Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The FIFA World Cup

Episode Date: November 20, 2022

In 1872 the first international football match took place between England and Scotland.  Since then, international football has been at the apex of world sport.  Starting in 1930, a quadrennial competition has been held where the greatest national teams competed to determine the world champion. Learn more about the FIFA World Cup, its history, and the controversy surrounding it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1872, the first international football match took place between England and Scotland. Since then, international football has been at the apex of world sport. And starting in 1930, a quadrenial competition has been held where the greatest national teams competed to determine the world champion. Learn more about the FIFA World Cup, its history, and the controversy surrounding it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR.

Before I begin, for the purpose of this episode, I will be referring to the sport in question as football, aka Association Football. As I'm not talking about any other sports, there will be no confusion. So to everyone in the United States and Canada and Australia and New Zealand and South Africa and Japan and Papua New Guinea and Fiji, just pretend that you'll be traveling in Europe for the next few minutes. That being said, in a previous episode, I talked about the origins of association football and how it originally developed with small clubs and schools. That's how it developed the name Association Football. As the sport grew in popularity in the 19th century, it wasn't long until national all-star

teams were created to compete against other national teams. The first recognized international match between two national teams took place on November 30, 1872 in Glasgow, between England and Scotland. The match had 4,000 fans in attendance, and the final score was zero to zero, which somehow seemed really appropriate. I should note that many people around the world often wonder why the United Kingdom doesn't have a national team. Rather, their country gets split up into four teams representing England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. On one hand, it seems to be kind of unfair that one country gets to field four teams, but on the other hand, it also means that they're at disadvantage in that they have to field four teams. It has everything to do with history.

International football started in Great Britain, where the constituent countries of the United Kingdom all had their own teams. When the sport grew internationally, these teams sort of grandfathered in as they were already competing against other countries. For 30 years, the Football World Championship was just a match between the champions of the English and Scottish top-level league clubs. However, by the early 20th century, football had spread around the world. The first international match played outside of Great Britain occurred in 1902 between Uruguay and Argentina. With growing interest in the sport, there were proposals for a world-governing body for football to establish rules that everyone would recognize. However, none of the British football

associations wanted to participate in such an organization. So, the rest of Europe just decided to make their own group. On May 24, 1904, the Federation International de Football, or FIFA, was created. Its founding members were France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, with Germany joining later in the day, but not considered a founding member. FIFA tried to run a tournament in 1906 in Switzerland, but it was a failure. In 1908, the Olympic football competition was sanctioned by FIFA, but it was only for amateurs, and it was positioned as an exhibition, not an actual competition. By the start of the First World War, FIFA had member countries on four continents. However, the war basically put an end to international football

competitions for the duration of the conflict. Just prior to the outbreak of war, FIFA agreed to recognize the Olympics as the World Championship for Amateurs. It was won by Belgium in 1920 and by Uruguay in 1924 and 1988. The Olympics were fine, but they didn't address the issue of a World Championship for professional players. Professional leagues had become quite popular by the 1920s. The 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles dropped the sport because of its lack of popularity in the United States and disagreements between FIFA and the International Olympic Committee over amateur rules. So in 1930, the very

first World Championship, which allowed all players regardless of amateur status, was to be held. FIFA decided to host the event in Uruguay, as they had won the previous two Olympics and were considered the reigning world champions, and it was also the centennial of their independence. The problem was, it was a long trip for all the European teams in an era where plane travel still wasn't common. Two months before the tournament was to take place, no European teams had committed to attend. After some arm twisting, four European teams finally agreed to show up. There were 13 countries in attendance at the First World Cup. Seven were from South America, four were from Europe, and two were from North America. No one had to qualify. And the eventual winner was the home team from Uruguay,

who defeated Argentina four to two in front of 93,000 spectators. The 1934 World Cup was a much bigger affair. It was held in Italy from May 27th to June 10th. The 1934 World Cup was the first event where you actually had to qualify. 32 teams participated with 16 teams qualifying for the tournament. The defending champion Uruguay actually boycotted the event because so few European teams went to Uruguay when they hosted it. Italy beat Czechoslovakia 2 to 1 in the finals, becoming the first European winner. The event was marred by Benito Mussolini using the tournament to showcase the success of fascist Italy. Football returned to the Olympics in 1936, but it had now taken a backseat to the World Cup as the premier international competition in football. The 1938 World Cup was held in France, where Italy beat Hungary 4 to 2 in the finals.

The Italian coach, Vittorio Pazzo, became the first and to date only coach ever to have coached two World Cup champions. With the onset of World War II, there wasn't another World Cup held until 1950. Probably the biggest international match during this period was held in 1947, when an all-British team took on an all-star team from continental Europe known as the European 11. The British won six-to-one in front of 123,000 people. The long-awaited 1950 World Cup took place in Brazil, who, in all likelihood, probably would have been awarded the World Cup in 1942. The format of this World Cup was unlike any other before or since. Instead of a final match, the final four teams played in a round robin. The winner was Uruguay, and the runner-up was Brazil.

