How the First Football World Cup Changed the Game Forever

Nowadays, football is one of the most-watched sports in the entire world. Fans from all over the globe keep a close eye not just on their favorite teams but also on all leagues and tournaments that have something to do with football. 

That being said, football’s popularity also attracts bettors from all over the world. Information provided by ThePuntersPage, for instance, allows these football fans with a tester for friendly wagers to remain informed regarding best sources for online betting they might be interested in. 

However, the game we know today was much different back in the day. The very first FIFA World Cup held in Montevideo, Uruguay back in 1930 changed the game as we know it. That was nearly a hundred years ago. With that in mind, let’s have a look at how football has changed since that historic event. 

No qualifications

The very first World Cup had no qualifications, believe it or not. Since FIFA chose Uruguay as the host for the tournament, they invited all countries associated with FIFA to participate. However, the interest was very high but many countries simply couldn’t afford the trip across the Atlantic ocean to reach the destination for the cup. 

The deadline to accept the invitation was 28th February 1930. A total of eight countries from the Americas joined in including Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Mexico, Argentina and the United States, aside from the hosts, of course. 

Only four European countries answered the call including France, Belgium, Romania and Yugoslavia. Since the number of 16 teams was not reached, the cup proceeded without any qualifications whatsoever. 

Referee conflicts

The first World Cup was chaotic to put it mildly. FIFA has chosen fifteen referees to oversee the matches. However, six of the referees were Uruguayans, and one from Bolivia, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. 

European referees included two Belgians, a Frenchman and a Romanian. The Romanian referee Constantin Rădulescu was also the coach for the Romanian team. This kinda defeated the whole point of neutrality and fairness as each referee wanted their team to win the first cup. Modern football doesn’t allow referees with personal interest to manage games these days. But back then, no one anticipated just how messy things would get. 

For instance, in the match between Argentina and France, the Brazilian referee blew the full-time whistle six minutes before the end of the game. Furthermore, during the Argentina and Mexico encounter, the Bolivian referee, who was also the coach for Bolivia’s team, awarded three penalties for Argentina for the final score of 6-3 for Argentina.

Sharing the bronze

Third place play-offs didn’t exist back in the day. FIFA simply made no distinctions between third and fourth places. This remained the same until 1934. Since the first World Cup format was quite unique, FIFA decided to entertain the idea of a third place match. 

The match between Yugoslavia and the United States was intended to take place but sources disagree on what actually happened. In the end, the official story is that Yugoslavia refused to play the match due to unfair refereeing during their semi-final match, which Yugoslavia lost 6-1 to Uruguay. 

At the end of the championship tournament Tom Florie, captain of the U.S. team and Milutin Ivković, captain of the Yugoslavian team both received bronze medals thus officially sharing the third place. However, FIFA announced later on that statistically the U.S. took third place while Yugoslavia was placed fourth due to a better goal difference despite otherwise identical records. 

Closing Words

It’s safe to say that the first ever World Cup was pretty much trial and error for FIFA. Controversies and incidents marked this historic football event. If you were to watch that cup today, you’d probably say: “This isn’t football”. But it is what it is and the game itself evolved from that point on to this very day.