Simon Cooper

speaker

334 appearances 5 recordings 4 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 10 Jul

Simon Cooper’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 4.

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The David McWilliams Podcast · Why Social Democracies Win World Cups · 9 Jun 2026 podcast

Would you feel crushed?

I don't think so.

One is everyone is welcome.

FIFA doesn't discriminate against brutal regimes.

So Argentina hosted in 1978, Putin in 2018, the Qataris.

FIFA is totally fine with that.

Secondly, people talk about the leader using the World Cup.

So that's the big story now.

People have, oh, Trump is going to turn the World Cup into a propaganda show.

Of course, the leader tries that.

But you also have dissent in a stadium.

You have opposition in a stadium.

So Trump goes to an NFL game a year ago, is booed by the crowd in Washington.

And that is exactly what would happen if he goes to a World Cup stadium now.

All the stadiums are currently in blue America.

And his popularity is a record low.

So a stadium is also a place of anonymity, even in a dictatorship like Iran, where people have some opportunity to express opposition to the leader.

And then in a country like the US, you have politicians like Zohra Mamdani, big football fan, totally fluent in the language of football.

And in the kind of fans view of football, he's using the affordability story of the World Cup against Trump.

So those are two key themes, dictatorships, but also the stadium as a place of opposition.

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