ABSTRACT
Despite scholars having drawn parallels between Britain’s footballing prowess and its stature on the international political scene, the sporting relationship between the empire and its colonies has been mostly absent from analyses of the rise and fall of British football. This chapter addresses this lacuna by drawing out the British perception of its footballing prowess in relation to its attitude towards colonial enterprise. I pay particular attention to the ways in which racial prejudice was expressed and reinforced through sports reporting. I conclude that Britain paid little attention to international football, particularly in non-European nations, because it considered the global version to be inferior. When it did address colonial football, the press articulated race in the same manner that it did elsewhere, and reinforced the ideology of empire by presenting its civilising mission in a space people assumed was objective. The explanation for Britain’s decline as a footballing power rests in large part on its inability to dismantle the national narrative of superiority due to the damage it might inflict on its political counterpart.
