At 0:00 on November 21, 2022, the 22nd World Cup kicked off in Qatar. Looking back at the development of modern football, the World Cup, a sports event created by FIFA, has gone through nearly a hundred years of ups and downs, and now it has become an authoritative event to test the true level of each national team. In the early days of international football, however, it was dominated by the Olympic Games.

The birth and germination of modern football

As the birthplace of modern football, England has made great contributions to the early development of football. On October 26, 1863, the world's first football association was formed in England. The English word "football" was first used to name the football originating in the north of England - Grabi football. For the sake of distinction, the English football association refers to football as "association football". Later, for convenience, people followed the abbreviation custom of Oxford University at the time, adding the first consonant syllable "soc" and adding er to create a new word "soccer", that is, soccer.

Led by England, by the early 20th century, many countries in Europe and Latin America had established football associations, creating conditions for the formation of international football organizations and international competitions.

FIFA was created

On May 21, 1904, in a humble room at the Paris headquarters of the USFSA, six delegates from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and France witnessed the founding of FIFA. In April of the following year, England, then the "boss" of football, recognized and joined FIFA, followed by Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

This is despite the fact that FIFA's new statutes state: "Only FIFA has the power to organise international tournaments." But the reality is not as ideal as they think.

The first attempt at international competition

As the number of participating countries increased, an international championship was proposed at the second FIFA Congress in 1905. Before that, only 11 international matches had been played in Europe.

FIFA plans to divide 15 teams, including England's four teams, into four groups. However, due to the fact that Germany, Denmark, Italy and Sweden have not yet formed their national teams, coupled with the different rules of the national football associations, the tournament ended in failure.

The development of football in the Olympic Games

The first Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896, but football was only listed as a show event. After the Paris Olympics (1900) and St. Louis Olympics (1904), football was included in the games, but there were very few teams (three in 1900 and two in 1904), and they were all clubs, not national teams.

In 1908, the British Olympic Association appointed the English Football Association to organize the Olympic Games in London. Woolfall, who was treasurer of England's Football Association at the time, was also president of FIFA. This gave him a chance to take control, and for the first time Olympic football was properly organised.

The team changed from the original football club to the national team, a total of eight teams (after Hungary withdrew due to the Bosnian crisis, Bohemia withdrew due to the loss of FIFA membership). The amateur team of England won the championship and successfully defended it at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Two years later, FIFA finally officially recognized the Olympic football tournament, defining it as an official Amateur World Championship.

World Football after World War I

When World War I broke out in 1914, the Olympic Games, which had been held every four years, were suspended. In 1918, the International Olympic Committee decided at its annual meeting to continue to hold the 7th Olympic Games in 1920, and the right to host the Games was handed over to Antwerp, Belgium.

A total of 14 nations participated in the Olympic soccer tournament, including the newly minted Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. In the end, the host country Belgium defeated Czechoslovakia in the final to win the championship, breaking England's monopoly on the championship.

The emergence of "fake amateur players"

In 1885, the United Kingdom passed the football professionalism program, and professional players became an industry in British society. Until 1924, professional players were restricted to the British Isles.

Five months after the 1920 Olympics, Jules Rimet of France was elected the new president of FIFA. At the 1923 FIFA Congress, the number of federations increased from 20 to 32. As FIFA's influence expands, it also faces new challenges.

With the exception of England, the vast majority of players were amateurs. The conditions for the popularization of football professionalism in the world are not mature, and the main problem is the treatment of players. For the growing number of working-class players involved in the sport, leaving work to travel long distances to play is no guarantee of pay.

And some clubs, in order to attract the best talent, even at the illegal recruitment, they offer players because of the stoppage of the game "downtime compensation." This has led to the emergence of a third type of player - the "fake amateur". These players do not get paid to play, but they actually make a living playing football.