How Often Is The FIFA World Cup Held?

The FIFA world cup is the most prestigious football event in the world as countries fight against one another to become the true champion of the world. However, one might wonder how often this event is held? Well, the answer is once every 4 years.

There have been rumors about changing the football World Cup to once in two years. Yet this matter is still in discussion among the parties involved. This suggestion is based on the amount of profit that can be generated if it was to proceed.

The rights to host the FIFA World Cup also change from time to time between the continents. So why is the World Cup held every 4 years?

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Olympic As The Organizing Basis

Before the World Cup was introduced, the Olympic sport started way back in 1896. One of the events that were contested in the Olympics was football or as they call it soccer in the US.

The story goes that during that era, there was a problem with the logistics and facilities being used. This means that the football match that was being organized was only limited to local championships handled by the football association at a district or state level.

It was a rare occurrence for the people back then to witness a match between countries on different continents except for neighboring countries such as England and Scotland that went on in 1872.

The match that ended with a tie without any goals became the first match in the history of the world featuring two teams representing two different countries going against each other on the pitch.

What changed was the spirit and support of people all over the world who wished to see different teams worldwide going against each other. This made football to be included in the Olympic Sport 1900 in Paris where France became the host.

Establishment of FIFA

To empower the development of the sport to make it go much further, one initiative was done towards establishing one specific body to regulate football. Several European countries started to discuss among each other to establish one special committee to monitor the movement and arrangement of football in 1904.

Some of the countries that were involved were France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. Spain at the time did not have any country representative and instead was led by the Madrid Football Club(now known as Real Madrid).

They agreed to work together and established Fédération internationale de Football Association which is French for the acronym FIFA. This is because France offered itself to become the host of the first World Cup.

It is also another reason why FIFA has officially been written in French to this day. Some of you might be unaware that FIFA is not an acronym in English.

Following the success of this establishment in managing the world of football, FIFA was given the opportunity to support organizing the football match starting with several other championships in 1906 to the Olympics starting with the 1908 Games.

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Forced To Be Dependant With The Demands of Olympics Sport

As they agreed to establish a partnership, the Olympic Committee and FIFA starts their first official event by organizing the first Olympic football event in London in 1908.

However, most of the match ended with a result that was considered quite a bias following the quality of the players that were imbalanced among the teams that were involved. The main reason was due to the strict requirements set by the Olympic Committee that required every participant or player that compete in the games to be an amateur.

This condition became one of the obstacles in the series of Olympics causing FIFA to feel that football will not progress as long as the same requirements were set. This became the main factor why the top executives of FIFA made a huge change toward creating their own championship under FIFA.

The Olympic Sport 1928 in the Netherlands witnessed football rise to become the most popular event as Uruguay beat Argentina to win the gold medal.

Realizing that it was the best moment for them to split from the Olympics, FIFA starts a plan of a football championship between countries with the first championship starting in 1930.

Splitting From The Olympics

To ensure that football fans are not confused with the existence of more than one football championship, FIFA announced that the football event will not be held in 1932.

Only 1 championship which is the World Cup 1930 will be taken into account as the official football championship recognized by FIFA. Despite splitting into two different entities, FIFA still respected the contributions of the Olympics towards providing an early platform for football.

To make sure that the schedule of the two championships is not disturbed, FIFA agreed to organize the World Cup every 4 years similar to the Olympics with the FIFA World Cup event being held 2 years after the Olympics was held.

The first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930 witnessing the home repeating their past achievement in the Olympics in 1928 by crushing Argentina 4-2 ultimately crowning Uruguay as the first champion of the World Cup.

The championship that was participated by 13 countries around the world was mainly among the South American countries due to the difficulties of the European teams to attend. This was the breaking point proving that the World Cup can grow even further.

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Organizing In This Modern World

If we were to look at the World Cup now, the period of 4 years between each World Cup is considered relevant and should be maintained.

This is since the scope of organizing the World Cup must be borne by the home country to prepare themselves with the required facilities that are far much bigger than the previous World Cup.

Aside from that, there are many championships that exist to this day covering many regions and continents across the globe which will prepare them for attending the World Cup. Will the change in organizing the World Cup to once in 2 years will change the performance or quality of the matches being played? 

Or will it only result in an abundance of championships being held making the World Cup lose its prestigiousness? 

One thing for sure is that such an event will rake in huge commercial profits for not just FIFA but also the hosting country.

Source:

• Iluminasi

Also read: History of Commonwealth Games - The British Empire Games