A Potted History Of The World Cup

World Cup A Potted History

So the World Cup is about to start, minus beer, which is an interesting twist the Qataris have thrown into the mix at the last minute. How many of those who had paid to go were looking forward to having a drink while watching the games? Budweiser are probably the only people who are enjoying this situation as, not only will they be able to sue FIFA for failing to honour their sponsorship deal, but they are getting a ton of publicity right now that being involved normally would not bring them. In fact, it will probably take a little away from the disgust some people feel for those people and companies that are associating themselves with the Qataris despotic regime that treats women with such disregard and foreign workers like slaves. It is quite surprising that in this day and age, where everyone complains about cancel culture, that so many companies were so keen to be involved with this World Cup.

It does make you wonder how it came to this, from such humble beginnings when the first one took place in Uruguay in 1930. It only began because the 1932 Summer Olympics was to be held in Los Angeles and the International Olympic Committee decided, after a dispute with FIFA over players’ amateur status, to drop soccer from the event due to its lack of popularity in the USA. Though it was not their first attempt to create an international football tournament, having tried once before in Switzerland in 1906, an event that was a failure, even FIFA admit as much. Uruguay were chosen to host the event, not because they provided a lot of brown envelopes like Qatar and Russia did, but because they had won the two previous Olympic tournaments and were classed as official world champions twice over. Also they were to celebrate the centenary of their independence in 1930 and so it was felt right to award them the tournament. A much better way to choose than the modern way of skullduggery and backhanders.

Jules Rimet had to work overtime to persuade any European nations to even take part, it is noticeable that no Asian or African countries were involved in a so-called ‘World Cup’ and there was no need to qualify. Just 13 teams took part and the first ever goal in a World Cup was scored by France’s Lucien Laurent in a 4-1 win over Mexico. Uruguay went on to win the tournament, but then boycotted the next two as they were hosted in Europe and they were upset that so few European teams turned up for the World Cup…