The Birth of the World Cup — How Jules Rimet’s Dream Created Football’s Greatest Tournament

July 13, 2026 · 9 min read

In the summer of 1930, thirteen teams boarded ships, crossed oceans, and gathered in a half-finished stadium in Montevideo. What followed was the first chapter of the most-watched sporting event in human history — and it almost never happened.

A French Lawyer’s Impossible Dream

Jules Ernest Séraphin Valentin Rimet was born on 14 October 1873 in Theuley, a small commune in eastern France. His father was a grocer. The family moved to Paris when Jules was eleven, and he grew up to become a lawyer — not the obvious background for the man who would invent the world’s greatest sporting event.

But Rimet was never just a lawyer. In 1897, he founded a sports club called Red Star, which from its inception refused to discriminate against members on the basis of class or background. That idealism — the belief that sport could unite people across borders — would define his life’s work.

On 21 May 1904, Rimet was involved in the founding of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association — FIFA — in the back rooms of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques headquarters in Paris. Seven nations signed the founding charter: Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Germany joined by telegram the same day. The fledgling organisation had ambitions for a global tournament, but for the first two decades, FIFA was little more than a debating society that organised football at the Olympics.

The War, the Presidency, and the Long Road to 1930

The First World War shattered European football. Rimet served as an officer in the French Army and was decorated with the Croix de Guerre. When the war ended, he threw himself back into football administration with renewed urgency. In 1919, he became President of the French Football Federation. On 1 March 1921, he was elected the third President of FIFA.

Rimet would hold the FIFA presidency for thirty-three years — the longest reign in the organisation’s history. During that time, he grew FIFA’s membership from twelve nations to eighty-five. But his greatest ambition remained unrealised: a true world championship for football, independent of the Olympics.

The Olympic football tournaments had shown the appetite was there. The 1924 Paris Olympics drew massive crowds for football, and Uruguay’s victory in both 1924 and 1928 proved that South American football was world-class. But the Olympics were restricted to amateurs, and the best professionals in Europe and South America could not participate. Rimet wanted something bigger.

In 1928, under Rimet’s leadership, FIFA formally voted to create a World Cup. The question was where to hold it. Uruguay offered to pay all travel costs for competing teams — a decisive offer during the Great Depression — and was celebrating the centenary of its first constitution. FIFA chose Montevideo.

The Voyage of the Conte Verde

The 1930 World Cup had no qualifying rounds. Every FIFA-affiliated nation was invited, with a deadline of 28 February 1930 to accept. The tournament was originally planned as a sixteen-team knockout competition.

Then reality set in. Two months before kickoff, not a single European team had entered. The Great Depression was crushing economies across the Atlantic. A trip to Uruguay meant three months away from domestic leagues — an impossible ask for most clubs. FIFA president Rimet and Uruguayan diplomat Enrique Buero personally intervened, lobbying European federations one by one.

Four European nations agreed to send teams: Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The Romanian team was partly selected by King Carol II himself, who personally chose several players. The French brought along their finest. The Yugoslavs assembled a squad from across the Balkans. But the logistics were extraordinary.

All four European teams boarded the SS Conte Verde at various ports. The Romanians embarked at Genoa on 21 June 1930. The French and Yugoslavs were picked up at Villefranche-sur-Mer. The Belgians joined at Barcelona. The ship carried not just players, but also Rimet himself, the trophy, and three designated European referees.

“We were 15 days on the ship Conte Verde getting out there. We embarked from Villefranche-sur-Mer in the company of the Belgians and the Yugoslavs. We did our basic exercises down below and our training on deck. The coach never spoke about tactics at all.” — A French player’s recollection of the voyage

Fifteen days at sea. No professional training facilities. No tactical sessions. The players exercised on deck and ran drills below. This was how the first World Cup campaigns began — not with modern sports science, but with deck exercises and salt air.

Thirteen Teams, Four Groups, One Trophy

The 1930 World Cup ultimately drew thirteen teams: seven from South America, four from Europe, and two from North and Central America. The original knockout format was scrapped in favour of four groups, with group winners advancing to the semi-finals.

Matches were played across three venues in Montevideo. The centrepiece was the Estadio Centenario, purpose-built for the tournament. It was still under construction when the competition began — the opening matches were held at the smaller Parque Central and Estadio Pocitos while workers rushed to finish the main stadium.

