The culture bestowed in football gives a product of exotic ferocity and cunning.

It is a rehabilitation of the early barbarian temperament, together with a suppression of those details of temperament, which, as seen from the standpoint of the social and economic exigencies, are the redeeming features of the savage character.
The physical vigor acquired in the training for athletic games--so far as the training may be said to have this effect--is of advantage both to the individual and to the collectivity, in that, other things being equal, it conduces to economic serviceability.

The spiritual traits which go with athletic sports are likewise economically advantageous to the individual, as contradistinguished from the interests of the collectivity.

This holds true in any community where these traits are present in some degree in the population.

Modern competition is in large part a process of self-assertion on the basis of these traits of predatory human nature.