ABSTRACT
By posing this question, C.L.R. James calls attention to the critical necessity within the discourse of sports to refrain from speaking about sports exclusively; as an alternative, he offers us a legacy picked up by many analysts that focuses on the non-sportive and multi-dimensional social processes involved in the performance, spectatorship and organisation of sport-related mega-events. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, provides a fruitful case study for examining precisely the way in which a sporting event should and can lead to discussions about identity formation at the global, local, civic and personal levels. Given the pervasive impact this sporting event had on the everyday lives of Korean citizens, it would be difficult to argue that football is only played out within the stadium itself.
