2024 Paris Olympics: Football – the world’s most popular sport, but plagued by indecision and lack of identity at the Games

The grandest sporting exhibition in Paris, the Olympics, would unfold without the country’s most famous sportsperson, Kylian Mbappe. The French superstar footballer had, in the past, expressed his desire to compete in the event and win the “holy grail”, but his transfer to Real Madrid, which prohibits those that had competed in the Euros and COPA America from participating in the Olympics, meant he would miss out. Unlike continental events and the World Cup, clubs have the power to decide a player’s participation in the Olympics.

Some French politicians, rumours swirled, negotiated an exemption with the Spanish football giants, but Madrid did not relent. So when the Olympic torch is lit and the contingents parade in boats along the River Seine, past the city’s historic landmarks, Mbappe would be in Madrid, soaking in the fanfare and tuning up for the pre-season that begins on August 1.

“Everyone knows I want to compete at the Games but if my club doesn’t want that to happen, I’ll understand because I am mature enough to understand both views,” he said.

Kylian Mbappe of France reacts after losing a semifinal match between Spain and France at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Munich, Germany, Tuesday, July 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Not only Mbappe, most of France’s rich pool of footballing talent would be absent from the Games and wouldn’t be even in their country. So much so that France’s Olympic football team coach Thierry Henry would say: “The last time I received so many rejections was at university.”

France is not an aberration, the powerhouses among the 16 nations would be without their stars — Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal are not in the Spain squad; Argentina is minus Messi and a host of COPA America winners; Mohammed Salah, the anointed flag-bearer of Egypt in Paris, has chosen Liverpool over his country in a last-minute u-turn, Christian Pulisic wouldn’t feature for the USA either.

Some of the storied football nations, such as Uruguay, Italy, the Netherlands and England, have historically detached themselves from the Olympics. Both Asian and African champions, Qatar and Ivory Coast, did not qualify through the continental U-23 championships. Instead, on show in Paris, would be a clutch of minnows such as Mali, Uzbekistan and Dominican Republic. Mismatches and thrashing thus are routine (Germany thrashed Fiji 10-0 in 2016), quality is not often of the elite level, even though football is the one sport guaranteed to fill stadiums.

Spain’s Alvaro Morata holds the trophy as he celebrates with his teammates after winning the final match between Spain and England at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 14, 2024. Spain won 2-1. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

At the heart of this indifference is football’s identity crisis, specifically in the men’s stream, at the Olympics. No one really knows what it is, whether it is an exhibition of superstardom, or a youth development vehicle, or even an accidental parody. It is a paradox — it’s not a fully amateur competition as it once was; it is not a professional grandee like the World Cup or the Euros either. It’s meant for U-23s — though the best in the group are already established and occupied in pre-season rigours — but all teams could field three older than 23. It starts before the opening ceremony and ends after most big events have concluded; it is among the most featured disciplines in the event, yet a gold medal is not considered the pinnacle. Lots of goals are scored, but there is hardly any recall value. The Olympics adds little to football, just as football, in its current iteration, adds little to the Olympics.

Everything and nothing

Thus, football at the Olympics is a mix of everything, and like all things without a sharp, pinpoint focus, it is complex and confused. The great minds that have shaped and influenced the Olympics have not yet discovered the formula to package football so that it could embellish the spectacle, lighten each other’s existence, rather than exist as a half-baked counterfeit, wandering in a state of purposelessness.

The sport has been a regular fixture since 1896, even though it was a club affair in the initial edition. Post the first World War, it was briefly the most coveted medal in football, as no other major international tournament existed yet. British broadcaster David Goldblatt called Uruguay’s defeat of Argentina in the final of the 1928 Olympics, “football’s first world championship”.

But two years later, Uruguay would host the first World Cup and change the history of the sport and its relationship with the Olympics.

The sport was absent from the Los Angeles Games of 1932. FIFA feared the Olympics would take lustre off the nascent World Cup tournament; American organisers contested the “amateurism” of football, now that a fully professional football tournament has been held. Besides, stories go, that they were fearful of the sport taking root in the country and displace established ones like baseball and American football.

German organisers successfully lobbied for it to be reinstated for the Berlin Games, although the teams had to meet the definition of amateurism. It took another Los Angeles sojourn, in 1984 to tweak the rules again. Teams could now field professional players, but teams from Europe and Americas should not have competed in the World Cup or continent tournaments. Eight years on, it was reformed into an U-23 format, though at the next edition, three players over 23 were allowed.

Football at the Olympics, thus, feels like a forced coexistence, showing both in poor light. Perhaps, football and Olympics in this era are not made for each other, perhaps both need a mutually beneficial divorce. Or maybe a functional solution could be worked out — like making it a wholly U-21 or U-19 event, or revamping the qualification route, or breathing some context into it, rather than packing an already packed calendar and letting football unfold as a farce — to liberate it from its state of purposelessness.

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