First World Cup-1930

First World Cup-1930

When the preliminary schedule for the 1932 Summer Olympics came out, football was not among the events being played. Prior to the schedule being finished, the Federation International of Football Association (FIFA) and the International Olympic Committee disagreed over the status of amateur players, so they dropped football from the Games. With no football in the Olympic games, the FIFA president, Jules Rimet, at FIFA's Amsterdam conference organized plans to stage a tournament independent of the Olympics, open to all FIFA players and with professionalism allowed. The FIFA membership accepted the proposal. Now that they decided to have a tournament, they needed a host.

Italy, Uruguay, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands all applied to host the event. With Uruguay being the reigning Olympic champions and having plans to build a new stadium as the centerpiece of the event, they won the bid. Two other main reasons that Uruguay was chosen to host the event was because Uruguayan authorities offered to refund the expenses of all participants and the country would be celebrating the 100th anniversary of its first constitution. The trophy that was to be awarded to the winner was a golden trophy known as "The Goddess of Victory", which was commissioned from the French sculptor, Abel Lafleur.

The tournament was called the World Cup and this first World Cup was the only one without qualification. Every country that was part of FIFA was invited to the tournament and had a deadline to accept. Several European teams that were invited did not accept due to the long and costly trip to Uruguay. Jules Rimet, FIFA president, intervened and four European teams eventually accepted and made the trip by sea. Once the World Cup began, Uruguay went undefeated (4-0) and won the inaugural World Cup by beating Argentina 4-2 in the finals.

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