Football is “the most important of the least important things”: The Illusion of Sport and COVID-19

Abstract

In his book, On the Pleasure Principle in Culture (2014), Robert Pfaller argued that our relationship to sport is one grounded in “illusion”. Simply put, our interest in and enjoyment of sport occurs through a process of “knowing better”. Here, one’s knowledge of the unimportance of sport is achieved by associating the illusion of sport with a naïve observer – i.e. someone who does believe in sport’s importance. In the wake of the global pandemic, COVID-19, it would seem that Pfaller’s remarks have taken on an added significance. With major sporting events and domestic competitions being indefinitely postponed or canceled, Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp, commented that football was “the most important of the least important things”. In light of these remarks, this paper will critically locate sport’s sudden unimportance in relation to Pfaller’s contention that sport reflects an “illusion without owner”.

Keywords:

• COVID-19;
• illusion
• mimetic activity
• Pfaller
• play
• spectatorship

Notes

1 Woods was referring to the 2020 Masters Tournament.

2 According to Pfaller (2017), this process has heralded a decline in “public space”.

3 See Pfaller (2014, p. 1).

4 See Brennan (2020).