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By Professor C. Justin Robinson
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal, UWI Five Islands Campus
As Chelsea’s Cole Palmer lifted the Club World Cup trophy at MetLife Stadium, surrounded by teammates representing dozens of nationalities and races, a stark contrast emerged.
While America increasingly retreats into debates about who belongs and doesn’t belong, the world’s most popular sport has spent decades proving that diversity isn’t weakness—it’s a superpower.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
The 2025 Club World Cup showcased 81 nationalities competing at the highest level. The Premier League features players from 64 different countries, with 43% being Black players who’ve revolutionized the sport.
Meanwhile, France’s “Black-Blanc-Beur” (Black-White-Arab) team won the 2018 World Cup with 15 of 23 players tracing heritage to Africa.
Stars like Kylian Mbappé (Cameroonian father, Algerian mother), Paul Pogba (Guinean parents), and N’Golo Kanté (Malian parents) weren’t tokens—they were the engine of French excellence.
Multipolarity in Action
Here’s what America struggles to grasp: football operates in a truly multipolar world where size does not mean power, excellence comes from everywhere, and everyone accepts it.
While Americans still think in binary terms—us versus them, East versus West—football fans cheer for the best regardless of origin.
Morocco’s stunning 2022 World Cup semifinal run exemplified this. With players born across Europe but choosing to represent Morocco, they created a multicultural powerhouse that stunned Belgium (#2 ranked), Spain, and Portugal.
When they lost the third-place match to Croatia—a nation of 3.9 million that has won three World Cup medals—their coach captured the beauty of football’s meritocracy: “We had 0.01% chance of winning this World Cup at the outset and we managed to get through to the last four.”
Croatia’s success story particularly challenges American assumptions about size and dominance. With roughly 6% of England’s population, they’ve won as many World Cup medals as England.
How? They embraced global integration early, sending players to compete across Europe’s diverse leagues, learning from different football cultures while maintaining their identity.
The Diversity Dividend Is Real
The best academic research consistently shows that “a one-standard increase in diversity leads to a significant increase in goal difference of 0.77 to 1.79 goals per match” for national teams. This isn’t feelgood rhetoric—it’s performance science.
Consider the current Ballon d’Or contenders: Ousmane Dembélé (French of West African descent), Lamine Yamal (Spanish with Moroccan and Equatorial Guinean heritage, only 17), Mohamed Salah (Egyptian), Raphinha (Brazilian, Afro-Latino), and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (Georgian).
These aren’t diversity hires—they’re the world’s best players, representing a rainbow of backgrounds that American institutions often struggle to embrace.
The historical greats tell the same story: Pelé (Brazilian of African descent), Zinedine Zidane (French of Algerian Berber descent), Thierry Henry (born to Caribbean parents), and George Weah (Liberian—the first non-European Ballon d’Or winner in 1995).
Each succeeded by integrating their unique cultural strengths with local football systems.
The Multipolarity Challenge
Football’s comfort with multipolarity stands in stark contrast to America’s current identity crisis. While Americans debate whether diversity weakens or strengthens them, football nations have long accepted that excellence emerges from everywhere—and the best strategy is integration, not isolation.
Morocco’s celebrations weren’t just confined to Africa.
When they beat Belgium, celebrations erupted in Brussels and Paris, Barcelona and Rotterdam—proving that in an interconnected world, identity is fluid and success transcends traditional boundaries.
This terrifies those who prefer clear hierarchies and simple identities, but it’s the reality of our global future.
Eight nations have won the men’s World Cup, but the most compelling stories come from everywhere else: South Korea reaching the 2002 semifinals, Turkey doing the same, Croatia’s repeated excellence, Belgium’s golden generation.
The message is clear: in football’s multipolar world, anyone can compete, and everyone has something to contribute.
The Choice Before America
The Club World Cup generated $21.1 billion for global GDP, with $9.6 billion in the United States alone. Americans excel at creating economic value from global events. But the deeper lesson isn’t economic—it’s cultural.
Football has figured out what America sometimes forgets: excellence emerges when talent from everywhere gets the chance to compete and collaborate.
The sport’s global success isn’t despite its diversity—it’s because of it.
When Lamine Yamal, a 17-year-old Spanish player with Moroccan and Equatorial Guinean heritage, dazzles defenders with skills learned in Barcelona’s multicultural academy, he represents football’s—and perhaps America’s—future: globally sourced, locally developed, culturally integrated.
