Why Is Olympic Football So Weird?

the Olympics is the biggest Showcase of sports on the planet it's quite literally the epitome of peak Human Performance football is the most popular sport on the planet and I doubt you'll find many people that can refute that convincingly every study every comparison almost every metric points towards that a lot of people only watch sports of any kind when the Olympics comes around so why do we not really care about Olympic football and when I say we I don't mean Spectators and common folk I mean fully fledged sporting organizations players and decision makers Germany have

only qualified twice in the nine tournaments since 1988 and a unified Germany has never won Italy haven't won or tried really since 1936 Great Britain straight up refuses to participate and if we really want to get into the argument of perceived Prestige I present to you the case of Argentina current world champion and Brazil the greatest football nation to ever exist Argentina won Olympic gold in 2004 and 2008 back to back you'd think they'd feel like World Champs right they didn't and nobody else did these gold medals came in the middle of a three decade

trophy drought for the Argentine national team but it was only in 2021 when Argentina won the Copa America that the football World truly recognized them as being back up until 2016 Brazil had never never won it once and not having Olympic gold didn't really bother too many people nor detract from their perception as the most successful football nation they've since won backto back gold in 2016 and 2020 and these victories were rightly celebrated but it's also worth noting that this was the only competition that this nation had ever not won perhaps that added to the

celebrations FIFA Global football's governing body has a match calendar which Maps up the date ranges that International Football competitions can be played in if a player is called up their club and hence employer is required to allow them leave to represent their Nation if they choose to do so the World Cup the Euro the Copa America qualification matches international friendlies if it's on the calendar it has to be respected and clubs can't deny a player from participating however when it comes to the men's game at least the Olympics is not on the calendar why is

that hello everyone truly hope you're all doing well welcome back to the channel to cut a long story short you clicked on this video looking for answers the answer is FIFA FIFA doesn't want the Olympics to compete with the World Cup so over the years they've put in place a bunch of rules and stipulations that have essentially made that remain the case um that's what you came for there you go uh cheers bye subscribe if you haven't I'll see you in the next one but if you want to stick around we're going to go into

why those rules were put into place in in the first place and how they came to be football at the Olympics is an interesting case study I'll save my own opinion for the end of the video so until then let's take it from the top the Olympics began in 1896 and football has been a part of it since the beginning there was almost certainly a point in time when the Olympics was taken very seriously in the world of football Uruguay boasts four stars above the badge for the national team stars above your badge in this

context represent FIFA World Cup win Argentina has three Germany has four Brazil have five and so on and so forth however two of Uruguay stars are a bit different they are Olympic gold 1924 and 1928 the first two senior World Championships organized by FIFA FIFA took control of managing Olympic football in 1914 but it was only in 1924 that the Olympics committee relinquished full control to them as you might already know Olympic athletes were traditionally only allowed to participate in the games if they were amateurs as competing for Glory without financial gain was seen as

a sign of social superiority it was mostly rich people that didn't really need the money that took part so I'm sure that helped in allowing them to compete football was no different it was only in 1984 88 years after the first games their professionals were permitted FIFA weren't prepared to wait that long football is said to have been the most popular of the events at the 1924 Olympics in Paris reportedly accounting for onethird of the total revenue of the games Uruguay of course came out on top on the flip side football had been undergoing the

switch to professionalism around the world meaning that several players were unable to even participate because of their working status so by default this was not necessarily a competition between the best of the best but even in that state it was still immensely popular it was time to go independent in 1930 the World Cup was born something we should also take into consideration is that even though FIFA broke away to start the World Cup they are still the governing body of Olympic football with that power they were able to cancel football at the 1932 Olympic Games

so it did not conflict with the inaugural World Cup from there the gap between the quality on display at the World Cup versus the Olympics grew wider and wider no longer did the results in the Olympics represent the true standing of the football World a gap even further maintained thanks to a flurry of rule changes that have systematically been put in place whenever the Olympics has looked to potentially claim some Prestige from the World Cup like in 1984 when professionalism was first introduced to the Olympics FIFA responded to this rule change by forbidding countries from

