India in the World Cup: Direct qualification when three nations withdrew their names, so could not play

The fourth edition of the FIFA World Cup was held in 1950 after two editions were stopped due to the Second World War. It tried to bring back the atmosphere of football. However, due to weak economic conditions, it was difficult for some countries to participate.

One of which was the Asian nation of India. Being a neighbor of Nepal, a lot of interest is kept about India. India has not yet played in the World Cup. However, the story of India's name being associated with the World Cup is interesting.

India was also selected to play in the World Cup once. However, he could not make use of that opportunity. After that, India did not reach the World Cup again.

The 1950 World Cup was held in the South American nation of Brazil. It was even more difficult for Asian countries when it was difficult for European countries to go there.

This is how the selection was made

The Philippines, Indonesia, Burma and India were among those who qualified for the World Cup from Asia. These four nations had to play for one place. Burma gave a walkover to India in the first round. On the other hand, both the Philippines and Indonesia returned their names. In the second round as well, India got a walkover and qualified directly.

Thus, India became the second country after Dutch East Indies to qualify for the World Cup from Asia. However, India did not play that World Cup.

India, which withdrew its name before the tournament, was in Group Three along with Sweden, Italy and Paraguay.

Couldn't play because of this

It is a matter of interest why India did not play the World Cup despite being selected. Some reports have mentioned that India withdrew the name because of the high cost of the long journey. Some have also mentioned that the Indian team is playing barefoot and India did not play after FIFA made a rule that they cannot play in the World Cup with bare feet.

Did India not play the World Cup because of bare feet?

The Los Angeles Times published a blog about this in 2011 where it is clearly mentioned and financial problems are the main reason rather than bare feet.

In 1948, India surprised many with its performance at the Summer Olympics in London, England.

At that time, Indian players played without shoes (some wore socks and many played barefoot). In the first round, India was defeated by France with a narrow margin of 2-1. In that match, India did not allow France to score for 70 minutes.

The game garnered much attention in the 1948 Olympics as India played football at the international level for the first time after independence from Britain.

India attracted a lot of attention by playing with bare feet.

FIFA had made it clear that India could not play barefoot in the 1950 World Cup. As a result, it was said that India withdrew from the World Cup as they could not play barefoot.

Since the 1950 World Cup was held in Brazil, teams from Asia, including Burma, did not play in the qualifiers.

The European country Turkey also withdrew its name to visit Brazil showing economic reasons. Therefore, it has been mentioned in the blog that it may be appropriate to withdraw the name from the World Cup citing economic reasons.

There is another opinion about India not being able to visit Brazil due to the economic situation. At that time, the organizers offered to pay most of the expenses for India to go to Brazil, but India did not participate and Asia was not represented in the World Cup.

According to India's Sports Illustrated magazine, the Indian Football Federation had announced that the team would not participate in the World Cup because of 'disagreement in team selection and insufficient time for practice'.

Similarly, in the recently published book 'Box to Box: 75 Years of the Indian Football Team', it has been mentioned how ignorance, short-sightedness, lack of confidence in the players and wrong priorities on the part of the Indian Football Federation (AIFF) cost India a golden opportunity to compete in the World Cup.

Along with India, Turkey and Scotland also withdrew from the World Cup. As a result, although 16 teams were supposed to participate, only 13 teams participated in the World Cup. Instead of these three teams, FIFA invited Portugal, Ireland and France. Portugal and Ireland refused. France initially agreed but later withdrew the name.

How does FIFA earn money from football?

Everyone knows how business works. If the goods are sold a lot, there is income from there. If something is liked by many, then of course its price is higher.

The FIFA World Cup is also the same, the governing body of world football also earns a lot of money through the World Cup. FIFA earned more than $4.6 billion from the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

FIFA allocates separate expenses to the organizing committee of the host country for project expenses, prize money, travel expenses for participating teams, accommodation expenses and sports promotion in the host country.

The winning team of the Qatar World Cup-2022 will receive only $42 million in prize money.

FIFA manages and publishes its financial report every four years. Recently, FIFA published its financial report from 2015 to 2018. In which a turnover of 6.4 billion dollars was shown. In 2021 alone, for one year, FIFA announced a financial transaction of 766 million dollars.

