Football at The Summer Olympics - Olympics After The First World Cup

Olympics After The First World Cup

Following Henri Delaunay's proposal in 1929 to initiate a professional World Championship of Football, the sport was dropped from the 1932 Los Angeles Games in an attempt to promote the growing sport of American football in the United States. Football returned at the 1936 Berlin Games. The German organisers were intent on the return of the game to the Olympic movement since it guaranteed vital income into the organisation's coffers. The German national side was defeated by Norway in a second-round match that was attended by Adolf Hitler. Hitler interfered with the proper development of the football Olympics, as evidenced by his successfully requesting that Peru's victory over Austria be annulled, and the game repeated, on the grounds of supposed fan invasion of the field at the end of the game. The Peruvian team refused and left the Olympics. As professionalism spread around the world, the gap in quality between the World Cup and the Olympics widened. The countries that benefited most were the Soviet Bloc countries of Eastern Europe, where top athletes were state-sponsored while retaining their status as amateurs. Between 1948 and 1980, 23 out of 27 Olympic medals were won by Eastern Europe, with only Sweden (gold in 1948 and bronze in 1952), Denmark (silver in 1960) and Japan (bronze in 1968) breaking their dominance.