International track and field matches began to slowly become more common in the early 1920s. Initially, competition was sought with neighbouring countries, political allies, or countries within the same cultural sphere. For example, the Netherlands and Belgium faced each other for the first time in 1911, and France and Belgium in 1912. Britain and France, who fought on the same side in the First World War, began their joint contests in 1921. Finland, on the other hand, attempted to arrange a match with Hungary.
Foreign policy conditions influenced international match relations. In the aftermath of the World War, Germany, which had been banned from the Olympics, began its international match history with a contest against neutral Switzerland in 1921. They did not compete against their former enemy Britain until eight years later.
In the Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark began their annual three-country matches in 1917. Finland negotiated with these countries to join in, but no agreement was reached. It is likely that the Scandinavian countries feared potential problems that might arise from Finland, whose political situation was unstable. The official reason for disagreement was invented to be disagreements over financial details.
After gaining independence, Finland tried again. Disagreements were related, among other things, to foreign policy; in the early 1920s, there was debate in Finland about the direction of the Finnish foreign policy. The question of the Åland islands was also still unresolved. Finland's bitter language dispute between Finnish and Swedish speakers also loomed in the background.
Many Finnish speakers supported so-called border state cooperation in Finnish foreign policy with, among others, the Baltic States and Poland, while the Swedish-speaking side looked towards the Scandinavian direction. These divisions naturally also reflected in sports. In Finland, the Swedish-speaking sports federation SFI supported Nordic match cooperation, and the failure of negotiations with Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in the spring of 1921 was a hard blow. An SFI representative angrily accused negotiators of the Finnish speaking federation of favouring border state politics. Two other sins of the Finnish speakers were, according to him boorish manners and fear of losing to Sweden.
Suomen Urheilulehti, 15.9.1921 (in Finnish)