John Donaldson
The Philosophy Football Association (PFA) is the world's only institution dedicated to combining the beautiful game with the practice that questions whether anything really can be beautiful or a game. Founded in 2007, the PFA has overseen numerous apparent games during past seasons of the Philosophy Football League, at least some of which seemed beautiful. No agreement has yet been reached on whether anything really is beautiful or a game.
There are regular games organised between staff and students in Philosophy at Glasgow University, in the Glasgow Philosophy Football League. New teams welcome.
"Behind every kick of the ball there has to be a thought" - Dennis Bergkamp
"Consider... the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: 'There must be something common, or they would not be called "games"'—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all... One might say that the concept 'game' is a concept with blurred edges.—[One might object:] 'But is a blurred concept a concept at all?'—[But one might as well ask:] Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all?" - Ludwig Wittgenstein
"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea" - Eric Cantona
"In football everything is complicated by the presence of the other team" - Jean-Paul Sartre
"There are scientists who will tell you that spirit, because it can't be measured, doesn't exist. Bollocks. It does exist" - Sam Allardyce
"All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football" - Albert Camus
"Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is" - Johann Cruyff
"Beyond the Touchline is nothing" - Jacques Derrida
"Train the right way. Help each other. It's a form of Socialism without the politics" - Bill Shankly
"Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.” - David Hume