The football itself was a revelation. The South American teams, particularly Argentina and Uruguay, displayed a technical level that stunned the Europeans. The United States, fielding several naturalised British players, upset expectations by winning their group. Yugoslavia, the dark horse from Europe, also topped their group.

Argentina, Uruguay, the United States, and Yugoslavia advanced to the semi-finals. Argentina crushed the Americans 6–1, while Uruguay dispatched Yugoslavia 6–1 in the other semi-final. The stage was set for a final between the two River Plate neighbours.

The Final: Uruguay 4–2 Argentina

On 30 July 1930, 68,346 spectators packed into the Estadio Centenario for the first-ever World Cup Final. The match pitted host nation Uruguay against their fierce rivals Argentina — a rivalry so intense that the two teams could not agree on which ball to use. The solution: Argentina supplied the first-half ball, Uruguay the second.

Argentina led 2–1 at half-time. But Uruguay roared back in the second half, scoring three unanswered goals to win 4–2. The victory made Uruguay the first nation to win the World Cup. Buenos Aires fell silent. Montevideo erupted. The following day was declared a national holiday in Uruguay.

Francisco Varallo of Argentina became the last surviving participant of the final, living until 2010. The match itself remains the only World Cup Final contested between two South American nations — and the only one between two Spanish-speaking sides.

The Trophy That Vanished Twice

The original World Cup trophy was called “Victory.” Designed by French sculptor Abel Lafleur, it was made of gold-plated sterling silver on a lapis lazuli base and depicted Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. In 1946, it was renamed the Jules Rimet Trophy in honour of the man who made it all possible.

The trophy lived a life as dramatic as the tournament it represented. During World War II, it was held by 1938 champions Italy. Ottorino Barassi, the Italian vice-president of FIFA, secretly retrieved the trophy from a bank vault in Rome and hid it in a shoebox under his bed to prevent the Nazis from seizing it.

On 20 March 1966, four months before the World Cup in England, the trophy was stolen during a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall. Scotland Yard launched a nationwide search. Seven days later, a black-and-white collie dog named Pickles found the trophy wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of a hedge in south London. Pickles became an instant celebrity.

Brazil won the World Cup for the third time in 1970, earning the right to keep the Jules Rimet Trophy permanently — a stipulation Rimet himself had written into the rules back in 1930. The trophy was displayed at the Brazilian Football Confederation headquarters in Rio de Janeiro behind bullet-proof glass.

On 19 December 1983, thieves broke into the building and stole it again. Four men were convicted in absentia. The trophy has never been recovered and is widely believed to have been melted down into gold bars. Only the original base was ever found, having been kept in FIFA’s Zurich headquarters.

Rimet’s Legacy and the Nobel Nomination

Jules Rimet served as FIFA president until 1954, transforming the organisation from a twelve-nation club into a global governing body with eighty-five member associations. He personally handed the trophy to Uruguay’s captain at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, where Uruguay pulled off one of football’s greatest shocks by beating the hosts in the final match.

In 1956, Rimet was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in establishing the World Cup. He died on 16 October 1956 in Suresnes, France, two days after his eighty-third birthday. In 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the FIFA Order of Merit.

The tournament Rimet created has grown beyond anything he could have imagined. The 1930 World Cup drew 68,346 spectators to its final. The 2026 World Cup, now expanded to forty-eight teams across three nations, is expected to reach over five billion viewers worldwide. From thirteen teams on a ship to the most-watched event in human history — that’s the scale of Rimet’s vision.

Key Takeaways

• FIFA was founded in 1904 by seven nations in Paris, with Jules Rimet among the founding members. It took twenty-six years before the first World Cup was played.
• The 1930 World Cup nearly didn’t happen. Two months before kickoff, zero European teams had entered. Rimet’s personal lobbying secured four European nations.
• Thirteen teams competed in the inaugural tournament, with all European teams travelling by ship for fifteen days to reach Uruguay.
• Uruguay won the first final 4–2 against Argentina before 68,346 fans at the Estadio Centenario, becoming the first world champions.
• The original trophy was stolen twice — found by a dog named Pickles in 1966, then permanently lost in Rio de Janeiro in 1983.
• Rimet’s legacy is unmatched. He grew FIFA from 12 to 85 members, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and created a tournament that now reaches five billion viewers.