At the 68th International Belgrade Book Fair, Službeni glasnik had the honor of presenting to the audience The Line of the Ball, the latest work by the renowned sports publicist Zoran Avramović, General Secretary of the Crvena zvezda Sports Society and author of the books The Football Industry (2004), Football: A Global Religion (2006), Football First (2010), and Football: The Heart of Millions. This book is not merely sports reading material but a comprehensive analysis of football as a profound symbol and general social phenomenon that, as noted at the promotion, has the power to simultaneously unite and divide the modern world.
Held in a ceremonial atmosphere, the promotion brought together prominent names from the worlds of literature, media, and sports, aiming to illuminate the multiple dimensions of Avramović’s book. Speaking about the work and its central theme, football, were literary critic and editor of the edition Petar V. Arbutina, prominent journalist Gorislav Papić, director of the global initiative Common Goal Dr. Vladimir Borković, and the author Zoran Avramović.
Petar V. Arbutina, literary critic and editor at Službeni glasnik, opened the promotion with a slightly humorous tone, reflecting on the unusual role of a literary critic in analyzing sports literature. He then emphasized that Zoran Avramović, in his book, confirms that, unlike many global phenomena which over time are reduced to a mere symbol of what they once were, football “has not ceased to be a game.”
After first thanking the audience and speakers, Zoran Avramović recalled his first book, The Football Industry, from 2004, whose title at the time seemed pretentious to him but later turned out to be prophetic. “This morning, as I was preparing a bit, I found in a well-translated English text what has marked the world of football over the past ten years. And the first sentence was that it was the transition from sport to a global industry,” said Avramović, adding that he was pleased by that confirmation.
Avramović recalled the 2010 World Cup in South Africa when, in Johannesburg, he saw children living in cardboard boxes, but FIFA had built them the most modern football pitch in the middle of that dangerous neighborhood. “The joy I saw in those children moved me, and although I’m not a big fan, I took many photos there,” he said, stressing that he still looks at those photos today because they testify to “how much football and politics are intertwined.” In his texts, especially in The Line of the Ball, Avramović, in his own words, tries to explain the geopolitical significance of football. “In principle, football and politics are like brothers, except that politics is very often like the older brother who tells the younger one what to do,” he said metaphorically.
Emphasizing that football is a global brand, Avramović concluded with the statement that football is “greater than the internet, greater than democracy, greater than the market economy,” because even on the most remote islands where football is played, this game stands above everything. “It is like the line of the ball, it moves, and no one knows where it will go.” In the end, the author paraphrased the words of Miroslav Antić: “Life is lived anew every day. Every match has a different value, and every day is different for football.”
