Sign in

Simon Kuper

@simonkuper.bsky.social
5.6K followers 43 following 430 posts

Financial Times columnist, and author of books including Chums, Good Chaps, Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century, Soccernomics and out in late 2025, World Cup Fever. British and now French too, lives in Paris with wife and kids.

PostsRepliesMedia
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Lovely to see that audiobooks are now available through Bookshop.org. Get your copy of World Cup Fever in audio through Bookshop.org and support independent bookshops across the UK: tinyurl.com/WorldCupFeverAudiobook @profilebooks.bsky.social @bookshop.org
1132
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
My report from Atlanta on a witless England reverting to ancestral type. Free link as.ft.com/r/08d296e9-b...
380
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Hungarian taxpayers presumably proud to finance David Frost, recycled nonstop by the Telegraph
093
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
A nice thing about writing books is the fanmail
4230
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
De nieuwe Nederlandse Soccernomics is uit, en kan in de boekenkast bij alle eerdere Soccernomics! De enige voorgaande NED editie was in 2009. Nu veel nieuw materiaal over het WK, Mino Raiola, RvP, Ajax-DNA, de ban op het vrouwenvoetbal +++. Hier te koop: lannoo.com/nl-nl/sport-...
080
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
For two centuries, fossil fuels were cheap, reliable (and quietly disastrous) sources of energy. Amazingly, Trump has managed to reverse that. The oilman's president has probably hastened the green transition. Give the man a prize. Me @financialtimes.com (free to read): as.ft.com/r/03a0b6f5-7...
1144
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Recent Book Alert: Gilbert Martina is a delightful man with an unusual double life: an author inspired by spiritualism and shamanism, and the president of the Football Federation of Curacao, the smallest country (150,000 inhabitants) ever to qualify for a World Cup
010
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Every four years, Stefan Szymanski and I massively update Soccernomics. The new US edition is out tomorrow, with lots of new material on transfers, on the USMNT and a whole new chapter on what the MLS needs to do to become good. Get your copy here: hachettebookgroup.com/titles/simon...
0101
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
It's out! Again. Here's the "30th anniversary edition" of Football Against the Enemy, with a new foreword and "where are they now?" section by me. Behind the old and battered author is the brilliant poster for the Spanish translation. Get your copy here: www.orionbooks.co.uk/titles/simon...
4224
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Are we going to regulate AI so that it develops safely? Well, look what happened with CO2 emissions, cigarettes, phones and social media. Me @FT (free to read) as.ft.com/r/f3dc012b-f...
062
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Life is getting longer while most of the things that give it meaning are in decline. Now, thanks to AI, meaningful work is under threat too. How old do we really want to live to? Me @financialtimes.com (free link) as.ft.com/r/f6a6129d-d...
2183
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
I think it was PG Wodehouse who said the whole point of being a writer was to have a bookshelf full of all the different editions of your books above your typewriter. I just added the new, gloriously dark-green US edition of World Cup Fever. Get yours here: www.simonandschuster.com/books/World-...
0110
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
I talk the Texas Standard through the World Cup, based on my new book about the whole thing. Interview text and audio here: www.texasstandard.org/stories/befo...
060
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
The 24-year-old me who published Football Against the Enemy in 1994 did not imagine this, but in April we're republishing the book as a "classic edition" 32 years on, with a new introduction + a "Where are they now?" from me. Will feel weird. Preorder here geni.us/OpNA Plus our first ever audiobook
2256
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Forever proud of my World War One medal
5210
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
OECD offers sound advice to a country about to be attacked by the US
120
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
There comes a point, even on BlueSky, when the arguments are too stupid to respond to
031
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
The joy of social media. I think that by "semantics", this person means "argument that tries to use nuance"
221
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
Sehr stolz auf die deutsche Übersetzung meines neuen WM-Buches! Eine Reise durch meine neun WMs seit Italia '90. Das Buch können Sie hier bestellen: www.amazon.de/-/en/gr%C3%B...
040
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Here is a more personal note that I wrote for Derk this week. I hope the Sauer family won't mind me posting it - it's a homage to a great man
2442
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
For a quick taste of what life is like for Ukrainians right now, in a war that none of them sought and did nothing to deserve, here's Nathalie's latest post, from about 15 minutes ago
020
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Nathalie Halbout, formerly of New Jersey, is now a volunteer nurse in her native Kyiv, taking care of soldiers, many of them wounded by drones. She writes fascinatingly about her experiences, and fundraises for medical supplies. Please follow her for more, and donate! ff//
283
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Like so many Europeans, I grew up among people carrying private traumas from World War Two. Eighty years on, this private damage has outlasted the public impact of the war. Me @FinancialTimes. Read here: on.ft.com/4lX60aT
35715
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Big if true
6378
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
MIT advises international students and scholars against travelling abroad, for fear they cannot get back in - see this letter from provost Cynthia Barnhart. How long can US universities hang onto the best international talent? But as I ask in my FT column, can any other university systems take it?
174
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
There is so much going on in the world that hardly anyone is thinking about Syria now. But after last week's ethnic violence that may have killed over 1000 people, I just got this WhatsApp from a Syrian friend
031
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
What's at stake for Ukraine and what's at stake for Trump - Ben Hall very good in @financialtimes.com on.ft.com/3EVp6NQ
193
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
271
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Nice summary of my book Chums in this @economist.com piece on British political speechifying www.economist.com/britain/2025...
060
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
My rule for reader emails is that I always respect their anonymity unless they are abusive, Mark Goldstein
1120
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
I wrote last year that the Israel-Hamas war was a contest between 2 competing fantasies of ethnic cleansing. Now, with Trump calling for Palestinians to be "cleaned out" from the "demolition site" of Gaza, it looks as if the Israeli fantasy may win on.ft.com/3CpAS1R
2102
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Writing this stuff is probably a pointless endeavour, as nobody is going to change their mind, and surely all these genocide scholars (including many Israelis, Jewish Holocaust specialists etc) are just antisemites anyway etc etc? I received some sensitive responses from readers but also this filth
141
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Waterstones Piccadilly is such a good bookshop
0120
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Thirty years ago this week, I started work at the @FinancialTimes. For my anniversary, I went back to look at that first day's newspaper to see how much the FT had changed. I was surprised. Me on Russian invasions and accidentally choosing the right job on.ft.com/4gFBEXv
1121
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
On the British sexual grooming story: I'm not here to advocate for Starmer or Labour, but this from @FT counters the nonsense that Bill Musk and Ackman are spreading about a country that they know nothing about. Source here: on.ft.com/421zL2S
11422116
Simon Kuper @simonkuper.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
I'm touched to see that Andrius Kubilius of Lithuania has become the EU's first 'defence chief'. I met him while writing my first book, Football Against the Enemy, in Vilnius in 1992
150