Calcionomica. Meraviglie, segreti e stranezze del calcio mondiale
Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanki, ISBN Edizioni, Milano 2010(pp. 364, € 24,00)

Most of today’s economists would agree with Rob Baade. A major sports event does not make the host country richer. So the question is, why do countries keep trying, why do the United States, Russia, Australia, England, Indonesia, Japan, Spain and Portugal, Holland and Belgium want to hold the 2018 World Cup? The answer has nothing to do with money but tells us something about the new happiness policies that are emerging in the rich world. (…)
The day before the 2006 World Cup final, one of the authors of this book, Simon, popped round to the Berlin street he used to live in. Fifteen years earlier, Hohenfriedbergstrasse had been a dull brown street with bathrooms on the landings and no one ever spoke to their neighbours. But he had to check the street sign to make sure it was the same place. Flags were flying from every house (…) and children were playing everywhere even though in theory they ought to have been almost extinct in Germany. The World Cup seemed to have made everyone in a normally melancholic country happy. (pp. 226-228)