1934 FIFA World Cup
2nd FIFA World Cup, held in Italy
The 1934 FIFA World Cup was the 2nd edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It took place in Italy from 27 May to 10 June 1934.
The 1934 World Cup was the first in which teams had to qualify to take part. Thirty-two nations entered the competition; sixteen teams qualified for the final tournament. Reigning champions Uruguay boycotted the tournament as only four European teams had accepted their invitation to the 1930 tournament. Italy beat Czechoslovakia 2–1 to become the second World Cup champions and the first European winners.
The 1934 World Cup was marred by its status as a high-profile instance of a sporting event used for overt political gain. In particular, Benito Mussolini was keen to use this World Cup to promote fascism. Although some historians and sports journalists have made allegations of corruption and meddling by Mussolini to influence the competition to the benefit of Italy, Italy has always claimed that it deserved victory in the competition and the successful national team, considered one of the best in the country's history, emerged victorious also in two Central European International Cups, in the 1936 Summer Olympics hosted by Germany, and in the 1938 World Cup hosted by France.
The Federale 102 ball, which was manufactured in Italy, was the match ball provided for the 1934 World Cup.
The public source identifies “1934 FIFA World Cup” as 2nd FIFA World Cup, held in Italy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around FIFA, World and Italy.
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This entry incorporates text from “1934 FIFA World Cup” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.