The awkward history of soccer at the Olympics by Dr Connell Vaughan
Dr Connell Vaughan is a Philosopher and a lecturer in Aesthetics and Critical Theory at the School of Art and Design at TU Dublin
Analysis: Soccer at the Olympics now plays second fiddle in the minds of players and fans to the ever-popular World Cup and continental championships
Many sports have proved too awkward to remain in the Olympics. Over the years, the tug-of-war, live pigeon shooting, pistol duelling, hot air ballooning, rope climbing and even the horse long jump have all vanished from the schedule. Taking their place in time are more globally popular and contemporary sports such as judo, the trampoline, BMX racing, skateboarding, surfing and, making its debut this year, breakdancing. In recent years, it has even proven possible for sports such as rugby union and cricket, both dropped from the Olympics over a century ago, to return, albeit in modified fashion, as rugby sevens and T20 respectively.
But perhaps the biggest compromise when it comes to inclusion is the continued presence of the first team sport to feature in the Olympics, namely soccer. That the Olympics are not the pinnacle of the men's game, despite inclusion in 28 of 30 editions so far, is obvious to even the casual viewer. Equally, in the women’s game where Olympic glory has been much more valued, it can be argued that the Olympics have served their purpose.
While there are no extra restrictions on who can play for the women’s teams and players earn full caps, the men’s competition is essentially an under 23s tournament with the strange allowance for each squad to select three older players. Furthermore, only the women’s game is on FIFA’s International Match Calendar meaning that players must be released by clubs to participate.
Two major related changes explain the compromised position of men’s soccer at the Olympics. The first is the development of the men's World Cup, and the second is the partial acceptance of professionalisation of the Olympics. Until FIFA's first world cup in Montevideo in 1930, the Olympics was in effect the premier international competition, but it was nominally restricted to amateur players as an Olympic sport.
Absent from the inaugural 1896 games in Athens, it was wholly amateur in Paris in 1900 and St Louis in 1904 with club teams Upton Park and Galt winning gold for Great Britain and Ireland, and Canada. From 1908 national amateur teams started to participate and the tournament was organised by FIFA in the 1920s. Accordingly, the two editions from the 1920s are officially recognised as world championships and Uruguay, who won both, wear stars for these on their jerseys, as is customary for World Cup winners.
The Paris games in 1924 are notable from an Irish perspective as the first time that Ireland competed as an independent nation and soccer played a central role. Wearing blue jerseys, Ireland won 1-0 against Bulgaria thanks to a Paddy Duncan goal and lost 2-1 (after extra time) to the Netherlands in the quarter-finals. As with Uruguay’s victories, these matches are now recognised as full internationals.
In fact, these games are not only Ireland’s first ever tournament games, decades before the Charlton era, but Ireland’s first ever games. What’s more, as the soccer tournament was the first event of the Olympics that year, they marked the first official appearance of Ireland and the tricolour at the Olympics.
The Irish men returned to the Olympics in London in 1948 where they lost 3-1 in the preliminary round, again to the Netherlands. The Irish men's team has not participated since, and the women’s teams have yet to make their debut. Equally, Ireland has yet to feature at Blind Football in the Paralympics, though it is worth noting that Ireland has a proud history in the now discontinued men’s Cerebral Palsy 7-a-side-football, winning silver once and bronze twice.
Given that soccer has been a professional sport since at least the mid-1880s, the Olympics’ amateur ethos could not coexist with the professional and commercial aims of the game. To promote the World Cup, FIFA withdrew soccer from the 1932 Los Angeles games. It made a controversial return in 1936 in Berlin. Notably, the Nazis were keen on its inclusion as it was "guaranteed to fill stadiums".
Despite the awkward fit, the appeal of soccer at the Olympics is clear; crowds. In host countries, soccer avails of exiting national infrastructure, enables access and guarantees income in ways that no other sport can. For example, there were close to 1.7 million tickets for soccer at the London 2012 Games compared to 600,000 for other sports.
When the games returned after World War II, Olympic soccer’s amateur status would see it play second fiddle to the ever-popular World Cup and continental championships. In the Cold War a significant feature of the competition was what could be called 'Soviet shamateurism’ whereby essentially professional athletes and players were state-sponsored, thus retaining their status as amateurs. Revealingly, between 1948 and 1980, 23 out of 28 medals were won by the USSR and its Eastern European satellites.
This was a situation that could not persist, and a compromise was brokered between the IOC and FIFA for the 1984 Los Angeles games whereby professionals from outside of Europe and South America could compete. In the 1990s, this restriction was replaced with the current under 23s system. Thereafter, world class players including Ronaldo, Crespo, Xavi, Eto'o, Tevez, Messi, Riquelme, Mascherano, Di Maria, Giggs, Neymar and, most memorably, Kanu and Okatcha have participated and shown the men’s competition to be a useful, if not entirely loved, part of the soccer eco-system.
By contrast, the women’s game has become a key global stage in the popularisation of the game since it was added in 1996, particularly in America given their success. Piggy-backing on the status of Olympics, it has been a magnet for some of the world’s best players such as Marta, Sinclair, Rapinoe, Wambach, Lloyd, Kerr and Blackstenius. It is equally capable of generating its own controversy as the Canadian drone spying scandal reveals. However, this may not last with the growing importance of FIFA's Women’s World Cup and other continental competitions.
Given the continuing expansion of FIFA’s tournaments such as the World Cup, which will have 48 teams in 2026, and the forthcoming expanded 32-team Club World Cup due next summer, the relatively modest and regionally balanced Olympic versions (16 men’s teams / 12 women’s teams) are almost quaint. With the pressures on the calendar, an increased player workload that have seen FIFA warned that players may go on strike and instances of low attendance, Olympic soccer may well someday go the way of the horse long jump.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of TU Dublin.