Joey D'Urso

Hope you enjoy it, Paul!

Next up on the reading list.. 'More Than a Shirt' from the boy @joeydurso.bsky.social
New book exploring the sometimes murky world of football shirt sponsorship deals and occasions when politics and sport are more than happy to get into bed together

Enjoyed this!

Hope you enjoy!

Great evening at The Volley in Old Street listening to @joeydurso.bsky.social discussing his new book, ‘More Than a Shirt’ 👕

Thanks to @stanchionbooks.bsky.social as ever for hosting a top event 👏🏼

Thanks very much Jon, hope you enjoy it!

Nice!

Huge thanks to those kind enough to endorse the book including @migueldelaney.bsky.social @adamcrafton.bsky.social @simonkuper.bsky.social @davidarrowsmith.bsky.social @patrickmaguire.bsky.social @mattchorley.bsky.social

I am very grateful 🙏

The last few days have been a whirlwind of events, radio appearances, podcasts... I've loved it.

It's a thrill to talk about this topic I am so passionate about. Always open to doing more stuff!

I’ve loved travelling the world to tell these stories.

These are just 22 though. There are lots more football shirt stories out there. Tell me if you discover any interesting ones!

11) FINANCIAL TIMES

I’ve done lots of reporting on the flood of crypto cash into football, and went to Istanbul to do a fascinating interview with a crypto victim.

The shirt of Beşiktaş tells the story.

On finance broadly, the Australian women’s team is an interesting tale…

10) BORDERS

Football shirts can be a way of telling the story of complicated lines on a map.

Sectarian football in Glasgow - Celtic v Rangers - is one example.

Another is a team formed by the Palestinian diaspora in Chile…

9) THE OTHER HALF

Women’s football was booming in England after WWI. Then it was banned for 50 years.

It’s since had a resurgence - unevenly - as women's rights have improved around the world.

Mary Earps’s goalkeeper shirt tells this alongside the purple of Corinthians in Brazil.

8) CHINA’S RISE AND RETREAT

China was the future once, pouring money into football.

In its domestic league, clubs like Guanzhou Evergrande attracted stars. And investment abroad, eg West Bromwich Albion.

When China's property bubble burst so did the football bubble.

7) DEMOCRACY’S LIMITS

Nowhere is this truer than in Saudi Arabia which owns Newcastle, who play in a green and white third kit.. the colours of 🇸🇦

On Cape Town's Robben Island, football shirts tell a more optimistic story: not strengthening dictatorship but helping topple one.

6) BEYOND OIL AND GAS

Barcelona shirts went from blank, to Unicef... to Qatar Airways.

Real Madrid, Arsenal and many other top clubs are sponsored by Fly Emirates.

Middle Eastern states are jockeying for power for when the oil and gas runs out.

5) AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

Like India, the US is a rare country that football hasn’t quite conquered yet.

But it’s trying, with Lionel Messi a big factor…

I went to Texas, host of a World Cup semi-final next year, to find out more…

4) WORLD ON THE MOVE

Wherever you go in the world you will see shirts.

They can tell the story of migration patterns, from France’s sometimes uneasy relationship between immigrant communities and its national team, and a refugee team in Essex...

3) THE GLOBAL GAMBLE

My journalistic interest in football shirts was piqued by investigating murky sponsors on English shirts - like Football Index and Nottingham Forest/QPR.

Meanwhile in Goa in India I saw how online gambling is conquering the world in odd ways...

2) CRIMINAL CONNECTIONS.

In Colombia, a shirt carried the face of a murdered gangster. Football tells the story of Pablo Escobar and Colombia’s violent past.

In Italy, a 1990s Parma shirt is a symbol of football nostalgia — and huge financial fraud.

The first chapter is PUTIN’S WARS.

It tells the story of two clubs — one German and one Serbian — sponsored by Gazprom. The fatal embrace between Germany and Russia told through football.

When Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 the German deal was pulled, the Serbian one wasn’t…

Yes this is a plug for my new book, MORE THAN A SHIRT: HOW FOOTBALL SHIRTS EXPLAIN GLOBAL POLITICS, MONEY AND POWER.

It’s now out in hardback. It is the result of years of work and I am proud of it!

@tierneywitty.bsky.social @northbanktalent.bsky.social @orionbooks.bsky.social

The game shirts stir up nostalgia and emotion.

The one worn by my team Aston Villa in 2002/03 carried the name of the Rover car factory near where I grew up.

The company imploded shortly after that - the shirt now tells a story of British deindustrialisation.
#AVFC

Culture is fragmenting in all directions. We listen to curated playlists rather than the same radio stations. TV is scattered across subscription services.

One thing is universal though, and becoming more so as high speed internet spreads throughout the world:

Football.

Writing my first book MORE THAN A SHIRT, HOW FOOTBALL SHIRTS EXPLAIN GLOBAL POLITICS, MONEY AND POWER has been a quest — from Qatar to Cape Town, Germany to Goa, Texas to Turkey.

It convinced me that football is the ultimate cultural force of our age, and shirts a way to understand the world...

🧵📚
I was in a stadium in Colombia. It was sticky. The crowd was noisy.

In front of me was a man wearing a football shirt with a face on the back... the face of a murdered drug warlord.

I've been to five continents to tell the story of how football shirts explain the world...

Photo of front cover of More than a Shirt by Joey D'Urso

Really looking forward to this by @joeydurso.bsky.social

Unbelievably proud of top data journo and football shirt supremo @joeydurso.bsky.social, who launches his book tonight!!

🔗 amzn.eu/d/bvUYlQv

🎧🎙️Great to go on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning talking about my new book 𝑴𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝑨 𝑺𝒉𝒊𝒓𝒕: 𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝑭𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒃𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝑺𝒉𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒔 𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒂𝒍 𝑷𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒔, 𝑴𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑷𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓...

I'll be on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 at 8.40am 📻