics. In recent years, the Olympic ideal has been tainted by scandals, greed, and corruption. This book reveals the full inside story — both good and bad — of the Games. The author (an Olympic athlete himself and a long-time IOC insider) sheds a bright light on many controversial events and issues surrounding the Olympics, including the conduct of IOC officials, and the doping scandals that he considers the greatest threat to sports today. There is also a fascinating look at negotiations in the high-stake worlds of television rights and corporate sponsorships, and at the politics, backstabbing, and intrigues that take place behind the scenes in the world of international sports. Very readable and accessible. Recommended. Author: Dick Pound. (288 pages)
Level : B/Interdisciplinary projects

This debut collection of stories (also known as Rope Burns) by 70-year-old boxing cut man F.X. Toole explores the challenges, glory, humanity and complex relationships of the world of American boxing. Toole's 25 years of experience helps him to write with a fine authority and tight prose about this world. His novella "Million $$$ Baby," the best story in the book, begins like an old pulp story with the grumpy veteran trainer and the eager would-be student; then Toole gives it a fresh angle by making the boxer an innocent young woman from the Ozarks. It becomes a lacerating account of a courageous, endearing hillbilly woman fighter and her sad fate. "The Money Look" is a great turning-the-tables story about a cynical crook of a fighter; "Black Jew" is a tale of humble ambition woven with the temptation of big money. "Fightin' in Philly" is a moving tale of the price to be paid for the ambition to be a title fighter. Another innocent torn up by the fight game is portrayed in "Frozen Water." (235 pages)
Level: B