Simon Cooper

They all do business with those regimes.

And so do Western companies.

So it's sort of hard to pinpoint FIFA as uniquely villainous.

Yeah.

Now, you say that East Germany was their team, but of course, a lot of East Germans were supporting West Germany.

Because as you know, they got West German TV.

So a lot of people would sit around watching West German footballs, that kind of comfort life.

You go home, you turn off communism, and then you were watching Bayern Munich.

So in 1954, when West Germany won the World Cup, there were celebrations in East Germany.

1974, as you said, is the only time the two Germanys played each other, I think, in any match.

And it's a very nervous event for the East German regime.

So they send party comrades as the kind of official fan group.

They hope not to be embarrassed by a very good West German team.

as it is East Germany win 1-0, Jürgen Sparwasser, who later defects to the West, I believe.

So it's a very complex, you know, story in the psychodrama of East and West Germany.

And this is also just after Chancellor Willy Brandt, I think, had resigned by that point because his chief aide, Gunther Guillaume, had been exposed as an East German spy, which was unfortunate.

So it was a very... I remember that.

a very complex moment in East-West relationship.

East Germany win the biggest prestige battle of the two Germanys, but then West Germany win the World Cup, which I think is the kind of story of the Cold War prefigured.

I'm doing this theater tour of the Netherlands now.