Sixty Years of the World Cup: Reflections on Football?s Greatest Show on Earth

Sixty Years of the World Cup is a personal, nostalgic, entertaining, and candid reflection on Brian Barwick’s six-decade association with football’s greatest tournament.

Barwick traveled just five miles to attend his first World Cup match during the iconic 1966 tournament in England. In the years that followed, he journeyed across the globe, witnessing firsthand some of football’s most memorable, dramatic, and controversial moments.

As a leading television sports producer and executive, he played a key role in bringing the World Cup to tens of millions of viewers through BBC and ITV broadcasts. Later, as CEO of the Football Association, he gained a unique perspective on the challenges, pressures, and aspirations involved in trying to win the sport’s most coveted prize.

Over the course of his 60-year relationship with the World Cup, Barwick encountered many of the tournament’s greatest players, coaches, matches, and defining moments. Along the way, he met colorful personalities, produced broadcasts that broke television audience records, and even helped an operatic aria become a global phenomenon.

Blending personal memoir with football history, Sixty Years of the World Cup offers a fascinating insider’s perspective on the people, stories, and events that have shaped the world’s most celebrated sporting competition.

Brian Barwick OBE is well known in broadcasting and sport. He worked for BBC Sport for 18 years, was Match of the Day editor and lead editor on the BBC's coverage of World Cups, Olympic Games and Sports Personality of the Year awards. He left the BBC as its head of sport in 1997 and spent seven years at ITV. As chief executive of the FA, he worked with three England managers, opened the new Wembley Stadium and launched the Respect campaign.