In The World Cup as World History by William D Bowman, chapter two focuses on the politics behind the first couple of World Cups, like the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay, where a lot of significant European teams declined the offer to participate in the World Cup. The four European nations that went to the first World Cup were France, Yugoslavia, Belgium, and Romania. Most European countries were concerned about the cost of travel and the logistics of getting their teams to Uruguay, except for Britain, which believed that the competition was beneath them and that English soccer was better than any other soccer team in the world.
The 1930 World Cup also held a lot of political significance because one of the main reasons it was hosted in Uruguay was because it had already shown its soccer prowess on the national stage in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics. Uruguay also wanted to prove its position in South America, especially to its much bigger and stronger neighboring countries of Brazil and Argentina.
The 1934 World Cup in Italy was also used as a political display for Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime. The ultranationalist and anti communist views of Mussolini had started to intertwine with sport as sports started to rise in popularity across the world, including soccer. Sixteen teams competed in this World Cup, which was an improvement over the World Cup in Uruguay, which only saw thirteen teams compete. Uruguay did not compete in this world cup however as the national team was having financial difficulties, and they were still angry about European teams like England refusing to come to the country to participate in the World Cup.
The 1934 World Cup took on very serious political undertones being pushed by Mussolini, who used the international platform he was provided by the competition to advertise himself and his movement insistently. This caused England to reject the invitation to participate in the World Cup again. Many teams went through issues with playing in the tournament like Argentina, which was the runner-up in the 1930 World Cup, who had their roster severely weakened by a lot of the better players on their roster choosing to migrate and play for Italy instead. Argentina and Italy had a long history of shared immigration, and the Italian government was able to nationalize the new Argentinian players very quickly.
Other countries’ teams like Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had formed a center of footballing excellence in the 1920’s and 30’s, but political strife in all of these countries affected their players’ effort and play on the pitch. Italy won the1934 world cup by playing a very aggressive and foul-heavy form of football that a lot of other countries complained about, and some even claimed that Italy had the ref in their pocket. But Mussolini denied all of these claims and celebrated the World Cup win fully because a world championship is worth its weight in gold for political propaganda.
After the World Cup, Italy started to move aggressively into overseas military campaigns, like when they started fighting Ethiopia in 1935 and when they supported the authoritarian nationalist Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. While you cannot directly connect world politics to international sporting competitions, it is safe to say that Italy’s confidence was very high after winning the World Cup in 1934.
International sporting competitions are always a good time to show what your country is about and project your beliefs on a global scale. I think the World Cup connects to politics almost as much as it connects to the sport of soccer itself.
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