Football
By Patrick Ramirez Perez

Prior to World War two, the first World Cup in 1930 was staged in Uruguay to celebrate their bicentennial and, acknowledge current winners of the previous Olympic Games. This was a key turning point for football on its way to a globalised sport. To ensure the World Cup was held in Uruguay, its government offered to pay for the hotels and team expenses of the teams participating. Further more, they built a brand new stadium (capacity 100,000).In these ways Uruguay raised its profile as a sporting nation on the world stage. Football took its first modern steps towards becoming planet’s dominant sport from 1950’s, because smaller politically insignificant countries could raise their profile in the global world.

These included Paraguay and Uruguay in South America and the Netherlands and Belgium in Western Europe.

Soccer or Football as it is known around the world is the most popular sport in history. France is both the supreme exemplar of sporting internationalism, because they founded the governing body of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) that governs for known football tournaments. FIFA was formed in 1904. The French took the lead in organizing soccer in especially as a global phenomenon in the 20th Century. At the start of the 20th Century, the social competition of football was changing dramatically. Britain emerged to challenge France during that time; this is the reason Britain is seen as the home of football, neglecting the French who began the international aspect. The spread was underpinned by a process of social mobility, development of modern integrated transportation and increase of availability of leisure time as the 20th Century progressed.

The Olympic tournament had been the only tournament before this with soccer and world-wide participation, only for amateurs. However, more and less politically insignificant countries had adopted professionalism and “shameateurism” was developing in the amateur game. This was apparent during the 1924 Olympics when the “professional” Uruguay team became first South American nation to win the title. FIFA and IOC planned who should control soccer tournaments. At the end of the 1920’s FIFA duly announced its plan to run its own competition, but the world press were to given it their own title ‘World Cup”, “World Soccer Championship”, “La Coupe de Monde” and “Jules Rimet Cup” were as favourite’s descriptions. Eventually “Jules Rimet Cup” was how World Cup was officially known, honoring the man who had done so much for FIFA in amongst member nations (The World Encyclopedia of Football, 2004, 4-6). By 1929, FIFA had not finalized plans for first championship although they announced it would take place in 1930. Thirteen teams participated, including only four from Europe and teams outside South America required to travel by boat. The tournament ended with Uruguay as first winners, USA and Yugoslavia 3 and 4th place respectively. It was overall deemed as a success. As it was a success and hugely popular, football developed grass roots into the most popular sport until WW2, so 1930 was a stepping stone in developing it to a huge tournament as it is nowadays.

Football by 1950 was popular around the world given decades earlier small political nations raised their profiles as sporting nations. During 1930 tournaments, nations such as USA, Yugoslavia, went into the tournament little known by others as participants, but they proved their status respectful by beating other nations such as France, Brazil, and Spain. The new stadiums, infrastructure, transport a success role in traveling players, yet defined a success for professionalism. The next edition of World cup was more success, but until the end of 1930’s where the 2nd World War was exemplified and a gap of world football.

The 1950’s provided the world that football was uprising to popularity and a phenomenon. The game provided new tournaments