Europe and South America from Fielding players that had played in previous World Cups however this rule was not in forced for countries outside of those two continents and even with the restrictions France won the gold in 1984 no need to explain further to this day no non-ua or economy ball team has contested a FIFA World Cup Final in 1992 the rules were changed again such that only players 23 years old or younger could participate and finally in 1996 countries were allowed to field a maximum of three players over the age of 23 this is where

things stand today basically all of these restrictions make Olympic football a glorified youth competition that doesn't even really feature the best youth players qualification to the Olympics is only earned through youth team Continental tournaments the top three from the under 21 UFA Euro the top three from the under 23 afcon and the top two from the under 20 conquer CF championship and so forth from that perspective it makes a lot of sense why countries like Germany Portugal France Uruguay Brazil Brazil and many more don't always qualify for the Olympics at least not at the same

rate that they qualify for the World Cup all of their youth Talent is scooped up and called up to the senior teams way before they turned 23 so they'll never ever feature Aden Olympics or help qualify for it either Spain just won the Euros with laminal pedri ferine Lopez and Nico Williams all players that were eligible to participate in Olympic qualification but did not football at the Olympics positions itself as a major competition one that should be held in high Prestige but almost none of the best players are taking part in it at the moment

because why would they we do already have the World Cup which is the biggest trophy of them all we do already have other competitions which are exceedingly more competitive and more of a spectacle now all of these things in and of themselves aren't really that much of an issue to me personally I don't see that much wrong with the current format of the Olympics but that's because for me I know what I'm getting into I know it's an under 23 competition and not a competition between the best of the best what about the person who

only watches the sport every 4 years what about them this can be pretty confusing to them right so number one issue Lies when you fail to Market Olympic football for what it actually is not the best of the best number two when you contrast it with the rest of the Olympics which actually is a competition between the best and the best in many cases and number three when there's a lot of ambiguity in terms of representation for the actual countries at the Olympics all of these points are further exemplified when you look into some anecdotal

examples from some of the more traditionally big footballing Nations and their most recent history at the games we've already spoken about one or two major Nations but we haven't spoken about Great Britain as the name suggests this is an amalgamation of England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland funnily enough they are the joint record holders of Olympic gold with three but the last time they won was 1912 ever since team Great Britain has not been a prominent feature in fact the only time they've featured at a summer game since 1964 was 2012 when London was the

Olympics host City but the reasoning for this is a bit more political than skill-based you'd be right to assume that many in the UK would love to have a shot at securing senior gold medals but Scotland Northern Ireland Wales England it may come as a surprise to some to know that they all have their own independent football associations uniting to form a single team to represent them all has long been thought of as a slippery slope the Scottish fa's position on this issue Remains the Same we are opposed to the concept of a British football

team as we have said many times before we feel that such a move would threaten the independent status of the home Nations a press release administered by the Scottish fa regarding the formation of a team to compete in the 2012 Olympics Great Britain did compete in those Olympics but there were no Scottish players present football regarding team Great Britain has long been shrouded in noise what are the qualification mechanisms all nations compete independently outside of anything relating to the Olympics so how does that work England won the 2023 under 21 European Championship so team Great

Britain should technically be at the 2024 Summer Olympics right they are not who decides on what number of players from each region constitutes a fair representation good question and even after being reassured that their individual statuses will be maintained by FIFA presidents first seata and then Giani Infantino none of these nations have been able to come up with a compromise hard to see a point where they will oh and just a side note going back to Uruguay after winning back-to-back Olympic gold and the competition losing its previous relevance Uruguay did not even qualify for Olympic

football again until 2012 group stage with that being said I think we should all now be on the same page regarding what Olympic football isn't I think all of us can count several competitions that hold more Prestige than the Olympics and then we have newcomers like the Nations league in Europe which I would argue Ronaldo cares more about than the fact that he's never won Olympic gold people care about the Olympics as a whole because it's the ultimate Showcase of so many sports gymnastics all forms of track Athletics swimming archery several Combat Sports the list

goes on and on but football just isn't one of them and of course that was done on purpose there was always going to be a breakaway for football to form its own thing because of how popular it is but I think you know just in hindsight if the Olympic Committee was a bit less strict about professionalism in those early days perhaps Olympic football would hold a bit more weight than it does today but who knows and it's also worth noting that football isn't the only sport that is viewed this way too tennis golf baseball basketball

ask Aid viewers of those Sports why the Olympics isn't the epitome of The Craft and I know they will have a sizable list of competitions that outweigh the iconic rings to say that nobody cares about the Olympics as probably a bit too Sensational but what do you expect this is YouTube after all many do the same way that all youth competitions matter this competition does mean a lot as it gives Nations that haven't always gone far in the World Cup a chance to shine Nigeria and Cameroon are historic ly amongst the best African nations they

almost never fail to qualify for the World Cup and boast the best talent that is sent off around the world but none of them have made it past the quarterfinals of a World Cup both have won Olympic gold in the past try telling them it isn't a major competition the Olympics is a youth competition no doubt about it and there's nothing wrong with that I just don't think everyone knows that and there we have it let me know what you guys think about the Olympics that's all for me today hope you guys enjoyed hope a

great day cheers and I will catch you in the next one [Music]