Simon Kuper
Financial Times columnist on politics, society and football, at the paper from 1994; author of Soccernomics (2009), Chums (2022) and Impossible City (2024), and a British-French writer who lives in Paris.
Simon Kuper did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
Filter All topics · Newest first
-
Our reading
France’s streets are more violent and its politics more extreme than at any time since 2002.
Their wordsI've been in France since 2002 and have never seen the streets so violent nor the politics so extreme.
- 2 weeks earlier
-
Their wordsYet Infantino will probably survive. In fact, he might be exactly the Fifa president that most of the world’s football associations want.
↗Why Fifa’s Infantino is so hard to toppleft.com 1st of 4 in this piece
-
Their wordsThe model makes no sense as a way to develop football.
↗Why Fifa’s Infantino is so hard to toppleft.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
-
Their wordsIn short, Infantino operates like a typical 21st-century autocrat: growing rich from what should be a position of public service, winning serial elections unopposed and ruling almost solo.
↗Why Fifa’s Infantino is so hard to toppleft.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
-
Their wordsTheir criticisms also carry whiffs of entitlement and hypocrisy.
↗Why Fifa’s Infantino is so hard to toppleft.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 9 days earlier
-
Their wordsWith the global decline of reading, the prize may never be so political again.
↗Inside the Nobel Prize in literatureft.com 1st of 2 in this piece
-
Their wordsThe Nobel has helped make the international canon more inclusive.
↗Inside the Nobel Prize in literatureft.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 4 days earlier
-
Their wordsBut once that’s done, the Premier League ought to scrap these misguided rules.
↗The real lesson from the Man City affairft.com 1st of 6 in this piece
-
Their wordsOwners should be free to spend their own money on football.
↗The real lesson from the Man City affairft.com 2nd of 6 in this piece
-
Their wordsFootball should prefer owners, like Mansour, who want to put money in.
↗The real lesson from the Man City affairft.com 3rd of 6 in this piece
-
Their wordsFootball clubs are extraordinarily sustainable.
↗The real lesson from the Man City affairft.com 4th of 6 in this piece
-
Their wordsThis rule is supposed to stop bad actors from buying English clubs. It doesn’t.
↗The real lesson from the Man City affairft.com 5th of 6 in this piece
-
Their wordsFootball, an inessential leisure activity of great symbolic importance, can thrive without foreign states or their rulers or proxies owning clubs.
↗The real lesson from the Man City affairft.com 6th of 6 in this piece
- 2 months earlier
-
Their wordsBut in fact football has its version of Hollywood’s star system. The team and the star make a deal: they serve him, but he must deliver.
- 3 days earlier
-
Their wordsFootball is geometry — about creating space when you have the ball, and shrinking it when you don’t.
↗How western Europe became a formidable football factoryft.com 1st of 3 in this piece
-
Their wordsLetting everyone play benefits the national team.
↗How western Europe became a formidable football factoryft.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
-
Their wordsCountries succeed in World Cups by helping every six-year-old develop.
↗How western Europe became a formidable football factoryft.com 3rd of 3 in this piece