Josimar is an independent magazine and website covering Norwegian and international football as a sport, cultural phenomenon and business. Our first issue hit the newsstands in April 2009.
The international football economy is now bigger than that of Hollywood. The round ball game is the world’s lingua franca, its biggest stars are now playing the parts once reserved for stadium-filling rock bands and Hollywood’s biggest box office hits – both in size of wage packets and in media coverage. Europe’s biggest clubs are no longer representing their local communities. They have become global brands, like their star players.
According to FIFA, there are 240 million active players worldwide registered in 300 000 clubs. The World Cup final draws close to a billion TV viewers.
Despite football being a huge business and a tool for cynical businessmen, oligarchs, politicians and regimes with at best questionable human rights records, football journalism is mostly event-driven with a stark focus on celebrities. The idea of sports journalism being the “toy department” of the news media prevails. Too many for too long have ignored that the role of the press as the fourth estate also applies to sport.
That acquiring rights to cover sporting events is part of the business model of some of the biggest media organisations also makes is harder for journalists to do a proper job.
In light of football’s popularity, its importance as a worldwide common cultural bond and its growing multibillion dollar economy, the need for critical and investigative journalism has never been bigger.
Football has become a whole new ball game.
Josimar vision is to go under the skin of the beautiful game, to show football’s greatness, but also to uncover the darker side of the game – the political battles, how regimes are abusing football to whitewash their image, the rampant corruption and cronyism.