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THE BEGINNINGS (1930 38) In the early part of the twentieth century, soccer was still trying to find its way as a sport that people could get behind. Soccer’s international governing body, FIFA, had been founded in 1904 with just seven countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The real influence behind attempts to internationalize soccer at the time was the Football Association (most of the world calls the sport football , not soccer).

The Football Association (FA) is based in England, and was founded in London in 1863. The FA came up with a common set of rules to lend some consistency to the sport. Forty years later, the FA was still the most prominent governing body. For the Olympic Games, for example, it was the FA that organized the Olympic soccer tournament in both 1908 and 1912. These were the first true tournaments at the Olympics and the first instances of national rather than club teams representing the participating nations. FIFA added five members between 1904 and 1913, including the United States, but the organization struggled to survive during World War I. The FA again organized the first post-WWI Olympic tournament in 1920. But in 1921,

Jules Rimet, honored by this Paris street in his name in his home country of France, was elected president of FIFA in 1921 and staged the first World Cup in 1930

Frenchman Jules Rimet was elected FIFA president, and things began to change for the association. FIFA took over the staging of the Olympic tournament in 1924, and did so again in 1928.

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