I would imagine in any country with a strong football tradition, the world cup would be bigger to the degree that people there would wonder why people even ask the question. I think an Olympics in your home country might sway things a fair bit, as the 2012 Olympics were huge in the UK, but you don't get the same festival feel for the Olympics taking place in other countries.
is that a fact or an opinion that someone made up and some people like to regurgitate? I doubt the 1904 olympic champion can be seriously considered world champion.
Yes you're right. There was nothing official - perhaps "de facto World Championship" was a little overstating it! But at least for 1924 and 1928, Uruguay do certainly consider themselves world champions as a result of the Olympic wins, and wear he stars accordingly. Of course the very early Olympic football tournaments were often club sides representing the countries which you're right, wouldn't be thought of as a world championships.
Only the 1924 and 1928 tournaments were officially recognized by FIFA as 'world championships'. http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/mcwc/ip-201_02e_fwc-origin_8816.pdf There was quite a conversation about this topic in this forum a few years ago. https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...ges-uruguay-are-4x-fifa-world-champs.1677197/
Easily the World Cup, 20 years ago it used to be a lot closer between the two but since then the olympicks have gone down hill. I think the Barcelona games were the last ones I truly watched from beginning to end. Now I just watch a few events like track and field and boxing. []___[]
If the number of events is the determining criteria, then do you also think that the IAAF World Championships of Athletics is bigger than the World Cup?
One could turn that argument around and say that exactly because it is only football the world cup is the bigger event...
We aren't even 2 weeks out from the Olympics and I am already hard pressed to name any gold medal winning athletes.
Winter Olympics are an entirely different animal, I think the poll question is about summer olympics vs world cup. []__[]
meh, the summer games, for the most part, is always USA, Russia, or China leading in competitions. In the world cup you have 8 legitimate contenders and some possible countries that can get far.
It's hard to compare, IMHO. In terms of complexity and influence over the world, the Olympics is bigger... but, most people are focused in the Opening Ceremony and the main events according to their own personal or national interest. On the other hand, the World Cup draws much more attention around the world over the sport itself... semifinals and the finals are watched even by people that don't care about football or the teams involved.
Depends on what part of the world you're talking about. In Latin America, the Arab world and most of Africa it's not even a reasonable question. Those areas don't send a lot of athletes to the Olympics, but they produce some of the best footballers on the planet. In North America and Australia it's probably the Olympics. In East and South Asia it's probably Olympics too but by a smaller margin. In Europe it's close too, but in the end you'd think it's the World Cup there. That's a major geographical generalization of course ... There's little cultural pockets that go against the grain everywhere
in reality it was a lack of administrative will to sort out an arduous trip to Brazil for what they saw as a minor tournament compared to the Olympics. That may have been the feeling at the time, but nowadays that seems a scarcely believable thought.[/quote] That was really interesting, and good plug lol. Doubt anyone would make choose playing in Olympics over playing in World Cup (when it comes to soccer)
I totally agree about the dynamic favoring the World Cup. Up untill the 1970's, the World Cup remained heavily dominated by Europe and South America, at such a point that it struggled to get any attention beyond these 2 regions. The dimension of the World Cup really became truly "global" in the 1990's: first, African teams started to regularly reach the quarter finals, then the US successfully organized the 1994 edition, then the competition was enlarged to 32 teams allowing all continents to be decently represented, then the 2002 edition has seen Asian teams starting to get recognition, and finally even Australia got seriously involved. Nowadays, the World Cup is considered a prime event in nearly all regions of the world. Even in those where football is the less implemented (Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia), the World Cup is largely followed. The trend is not the same with the Olympics. The system of medal table favors countries able to align tons of competitors in multiple relatively minor and predominantly individual events (generally the biggest and most prosperous countries such as the US, Russia, Germany and now China). As a result, I would say that the Olympics remains a better celebration of sport in general, but the World Cup is a more prestigious competition in itself. The best evidence is, as it's been already mentioned, that the World Cup generates a lot more expectations. The World Cup qualifiers, which are now totally global, involving more than 200 countries, are largely followed. So much that the World Cup month is regarded, at least by fans and they are numerous, as the Final Act of a 2-year competition, thus giving a lot of depth to the event.
World Cup, and I don't think it's even close. The Olympics have the whole grandiosity and hype thing going for them, but the World Cup carries way way way more national pride than the Olympics could ever hope to have. If we're talking about which body is the most corrupt though, FIFA vs. IOC would be a pretty good discussion!
There is plenty of International (team) going on at the Olympics... Field hockey, waterpolo, football, volleyball...
It's a fact that the world cup carries more national pride, but the question is which is bigger and I see people trying to argue something completely different: you are judging the importance of the Olympics basing on personal criteria, related to how much interest the world cup raises to a large number of people. To me, importance refers to the impact of the event in the society and in that regard the WC does not get even close to the Olympics. We are talking about the most important event for a large number of sports, including relevant sports such as athletics and swimming. You may think that football is more important than all those sports combined, but that is a selfish and completely biased opinion, basing on your own preferences. Of course football hard fans will prefer to watch the WC than the Olympics. But in no way is the WC more important to the sporting society.
ok, maybe 4. But you also have possibly 6 other teams that can go far. Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Germany, are definitely top 4, then possibly France, Netherlands, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Italy.
The Olympics are not mainly about nationalism. So, I don't think it makes sense to compare the two competitions in terms of which country does best. At best, you could try to measure the number of contenders for each sport. But if you really want to compare the two in terms of a measure of how good a given country is, then the Olympics is much more relevant. Just think of USA in football versus USA in Olympics. And there is a clear correlation between the number of medals of a given country and the quality of its society, which is not necessarily true with the world cup.