ABSTRACT
With the World Cup being held in the United States in 1994, the last bastion of football impenetrability was breached. For the first time, the foremost international football championship was held in a country with no sustained football culture - a requirement that up to that point had been considered crucial to attract the tournament. The importance of staging the competition in the United States cannot be overestimated. Earning the apocalyptic description of ‘the last World Cup’ (Redhead, 1994), it was certainly the first such occasion that attempted to harness the vast commercial market that had, until this time, been rather sketchily exploited.1 Amazingly, given the spat that surrounded the English and West German bids to stage the World Cup 2006 (neither of whom has staged the tournament since 1966 and 1974 respectively) FIFA have intimated that the World Cup is likely to return to the United States in the relatively near future. Such is the sway of commerce in football today.
