1934 World Cup
| World's Cup Campionato Mondiale di Calcio |
|
|---|---|
Official poster
|
|
| Tournament details | |
| Host country | Italy |
| Dates | 27 May – 10 June (15 days) |
| Teams | 16 (from 4 confederations) |
| Venue(s) | 8 (in 8 host cities) |
| Final positions | |
| Champions |
 Italy (1st title)
|
| Runners-up |  Czechoslovakia |
| Third place |  Germany |
| Fourth place |  Austria |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 17 |
| Goals scored | 70 (4.12 per match) |
| Attendance | 363,000 (21,353 per match) |
| Top scorer(s) |
Oldřich Nejedlý (5 goals) |
The 1934 FIFA World Cup was the second FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in Italy from 27 May to 10 June 1934.
The 1934 World Cup was the first for which teams had to qualify to take part. Thirty-two nations entered the competition, and after qualification, 16 teams participated in the finals tournament. Reigning champions Uruguay did not enter. Italy became the second World Cup champions, beating Czechoslovakia 2–1 in the final.
After a lengthy decision-making process in which FIFA's executive committee met eight times, Italy was chosen as the host nation at a meeting in on 9 October 1932. The decision was taken by the executive committee without a ballot of members. The Italian bid was chosen in preference to one from Sweden; the Italian government assigned a budget of 3.5 million lire to the tournament.
36 countries applied to enter the tournament, so qualifying matches were required to thin the field to 16. Even so, there were several notable absentees. Reigning World Cup holders Uruguay declined to participate, in protest at the refusal of several European countries to travel to South America for the previous World Cup, which Uruguay had hosted in 1930. As a result, the 1934 World Cup is the only one in which the reigning champions did not participate. The British Home Nations, in a period of self-imposed exile from FIFA, also refused to participate. Football Association committee member Charles Sutcliffe's view was: "the national associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland have quite enough to do in their own International Championship which seems to me a far better World Championship than the one to be staged in Rome".
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Wikipedia