Along with the original founding fathers, the rest of the owners soon fell into place, including a man whose own dreams of playing football were ended by a heart ailment, Thomas Origer, who later ran the Chicago Fire.[2]
The fledgling WFL did succeed in raising stagnant salaries in the NFL. Average salaries in professional football were among the lowest in the four major North American sports, and the National Football League Players Association and the Canadian Football League Players Association had both gone on strike prior to their leagues' respective 1974 seasons in an effort to lift many of the rules suppressing free agency and player salaries. In addition, the NFL did not have a free agency system in place then (and one was not established until 1993).
As was common with many upstart leagues, the WFL's intended lineup of teams changed several times before they even played a down. Most notably, Bassett's Toronto Northmen were forced to find a new home after the Canadian government threatened to ban any American football team from competing with the CFL. Though the Canadian Football Act never passed, the mere threat of it prompted Bassett to move the team to Memphis, where it became the Memphis Southmen. It was generally referred to by fans, local media, and even some official team materials as the Grizzlies, which they officially renamed themselves to the following season (not to be confused with the current NBA team of the same name). The WFL suffered an even more serious blow when the CFL and NFL reached agreements with their striking players that ensured that the upstart league would be forced to compete with both of their established rivals.
The most dire situation, however, was that of the Detroit Wheels. The team's original 33 owners appeared to pay for team expenses out of pocket as they arose, resulting in what amounted to a club football team playing at the professional level. On several occasions, the team was left without uniforms when they did not pay the cleaning bill, forcing them to cancel practices. After several hotels and airlines went unpaid, the Wheels were also unable to fly to games or get a place for the players to stay without paying in advance. One player was forced to pay a hospital bill for his son out of pocket after being informed the team's insurance policy had been cancelled for non-payment of premiums. The owners refused to provide filming equipment for the coaches.
The league seemingly bottomed out in October when it shut down the Wheels and the Sharks after 14 games. The collapse of the Sharks meant that the Gator Bowl did not host World Bowl I; coincidentally, Jacksonville was also slated to be the host of the 1986 USFL Championship Game, but the USFL folded before that season began. It was not until February 2005 that the city hosted its first championship pro football game, Super Bowl XXXIX.
The WFL also arguably affected locations of other professional football teams: from the NFL, Hawaii hosted the Pro Bowl from 1980 through 2009 and again from 2011 to 2016, Jacksonville got the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995, Charlotte received the Carolina Panthers in the same year, and Houston's expansion franchise, the Texans, revived the name of the WFL team in 2002. Though the WFL's Toronto establishment failed due to Canadian resistance, the Buffalo Bills (with Canadian backing and special conditions) played one home game in Toronto a season from 2008 to 2013, and the league's original intent to expand the game globally is being partially fulfilled by the NFL International Series. Other cities became regular stops for franchises in other leagues:
The league also caused significant problems for the lower levels of professional football. Its arrival resulted in the end of the ACFL and SFL, effectively killing minor-league professional football in the United States until the AFA's formation in 1979.
Several NFL players signed contracts, or in some cases, future contracts with teams in the World Football League. In the case of a future contract, this was when a player entering the final years of a contract with an NFL team would sign a contract with a WFL team that goes into effect the moment the player's obligation with his NFL club is finished. Each signing is broken down by team, said players previous NFL club, and year player signed a contract. Just because a player signed does not mean he ever played for that team. L. C. Greenwood, for instance, never played a down of football for Birmingham.[2] No one shown with a date after 1975 ever actually played for the WFL team listed due to the league's insolvency as of that year.
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition between the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has been held every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, with the exception of 1942 and 1946 due to the Second World War. The reigning champions are Argentina, who won their third title at the 2022 tournament.
The World Cup is the most prestigious association football tournament in the world, as well as the most widely viewed and followed single sporting event in the world.[1][2] The viewership of the 2018 World Cup was estimated to be 3.57 billion, close to half of the global population,[3][4] while the engagement with the 2022 World Cup was estimated to be 5 billion, with about 1.5 billion people watching the final match.[5]
The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England.[6] The first international tournament for nations, the inaugural British Home Championship, took place in 1884 and included games between England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.[7] As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the start of the 20th century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics; however, the International Olympic Committee has retroactively upgraded their status to official events, as well as the 1906 Intercalated Games.[8]
After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been unsuccessful.[9]
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official Olympic sport. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England's football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.[10]
With the Olympic event continuing to be a contest between amateur teams only, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup,[11] and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title.[12] Prior to the Lipton competition, from 1876 to 1904, games that were considered to be the "football world championship" were meetings between leading English and Scottish clubs, such as the 1895 game between Sunderland A.F.C. and the Heart of Midlothian F.C., which Sunderland won.[13]
In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs", and took responsibility for managing the event.[14] This paved the way for the world's first intercontinental football competition for nations, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and 13 European teams, and won by Belgium.[15] Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928. Those were also the first two open world championships, as 1924 was the start of FIFA's professional era, and is the reason why Uruguay is allowed to wear 4 stars.[16][17]
Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet as the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship.[18] With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.[19]
The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British football associations. Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland had withdrawn from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football.[27] The teams rejoined in 1946 following FIFA's invitation.[28] The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil, in the match called "Maracanazo" (Portuguese: Maracanaço).[29]
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