Football and globalisation

Dan Rodrik looks at European football to draw some lessons about globallisation

"But the most important lesson revealed by the Africa Cup is that successful nations are those that combine globalisation’s opportunities with strong domestic foundations. For the winner of the cup was not Cameroon or Cô te d’Ivoire or any of the other African teams loaded with star players from European leagues, but Egypt, which fielded only four players (out of 23) who play in Europe.
By contrast, Cameroon, which Egypt defeated in the final, featured just a single player from a domestic club, and 20 from European clubs. Few Egyptian players would have been familiar to Europeans who watched that game, but Egypt played much better and deserved to win"