Editing Terry Eagleton (section)

===Football===
Eagleton sees [[association football|football]] as a new [[opium of the people]] distracting ordinary people from more serious, important social concerns. Eagleton is pessimistic as to whether this distraction can be ended:
{{blockquote|For the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their [[crack cocaine]]. Its icon is the impeccably [[Tory]], slavishly conformist [[David Beckham|Beckham]]. [[Manchester United F.C.|The Reds]] are no longer the [[Bolsheviks]]. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished. And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of [[BP]] has in taking over from [[Oprah Winfrey]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/15/football-socialism-crack-cocaine-people |title=Football: a dear friend to capitalism - Terry Eagleton |first=Terry |last=Eagleton |website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date=15 June 2010 |access-date=29 June 2016}}</ref>}}