FIFA WORLD CUP: THE HISTORY

The FIFA WORLD CUP is arguably the most prestigious competition on the planet. The competition signifies an epitome of greatness in the lives of football enthusiasts especially the players and the competing countries alike. A WORLD CUP success raises a team and a player to a pinnacle of greatness in the achievements of the victor country and in the career of the player.
This competition we have grown to love didn’t have the smoothest and brightest of beginnings just like every great thing in life.
By the 1900’s football had begun to gain grounds in the world and so the IOC decided to add to the list of events for the Olympic games beginning from the 1900 Olympics. Soccer’s inclusion into the Olympic games was more of a demonstration sport rather than a competitive sport.
In 1904, FIFA was formed with the aim of bringing together the various football associations under one umbrella to oversee association football as the game became more and more popular.
In 1906, two years after the birth of FIFA, FIFAdecided to make plans to organize a major international competition between member associations in Switzerland but due to difficulties, the competition didn’t see the light of day.
FIFA was able to convince the English FA to join the association which was a very huge deal in the formative years of FIFA.
The idea of organizing a major international competition still bore importance and the IOC saw how FIFA was pressing for a major international competition so in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football officially became a competitive sport on the IOC calendar. The FA took responsibility in staging the competition that year between amateur football national teams. At the end of the competition, England emerged victors.
FIFA finally accepted to recognize Olympic Soccer tournaments as “world competitions for amateurs” after long deliberations with the IOC and so took over the managing and organization of the event in the year 1914. This decision from FIFA turned out to be the turning point of the dream to organize a major international event. The 1920 Olympic competition saw Belgium emerge victors of the first ever intercontinental football competition comprising of Egypt and 13 other European nations.
In the next two subsequent FIFA organized Olympic soccer competition, Uruguay emerged back to back victors in the year 1924 and 1928 respectively.
FIFA with Jules Rimet and Henry Delaunay, the secretary, acting as the brains, organized a congress on 28th May 1928 to discuss the idea of organizing a major international competition and also conditions under which the competition should take place in Amsterdam.
After everything was straightened out in the Amsterdam congress, all left was the venue for the competition and so another congress was called but this time in Barcelona in 1929 for prospective nations to submit their bid. Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Sweden submitted their bid to host the tournament. Uruguay didn’t submit a bid but was chosen as the venue on the basis of their success in the last two editions of the FIFA organized World Championship tournament in the Olympic games and also because the competition date actually coincided with the celebration of the centenary celebration of the Uruguay nation after independence.
Also the FA of the Uruguayan nation was prepared to host the competition and foot the expenses and also agreed to share the profits with FIFA.
The two massive challenges facing FIFA in the organization of the maiden tournament were; Uruguay as the venue would mean a costly and tedious journey through the Atlantic for the Europeans who were going through economic hardships at the time thus inhibiting the FAs to rescind their pledges in sending a team to represent their countries in the tournament. Rimet managed to convince four European nations; Belgium, Yugoslavia, Romania and his home country, France to send a team to join him on the Conte Verde liner to Buenos Aires to participate in the maiden edition of the WORLD CUP, and also the time of the competition meant the clubs will have to release their best players for their national teams in the course of the season which the clubs weren’t prepared to do so.
In all 13 nations presented a national team for the competition- four from Europe, seven from South America, and two from North America. The 1930 WORLD CUP is also the only world cup where there were more South American participants than Europeans. The organizers of the competition were disappointed in the turn out of their European counterparts. The anger was so intense that in the next edition of the competition, which took place on a European soil Italy to be precise, Uruguay boycotted it and became the only nation not to defend the title after clinching it in the previous edition of the world cup.
Montevideo, the capital city, was chosen as the host city for the WORLD CUP TM and in light of the Centenary celebration and the WORLD CUP, the Uruguay government contracted architect Juan Antonio Scasso to build a stadium to commemorate the event in a short time of 8-months. Most of the resources were channeled into the completion of the new stadium on schedule and true to his word, Juan Antonio Scasso was able to complete the work just in time for the WORLD CUP. The stadium was named Estadio Centenario and was built with a capacity of 90,000.
The first two games of the tournament took place simultaneously and were won by France and the USA both beating Mexico 4-1 and 3-0 respectively. Lucien Laurent became the player to score the first goal of the competition.
Uruguay were crowned winners of the maiden of the FIFA WORLD CUPTM by beating their rivals Argentina 4-2 in the final in the Estadio Centenario in front of 90,000 fans in the city of Montevideo.
FIFA thanked Uruguay for the success of the maiden of the competition and apologized for the low turnout of European nations in the competition.
The significance of the FIFA WORLD CUP began to rise when the IOC dropped football from its calendar for the 1932 Summer Olympics because of a disagreement they had with FIFA concerning the amateur status of footballers. Football was later introduced into the Olympic games when the IOC realized the popularity the game was gaining around the world but it was too late as the FIFA WORLD CUP had overshadowed it.
The 1930 FIFA WORLD CUP was the beginning of great of things to happen to the beautiful game we all love and the inaugural event proved a major success both in sporting and financial sense.
Currently the 21st edition of this great competition is unfolding with all the drama, suspense, thriller and action in Russia and the host nation is soaring like an eagle in front of her fans whiles the defending champions have been knocked out in the group stages of the competition. Other big guns like Argentina and Portugal have all been eliminated and the inaugural winners, Uruguay, are looking to make a mark in the competition just like they did in the maiden edition, whiles Brazil the most successful nation in the tournament and the only country to partake in every single FIFA WORLD CUP, all 21 editions, are also looking to increase their tally from five world cup trophies to six.