This was the first World Cup where British teams competed with both England and Scotland attending. Germany and Japan were also both banned from attending due to, you know, the war. and likewise, every communist country in Europe, save for Yugoslavia, refused to participate in the qualifying tournaments. In 1954, the Cup was held in Switzerland. A record 37 teams participated in qualifying matches, including the Eastern Bloc teams, and the newly created West Germany, which ended up winning the tournament. 1958 saw the beginning of the Brazilian dynasty. Brazil won their first World Cup beating the host country of Sweden, and it was the international debut of a 17-year-old phenom by the name of Pele. 55 countries competed in qualifying matches, largely because there were now more countries due to the post-war decolonization movement.

Brazil won again in 1962 when it was hosted in Chile, and in 1966 the event was hosted in England, when the English won their first and only World Cup. In 1970, Mexico was the host, and it was won by Brazil for the third time, making Brazil the first three-time champion. Pele also became the first and only person ever to appear on third. three World Cup winning teams. 1970 also marked the first war to ever break out over a football match. In 1969, El Salvador and Honduras had a brief military conflict which lasted about a hundred hours. The proximate cause was a qualifying match between the two countries.

And this will most definitely be the topic of a future episode. In the 1970s, the World Cup started to become big business. In particular, in 1974, the Brazilian Zhao Havillange became the president of FIFA and turned FIFA into a money-making machine. Television rights and sponsorships now began being sold for ever larger amounts. Havilange was able to control FIFA because there were now many smaller countries in the organization that had an equal vote with the traditional football powers in Europe and South America. The amount of money involved in hosting the World Cup exploded. The European television rights for three World Cups from 1988 to 1996 were $440 million.

The same European television rights for the next three cups went for $2.2 billion. An investigation into a bankrupt sports marketing firm found that they had given $21 million in bribes to Havange over the years to win bids. And Havillange resigned amidst these allegations in 1998. On the pitch, the World Cup continued to grow. In 1982, the field was expanded to 24 teams, and in 1998, it was expanded to 32 teams. And in 2026, the World Cup is scheduled to have a whopping 48 teams qualify. In 1991, after several unofficial tournaments, FIFA sanctioned the first Women's World Cup. Since the inaugural event, the United States has won the Women's World Cup four times,

Germany twice, and Norway and Japan won each. The 21st century saw an expansion of host countries. In 2002, the first World Cup in Asia was hosted by both South Korea and Japan. In 2010, South Africa hosted the first African World Cup. However, around this time, there began to be more and more claims of bribery by countries to win World Cup bids. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and the 2022 World Cup in Cotter, also had allegations of significant bribery associated with their winning bids. The amount spent on winning bids for each World Cup seems to have gone up over time as it

has become more and more competitive. The 2022 World Cup bid was exceptionally odd, as Cotter had no infrastructure whatsoever to host any of the matches. It required the construction of multiple stadiums, which would have had no use once the event was over. The numbers associated with Kotter's bid for the World Cup are staggering. Estimates have placed the total amount spent to host a World Cup, including all construction and infrastructure projects, at over $200 billion. The total amount of money it's expected to bring to Kotter is only $6.5 billion. This includes elaborate cooling systems for all the stadiums, and the creation of special greenhouses to grow turf which would be used on the playing fields. To put all of this into perspective, South Africa was estimated to have spent

about $3 billion in 2010, and Russia may have spent only $14 billion in 2018. To be sure, some of the construction in Qatar will be used after the World Cup is over, in particular accommodations and transportation. One of the Katari stadiums is designed to be totally dismantled after the event and will be shipped to another country. The amount paid in bribes to host. The amount paid in bribes to the 2022 World Cup is estimated to be around $880 million. This includes a highly inflated $100 million TV contract for Qatar-based Al Jazeera television, which would only be paid if Qatar won the bid. The demand for hosting a World Cup has actually increased with more nations submitting bids, and the trend flies in the face of the fact that the Olympics are finding it harder and harder to

find host cities. The last three Summer Olympics, which have been awarded, were all awarded by default to the only city that was willing to do it. The increased demand for hosting World Cups has led FIFA to propose hosting the event every two years instead of four, which would of course mean double the money for FIFA. However, the major football powers in Europe and South America have threatened to boycott the event if it became a biannual competition. If they left, it would probably cause the public to lose interest in the event. Despite a 2015 FIFA corruption case that was tried in the United States,

it's very difficult to prove any legal oversight for international organizations like FIFA. 211 countries are FIFA members, which means 211 separate jurisdictions, many of which are willing to turn a blind eye if it means income for a small country. Because of all of this, the future of the World Cup might be in doubt. The issues of bribery and corruption and the amount of money involved have become so great that it's causing many of the more powerful football countries to rethink their involvement. The way FIFA is structured, the countries that contribute the most money and have the best teams do not have power in the organization. At some point, they could just form their own rival organization with all the best teams and create some new event called the global football extravaganza or something.

As of right now, the 26 World Cup is scheduled to be jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with the finals being held in either Los Angeles, Dallas, or New York. Whatever the future may hold, the World Cup is the single-basket. biggest sporting event in the world. And the finals of the World Cup almost always have the biggest television audiences on the planet. No matter who runs the championship tournament, or whatever it's called, that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including

hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers. Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you too can have it read on the show.