Olympic football is about more than the game itself
Roar Pro By TheBeautifulGame, 29 Jul 2012 TheBeautifulGame is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- football, london 2012, Olympics
117 Have your say
Every four years the football world goes a little nuts. No, I’m not talking about the World Cup or the Euros, but the Olympics.
Unlike other major football tournaments, tactics and egos don’t dominate discussions instead the validity of the tournament provides ample talking points.
This got me thinking, why do we play football in the Olympics?
Not only is the tournament not run by FIFA, but there are a number of differences that work against traditional football norms.
For example England does not compete as a separate nation opting instead to share their chance at glory with the other nations of the British Isles under the banner of Great Britain.
To add to the mayhem in the men’s draw countries cannot select their strongest squads, instead under-23 squads with three overage players players are fielded.
At first glance Olympic football appears as though it is merely a second rate, unofficial and therefore pointless exercise.
However, it wasn’t always this way.
Prior to the FIFA World Cup the Olympics were the pinnacle of the footballing world, the only major global football competition that allowed nations to field a full squad and unleash the very best of their abilities, today the tournament is a shadow of its former self.
But is this actually bad?
Despite many football fans’ valid confusion about the tournament those very fans are missing something.
Olympic football isn’t about the football.
The Olympics represent the very essence of sportsmanship, of fair play and of never giving up.
The ‘Olympic Spirit’ is hard to put into words but it is a universal concept that has a special, pure place in the minds and hearts of sport fans around the world.
Football is the world’s most popular game and true fans understand the raw emotion that football evokes.
Football at the Olympics is unlike football in any other tournament.
It does not search for the World’s best team and it isn’t really official but what it does do is bring the sport back to its roots, playing for the fun of it and giving it your best shot.
Passionate about your football? Then sign up to The Roar's brand new daily football email, delivering Roaring articles directly to you day-in, day-out. You'll love it!
Click here to join now!
Looking to join The Roar team? We're searching for an experienced Group Sales Manager to lead our team in Sydney. Yes, this does mean you get to work with the site all day long! If you're a digital media sales star, we want to hear from you. Apply now.
- Explore:
- football, london 2012, Olympics
July 29th 2012 @ 8:25am
MV Dave said | July 29th 2012 @ 8:25am | Report comment
I would suggest the Olympics need Football more than Football needs the Olympics. Football again will draw more spectators than any other single sport at the games, even though the Men’s is an U/23 comp.
The Women’s tournament is probably the 2nd biggest after the WC, whereas the Men’s tournament wouldn’t make the top 10 football tournaments around the world.
It’s an interesting situation where most sports are desperate to be included in the games eg Baseball, Rugby and others, whilst it seems FIFA would be quite happy for Football to drop out.
July 29th 2012 @ 2:22pm
Elisha Pearce said | July 29th 2012 @ 2:22pm | Report comment
Does it really draw more than track and field?
July 29th 2012 @ 4:24pm
Matt F said | July 29th 2012 @ 4:24pm | Report comment
1.6 million tickets have been sold for Football in the 2012 games. No other sport get’s close to that, though Track & Field is restricted because it is all based in the one stadium while football has numerous matches played in a number of stadiums.
August 2nd 2012 @ 4:51pm
Marc said | August 2nd 2012 @ 4:51pm | Report comment
Some impressive attendances up until the end of the Group stages: more than 1.3 million fans have attended 42 Men’s and Women’s matches.
The London Olympics will smash previous attendance records.
There are 16 more games, obviously quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals to come.
And with Great Britain getting through in both the Men’s and Women’s some big crowds should be expected.
August 2nd 2012 @ 5:14pm
Marc said | August 2nd 2012 @ 5:14pm | Report comment
Smash previous attendance records … maybe not, just checked and the Beijing Olympics attracted 2.144 miliion fans …
August 10th 2012 @ 6:55am
MV Dave said | August 10th 2012 @ 6:55am | Report comment
They must be getting close to the record attendance…over 2 million fans have attended the football at London 2012.
August 10th 2012 @ 5:30pm
Marc said | August 10th 2012 @ 5:30pm | Report comment
Yeah Dave
After the Women’s final 2.03m fans to football, but that doesn’t include the attendance for the Women’s 3rd place in Cardiff which hasn’t been posted yet. With another 150k to attend the Men’s 2 medal games, these games will overtake the Beijing Olympics.
