David Goldblatt will be at Dangerous Times to discuss World Cup 2014 and whatever happened to Brazil’s Beautiful Game?

In the week ahead of the Dangerous Times festival, David Goldblatt , author of  Futebol Nation : A Footballing History of Brazil will be presenting a 5-part BBC Radio 4 series on Brazilian football The History of Brazil is Round.

At Dangerous Times on Saturday 31 May David will be discussing why for many internationalist football fans  Brazil is the ‘home of football’. A nation that via the combination of popular passion and on-the-ball artistry has turned mere sport into what Pelé famously described as the ‘beautiful game.’

But does neoliberal globalisation, the commodification of fandom and FIFA’s big-business model for the tournament mean Brazil 2014 spells the end of Futebol as we once knew it?  Joining David in conversation will be Clara Becker flying in with the latest news from the ground in Brazil. Clara is  a contributor to the new collection of Latin American football writing  The Football Crónicas. Sue Branford from the Latin America Bureau and editor of the new guide Brazil: Inside Out will add an expert view on the growing protest movement against both World Cup 2014 and Rio 2016.  Completing a panel that is sure to provide more footballing-sense than a month’s worth of TV studio punditry, Architectural critic Justin McGuirk, author of the new book Radical Cities explores the urban mix of Rio de Janeiro , host of the 2014 World Cup Final and the 2016 Olympics.