By Kagefumi Ueno / Special to The Japan News

17:30 JST, September 11, 2026

Billions of people all over the world, football fans and nonfans alike, were brought together this summer in their excitement over the FIFA World Cup 2026. Throughout the tournament, I became keen to talk about the event from an angle transcending the sport itself. I would like to discuss it from cultural and civilizational angles.

I thought it would be fun to culturally compare football — a game originating in Europe though deeply internationalized today — with baseball, a game that is undoubtedly a national sport for the United States, one of the three co-hosts of the recent World Cup.

In terms of internationalization, the leading institutions that govern the two sports are remarkably different. How?

FIFA, which consists of six confederations and 211 member associations, is truly world-wide, with a larger membership than the........

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