July 29th 2012 @ 8:41am
c said | July 29th 2012 @ 8:41am | Report comment
enjoyed watching the ladies last night japan v sweden and yes the crowd looked and sounded great. yes we are the best game
July 29th 2012 @ 10:08am
Fussball ist unser leben said | July 29th 2012 @ 10:08am | Report comment
I think you’ll find that the Football event at the Summer Olympics is a FIFA event:
In particular, Article 3 of “Regulations of the Olympic Football Tournaments Games of the XXX Olympiad London” state:
3. The Olympic Football Tournaments London 2012 (“Tournaments”) are FIFA events embodied in the FIFA Statutes.
July 29th 2012 @ 10:24am
TheBeautifulGame said | July 29th 2012 @ 10:24am | Report comment
Very interesting, thanks for the info Fussball. Adds another dimension to the situation!
July 29th 2012 @ 11:10am
Alan Nicolea said | July 29th 2012 @ 11:10am | Report comment
Agree that Olympics need football more than football needs Olympics. World Cup is still no.1
July 29th 2012 @ 11:14am
nordster said | July 29th 2012 @ 11:14am | Report comment
Olympics football feels like a friendly tournament…nice to watch individual games here and there, the overall medal result means zero to me. (but then the only thing i’ll watch at the LDN is the mens road cycling and XC mtb)… Im guessing the players will think different, would be a nice thing to be involved with on an athlete level.
July 29th 2012 @ 1:03pm
nickoldschool said | July 29th 2012 @ 1:03pm | Report comment
Basket Ball was in a similar situation until 1992: a NBA title was the pinacle of the sport. Now, many international stars would rather get an olympic medal than a NBA title.
Football being the only true global team sport on all continents, it doesn’t need the Olympics to have major events: WC, euro, UCL are already as (or more) global as the Olympics. I think the IOC should welcome all players rather than make it a ‘youth tournament’. Kobe Bryant, Phelps or Bolt can play but footballers can’t? Ridiculous imo.
July 30th 2012 @ 10:37am
The Answer said | July 30th 2012 @ 10:37am | Report comment
Nickoldschool – just to pick up and run with one of the points you have made, there is no question that soccer is bigger than basketball on all counts, but I’m just wondering on what criteria basketball doesn’t fit your definition of being a global team sport? It has fully professional competitions on every single continent (well into double figures in Europe alone), numerous participants and spectators and significant participation and professionalism for women as well as men.
I’m not trying to troll you, but asking a legitimate question.
July 29th 2012 @ 1:05pm
jbinnie said | July 29th 2012 @ 1:05pm | Report comment
TBG – As already printed in these columns just a few weeks ago a survey was undertaken at the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles. For some time it had been discussed that the Games should it be held without the “soccer” comp. and it was felt the US,being a non soccer country,was the ideal time to do this type of survey.The sports company Adidas did the work and it was found that if the soccer tournament had not been held the Games would have been a financial disaster.The final and semi finals had to be moved from LA to Pasadena as that is where the state’s largest stadium was situated,the Rosebowl.The 3 games pulled 290,000 people. The “get rid of football” idea has never been discussed since. jb
July 29th 2012 @ 3:59pm
TheBeautifulGame said | July 29th 2012 @ 3:59pm | Report comment
Haha! Made my day
July 29th 2012 @ 1:12pm
Johnno said | July 29th 2012 @ 1:12pm | Report comment
-I am going to be honest and straight up this whole weird tradiotnal clinging to less is more with Oylmpics sports is nonsense. The modern Olymcpis are now not the ancient Olympics in Greece. Yes the greeks come out 1st but that is the only tradition and greco roman wrestling.
-As jbinnie pointed out as far back as 1984 Olympci football is making bike bucks for the olympics and so will sevens rugby. Now with multichannel like on foxtel you can have as many sports as the olymcpis want and the global advertising exposure of your sport to wow.
-So i say have even more sports, if they make money as so many of the sports don’t and all that infrastructure has to be paid for. So less pressure on the tax payers if more money comes in via tv ratings $$$$. And if you don’t like the sports eg bmx riding or under 23 football don’t watch it. But clearly plenty of people do watch football at least.
July 29th 2012 @ 11:10pm
Bondy said | July 29th 2012 @ 11:10pm | Report comment
Interesting Johnno I was only thinking today about Rugby coming in “good luck ” but its about servicing T.V. markets that with Rugby their penertrating through Asia, the Oceanic Pacific Rim, South America, Eastern Europe, and Great Britain other sports just simply cant get out that far .
Would Rugby be included if it was more of a Commonwealth sport though ! .
July 29th 2012 @ 11:35pm
Johnno said | July 29th 2012 @ 11:35pm | Report comment
COnfused boney with your would rugby be include if commenwlath sport. Soccer and rugby both invented by england so both commonwealth sports originally.
