The World Cup is the biggest sporting event on Earth. The tournament, held every four years, is watched by billions, and is shaped as much by politics and money as by what happens on the pitch. In this conversation, Simon Kuper and Darren Tulett discuss Kuper’s latest book World Cup Fever, his acclaimed account of nine World Cups and what they reveal about football’s transformation over the past three decades. From the spectacle and storytelling to the ethics and economics of the modern game, Kuper reflects on how the World Cup has come to mirror the world around it—and why it continues to captivate us.

About the speakers:

Simon Kuper (born in Kampala, Uganda in 1969) is an author and Financial Times columnist. He is a British-French dual citizen, and lives in Paris. His recent books include The Happy Traitor, his biography of the double agent George Blake (2021); Barça: The Rise and Fall of the  Club that Invented Modern Football (2021, winner of Britain’s Sunday Times award for Football Book of the Year); Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK (2022); Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century (2024) and World Cup Fever: A Footballing Journey in Nine Tournaments (2025).

Darren Tulett was born in 1965 near Brighton, on England’s south coast. After studying in Manchester—where his interests leaned more toward the city’s football teams and thriving music scene than academia—he moved to Paris, on a whim. Not speaking French, he began working as an English teacher, unwittingly launching what would become a long international career. Following a brief return to England where he nabbed his first job as a sports journalist, Darren moved back to the French capital and wrote for Bloomberg News and the Guardian before transitioning to French television. After a decade with Canal Plus covering English football, he joined beIN SPORTS in 2012. He has since reported on major global sporting events, from Wimbledon to the Olympic Games, via the Tour de France and is currently looking forward to covering his eighth World Cup.

Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (the speakers will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.

Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.