Television broadcasting rights

FIFA collects the highest revenue it earns in four years from the rights to broadcast the World Cup live on television. According to FIFA's latest report, from 2015 to 2018, he earned 4.6 billion from the sale of live broadcast rights out of the 6.4 billion dollars he made.

Advertising Rights

World-renowned brands spend huge sums of money to promote themselves at the FIFA World Cup. Another main source of income for FIFA is advertising. Big brands collaborate with FIFA for the development and social responsibility of the World Cup.

They cooperate with FIFA's non-profit projects from national, international to grassroots.

The FIFA World Cup is a global brand that is estimated to be watched by half of the world's population. Around 5 billion people will watch the World Cup.

FIFA earned $1.66 billion from the sale of advertising rights during the 2018 World Cup. It has been revealed that in 2021, FIFA earned $131 million by selling its advertising rights.

Ticket and Hospitality Charges

From 2015-2018, FIFA earned 721 million dollars by selling tickets and hospitality at the World Cup.

A company has taken responsibility for the tickets. The company sells tickets under FIFA.

FIFA earned $12 million by selling 60,000 tickets for the Arab Cup in 2021. 3 million tickets have been sold for the Qatar World Cup 2022. The price of each ticket ranges from 100 to 1100 dollars. It is also estimated that FIFA will have a lot of income.

Branding and Licensing

The main attraction of this year's FIFA World Cup 2022 is electronic art. FIFA took a huge amount of money to make this brand the attraction of the World Cup. FIFA has signed a 20-year contract with Electronic Arts (EA). According to the agreement, FIFA will receive a total of 20 billion dollars.

According to the sports manager, EA will pay an amount equal to 150 million dollars every year just to use the FIFA name.

In 2021, FIFA earned $180 million by selling merchandise, retail and gaming licenses. In the same year, FIFA received $201 million as a reward from the US Department of Justice.

Interesting facts about the first Asian team to play in the World Cup

The FIFA World Cup is starting in Qatar from Sunday. This is the second time that a big world football fair is going to be held in Asia.

Previously, in 2002, Japan and South Korea jointly hosted the World Cup. After two decades, the World Cup is returning to Asia.

Moreover, Qatar is playing the World Cup for the first time as the host.

Then which country will be the first to play the World Cup from Asia?

A question may arise in the mind of many. The answer to this is that the current Asian powerhouses Japan, South Korea, Iran, and Australia, which have started participating in the AFC, are not.

Many may be surprised to hear the name of the country that will play the World Cup from Asia. However, it is true that the first country from Asia to play the World Cup is the Dutch East Indies.

Which is currently known as Indonesia.

Since the European nation was a colony of the Netherlands, it played under the name of the Dutch East Indies at that time.

One match was lost

The World Cup was held for the first time in 1930 in Uruguay. The Asian team participated only in the third edition of the World Cup held in France in 1938.

The Dutch East Indies representing Asia were defeated in the first match and dropped out of the World Cup.

In the 1938 World Cup, a direct knockout i.e. Round of 16 match was played. All the matches were in knockout format.

Where the Dutch East Indies met with the European country Hungary. In the match on June 5, 1938, the Dutch East Indies were defeated 6(0) and returned home from the first stage.

Dutch East Indies played the World Cup under the captaincy of Achmad Naveer.

"It doesn't matter what happened, I will protect Indonesia," Tijak Pativael, who played for the Dutch East Indies, has said many times. What his son Yohanes said has been mentioned by FIFA.

Patiwael also scored a goal in that match against Hungary, but it was not recognized as it was offside.

Japan's opportunity to withdraw its name

The World Cup participation of the Dutch East Indies is still exciting. At that time, the Dutch East Indies and Japan were selected from the Asian region. Under Group 12, these teams had to play qualifiers. However, after Japan withdrew the name, the Dutch East Indies were directly qualified for the World Cup.

What was interesting at that time was that the Dutch East Indies also had two football associations. One for the Dutch and the other with local players.

They went on a Euro tour by selecting players from both associations. Many local players turned away from this comfortable experience when they refused to play for the colonial rulers.

After World War II, Indonesia gained independence and became a founding member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), which was established in 1954. After independence, Indonesia has not yet qualified for the World Cup.

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