As current American political currents push toward isolation and homogeneity, football offers a different model.
The beautiful game has always understood that in a connected world, the best strategy isn’t to keep others out, but to bring out the best in everyone.
Game on, America.
Prof. C. Justin Robinson, a Vincentian and UWI graduate, holds a BSc in Management Studies, MSc in Finance and Econometrics, and PhD in Finance. With over 20 years at UWI, he has served in various leadership roles, including Dean and Pro Vice Chancellor, Board for Undergraduate Studies. A Professor of Corporate Finance with extensive research publications, he is actively involved in regional financial institutions and is currently the Principal of The UWI Five Islands Campus in Antigua and Barbuda.
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I’ve taken notice Prof. C. Justin Robinson with academic training in holds a BSc in Management Studies, MSc in Finance and Econometrics, and PhD in Finance has written on a number of social political issues while I have not seen any new paper articles on regional economics matters
While I appreciate his love for Football (aka soccer) one would expect that as a University President he is writing on more seminal topics.
How about the fact that Guyana is the only country that is self sufficient in food while the rest of its CARICOM members are crying about food insecurity.
As CARICOM leaders have thrown their full support behind Guyanese agronomist Muhammad Ibrahim for the role of Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
How about an article that makes the case for Muhammad Ibrahim of Guyana to be elected the Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) given Guyana distinctive achievement in food security under his stuardship.
As the US President pushes to lower interest rates as low as 1% should that come about or significantly lower interest will tank the US dollar and gave an equal impact on ECC currency.
How about Harvard dissing Antigua and Barbuda after promising a deeper study into slavery and its Benifit from slave Labour in Antigua and Barbuda.
There are countless examples of seminal subjects a University Professor or vice Chancellor could be addressing rather than racial and ethnic diversity in football.
I’m wary about the output of UWI Five Islabds when its Vice Chancellor spends his time writing on social issues like the murder of a young child during a politicaly charged moment of morning.
When UWI hosts its 2nd Conference on AI filled with jargon’s and superfluous statements clearly demonstrating the lack of knowledge about Ai
Interesting article by the professor. This is actually an article about economics for those who can read between the lines. He is suggesting that accepting top immigrants from around the world can make a country greater. This is what the US used to do but now they are barring immigrants from their higher education system and economy more and more. This is understandable though as local young persons there are facing unemployment, food price and housing issues whilst immigrants have been receiving millions of dollars from the government. The issue of immigration is complicated. Immigrants bring skills but too many can negatively impact the country’s culture and feeling of community and at times take resources away from locals. I think that in the real world outside of football, there should be legal immigration but not in overwhelming numbers in each country. So, it’s ok if the US wants to close the door on too much immigration, but they should also adjust their legal immigration process so that decent, hard-working people with needed skills can still be allowed in albeit perhaps in smaller numbers. Like a good neighbor, they should also continue to show compassion to authentic refugees, but they could also try to assist poorer countries to establish better economic, governance and security systems so that people don’t feel desperate enough to flee. Assistance doesn’t necessarily mean cash or questionable food, it could just mean technical assistance getting certain projects up and running.
One hears about food insecurity in the Caribbean and a host of other issues.
With four campuses and a Global unit UWI should be able to provide all the technical support needed by Caribbean Governments
Wasn’t thinking of Caribbean countries regarding technical assistance. Was thinking of the people from countries in South America where violent drug cartels reign. Perhaps if there were more industries their young people would not get involved in such and innocent people would not have to flee. Similarly was thinking of some African countries that people are always trying to leave via boat ending in tragedies at sea. Caribbean people are not typically trying to sneak across the US border. Most of us are usually among the ones waiting ten to twenty years to legally join families over yonder. We don’t need food advice from the US. The US needs food advice from the rest of the world. As do we. Being newly settled regions a lot of healthy, traditional food practices did not make it across leading to lots of unnecessary illness. Food insecurity in the Caribbean can readily be solved by trade within the subregion.
Btw I totally concur that Guyana should lead the way in establishing agricultural policies and that the professor could spend more time writing about other such regional issues instead of focusing on how the US chooses to treat immigrants, but if he wants to write about immigration or show sympathy regarding an innocent little girl there’s nothing wrong with that.