Cassell bags David Arrowsmith's exploration of Pablo Escobar's control of Colombian football

Cassell, part of the Octopus Publishing Group, has bagged Narcoball, a "gripping" exploration of Pablo Escobar’s control of Colombian club football, by David Arrowsmith. 

Publisher Trevor Davies acquired world rights in all languages from Charlotte Robertson at Robertson Murray Literary Agency. The book will be published on 6th June. 

Davies said: "This is a book for all those who loved "Narcos" and "Griselda". It casts a completely new light on the Escobar story and his all-consuming passion for Colombian football. It also tells the story of other underworld involvement in the game, which brought a golden era for football fans yet a dark and murderous one for the country as a whole. David’s narrative is gripping and his research exhaustive. Narcoball will be the summer read of 2024 for the Netflix generation."

Arrowsmith added: "As a lifelong football fan, I am thrilled to be able to bring this story to a global readership with Cassell. In this book I have finally been able to make sense of the influence of Pablo Escobar, the Medellín Cartel and their rivals in Cali on the rise and fall of Colombia’s footballing golden generation. Narcoball is the story of how Colombian football in the 1980s and 1990s became impossible to disentangle from Pablo Escobar, the cartels, narco-terrorism, kidnapping, extortion and murder, and the global war on drugs."