-Rugby is going global much like basketball both sports at similar stages of development. And sevens rugby is very handy tv markets, should get good tv ratings i am hopeful very hopeful of that. T.V market is what it is about making profits that is why i say more sports the better.
Bring in chessboxing, box lacrosse, T20 cricket, surfing, and netball Bondy all sports would love exposure and with multichannels if you don’t like it don’t watch.
August 1st 2012 @ 12:39pm
Minister for Information for the Democratic People's Republic of Football said | August 1st 2012 @ 12:39pm | Report comment
That’s barely english Johnno. Did your cat just walk across your keyboard?
July 29th 2012 @ 1:51pm
Minister for Information for the Democratic People's Republic of Football said | July 29th 2012 @ 1:51pm | Report comment
Football at the olympics is such an anonymous event. I can’t even tell you all the semi finalists of the last two editions and I eat and breathe football. If football were to be scrapped from the olympics I would barely raise an eyebrow.
July 29th 2012 @ 4:06pm
TheBeautifulGame said | July 29th 2012 @ 4:06pm | Report comment
In all fairness (assuming you’re from Australia), the media has a lot to do with that. Remember that the football was broadcast on SBS and not channel 7 (with the obvious exception being the final) so the sport wasn’t as publicised as others.
July 29th 2012 @ 6:53pm
jbinnie said | July 29th 2012 @ 6:53pm | Report comment
MIDPF -I don’t think any Olympic financial official would be worried too much about your apparent lack of interest.Lets examine your claims in a constructive way.
Australia – 2000 – Attracted 1,029,000 fans to 32 matches for a game average of 32,000.(non football mad country)
Athens – 2004 – Attracted 400,000 fans to 32 matches for a game average of 12,500. (yes, football mad Greece).
China – 2008 – Attracted 1,400,000 fans to 32 matches for a game average of 44,000.( another emerging football country)
So, as you can see, there are an awful lot of people who paid a lot of money to see your “anonymous events”.
Another aspect of these 3 tournamens are some of the names that jump out of the top 3 squads in each competition,
Countries – Argentine,Spain,Italy Brazil, who would all be termed “world powers” in the game.
Players – Mascherano,Puyol & Messi from Barcelona,Pirlo,Tevez, Saviola, Riquelme,Ronhaldino,Ronaldo, and our own Aloisi,Elrich and Cahill who have all played in Olympic tournaments, not a “mug” among them. jb
July 29th 2012 @ 7:25pm
Fussball ist unser leben said | July 29th 2012 @ 7:25pm | Report comment
I heartily endorse, jb’s comments.
The football tournament is either the most popular, or 2nd most popular, event at every Summer Olympics – in the stands & on TV.
Due to work commitments overseas, I only managed to attend the opening match AUS v ITA at the MCG. The crowd was 93,252 and the footballer I’ve admired the most in the past 6 years – Andrea Pirlo – scored the winner in the 81′.
Of course, at that stage, Pirlo was a 21 year old just starting out with Inter. The other Italians, also just starting out, who ended up being world champions 6 years later included: Gattuso, Zambrotta, Ambrosini,
And, the Final ESP v CMR at the Olympic Stadium was as good a football match as I’ve ever seen. A 20 year old Xavi opened the score for ESP after 2′ & ESP were 2-0 up by half-time. But, CMR are not called “The Indomitable Lions” for nothing and a 19 year old Samuel Eto’o made it 2-2 & CMR won on penalties in front of a crowd of 104,098!
Many of the future superstars of WC2018 will be on show at London2012 and this is what makes the Football event at the Olympics very special for me.
PS: jb, just a minor amendment for your attendance statistics – according to the Official post-Sydney 2000 Report to the IOC, the football tournament attracted 1,393,592 … a fraction behind the Athletics 1,530,693.
July 29th 2012 @ 11:01pm
jbinnie said | July 29th 2012 @ 11:01pm | Report comment
Fuss -Thanks for the correction,only one thing, how many athletic events were on show,? was it more than 32×1.5 (=48 hours) of game time(football) against a 2 week long athletics programme.Food for thought is it not?
I did realise there were far more “future stars” played in these game,(and thank you for mentioning a few more,) but did not want to show up MIDPF’s comments in too much of a bad light. Cheers jb
July 29th 2012 @ 10:04pm
Minister for Information for the Democratic People's Republic of Football said | July 29th 2012 @ 10:04pm | Report comment
Correct on all points jb but off the top of your head can you list all the semi finalists of the last 2 or 3 editions of the football tournaments at the olympics (no googling!) ? That’s my point. Maybe you can but most people won’t know.
