History of the World Cup 1930-2022

Jules Rimet, the person who is credited with founding the World Cup, was an ambitious man. He was responsible for driving FIFA, which was formed in 1904, much to the chagrin of the Football Association, from a sleepy organisation, in its earlier years, to the dynamic force the footballing world witnessed in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic football tournament as a world championship, and following WW1, the 1920, 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games staged the first truly international football tournaments. However, the Olympics was only for amateur competitors and many footballing nations in Europe had already formed professional leagues, so to recognise this development, something had to change. On May 26th, 1928, FIFA met in Amsterdam and decided to organise its own international, professional football tournament. FIFA moved quickly, without the bureaucracy that exists today, and a year later met in Barcelona to elect the host country for the first World Cup in 1930. After much debate, FIFA gave way to Uruguay, who tabled the most convincing bid and seemed to have the finance and determination to host the event. Uruguay at that time was a small insignificant country with a population of scarcely 2 million and, for FIFA, it was a shot in the dark, the only risk they were to take in 60 years of selecting host countries, apart, perhaps, from the 1978 World Cup hosted by Argentina, which took place in the throes of a military revolution. Little did they know what they had started. However, it worked and after initial reluctance by European countries to support the Uruguayans, four countries, Belgium, France, Rumania and Yugoslavia, agreed to participate and undertake the two-week sea voyage to South America. Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru,…