Attendances is one thing and there are always some memorable matches but it was Alex Ferguson that said “It’s a tournament that’s forgotten 2 weeks after it’s played”.
TV ratings are massive for the final itself as it’s a stand alone blue ribbon event but I would suspect ratings would be much weaker for the other matches outside of the countries involved in them. How many people around the world would know that Australia made the semis at Barcelona ’92 ? Not many.
The great players that have graced the olympics over the years would have become great players with or without the olympics.
My main beef is that I don’t want football to have to share the limelight with other sports at any event. So let the olympics be the olympics (and I’ll watch them anyway) and let football have its WC and under-age world cups. Rant over.
July 29th 2012 @ 11:20pm
jbinnie said | July 29th 2012 @ 11:20pm | Report comment
MIDPF- Alex Ferguson,like many other managers of top clubs,has an almost pathological hatred of those men (international managers) who, through mandates laid down by Fifa, can take as many of their highly paid stars as they like, and put them into a situation where they run the normal risk of picking up serious injury,and he,Alex, can do nothing at all about it, so I would not put much credence to any statement that Alex makes in regards to representative football.
That said I don’t get your point about how many people remember games from 4,8,or 12 years ago.What you seem to miss is that it is a football tournament that provides a very useful path for young players to experience in their continuing education of the game at high levels.
Thirdly,did you not understand my first offering. Adidas found that the money generated at the LA games in 1984 was crucial in turning a loss into a profit.So it proved that it is the Olympics that need football not football that needs the Games.Hope this clarifies the situation for you . Cheers jb
July 30th 2012 @ 10:31am
Minister for Information for the Democratic People's Republic of Football said | July 30th 2012 @ 10:31am | Report comment
jb – Of course football is vitally important to the olympics and will always be part of it. I was speaking hypothetically.
I’m happy for football to be part of it but all I’m saying is I could just as well imagine the olympics without it just from a viewer’s perspective. Of course in terms of economics the olympics could never afford losing football. When there’s a football tournament I want to watch as much of it as I can but during the olympics I want to see all the classic olympic sports as well and you can’t do both at the same time. For me one detratcs from the other.
August 10th 2012 @ 6:43am
lolly said | August 10th 2012 @ 6:43am | Report comment
I like the under 23 thingie with footie. If T20 cricket ever makes it to the Olympics I hope they have a similar rule. When you are generally swamped by a sport in non-Olympic time, it’s great to see the up and coming stars in a big tournament. I think it’s one of the great things about footie at the Olympics, even if it makes it a bit odd in sitting alongside the idea of the best v the best.
July 29th 2012 @ 10:38pm
Bondy said | July 29th 2012 @ 10:38pm | Report comment
It cant be scrapped the Olympic movement live of the back of this sport globally.
July 29th 2012 @ 4:33pm
tom said | July 29th 2012 @ 4:33pm | Report comment
foxsports appears to be ignoring the football. does anybody know why. On saturday night there was no live coverage of the japan sweden match. the match started at 9 pm and it would have been great to watch live football around this time of the night. instead they showed other sports and in some cases i think replays. enjoyed the live matches on wednesday and thursday. i dont think they are showing the live early match tonight. i cant complain to fox because i’m an optus subsriber. i only subcribe because of football. has any one put in a complaint to fox about what appears the poor treatment of football given they have 8 channels. basketball and volleyball was shown live around 9 pm on saturday. very disappointing if we have to endure a policy of ignoring football.
July 29th 2012 @ 7:04pm
jbinnie said | July 29th 2012 @ 7:04pm | Report comment
tom – Can’t say for certain but I’m sure Channel Nine has invested plenty in contracting to have the right to show the Games live and if that is the reason for a perceived drought of publicity for our game, it should come as no surprise, bearing in mind that Channel’s attitude to the “world game”.jb
July 29th 2012 @ 7:13pm
Midfielder said | July 29th 2012 @ 7:13pm | Report comment
JB
Remember it was those who run ch nine who said the 2006 WC would not rate … 7 & 9 are so set in their ways and views and in many ways protect their chosen sports…
July 29th 2012 @ 7:24pm
tom said | July 29th 2012 @ 7:24pm | Report comment
ch 9 have the rights to the games. does this mean that 9 direct fox what to show. just cant understand why fox cant find room in it’s coverage to show live football matches. hopefully it will be less congested next week and all the quarter finals will be shown life.