Friday Charts

France played most of the first match of the first World Cup with ten men after their goalkeeper suffered a broken jaw contesting a shot. There were no substitutions in 1930, so they put a midfielder in goal.

They won anyway, 4-1 over Mexico, but hardly anyone saw it. Attendance was estimated at just 4,400 spectators. Only 300 watched Romania beat Peru.

The entire tournament was played in one city, Montevideo, Uruguay.

The match balls were not always the same. Argentina and Uruguay both insisted on using their own. When they met in the final, Argentina’s ball was used in the first half and Uruguay’s in the second. 

Wardrobes were not always coordinated. When Bolivia played Brazil, both teams had brought white jerseys to play in. Bolivia borrowed Uruguay's blue shirts for the match. 

For their first match, Bolivia had played in jerseys that spelled out Viva Uruguay. The third “U” was unfortunately missing for the pre-game photo shoot:

Why Bolivia wore Uruguay on their shirts is sadly lost to history, but it might have been because the Uruguayan Football Association had covered some of their expenses.

There was no prize money on offer. To attract teams, Uruguay offered to pay for everyone’s travel and accommodation.

Even so, the cost was part of the reason why only four of the 13 participating teams came from Europe. England, Italy, Spain, Germany and Holland all decided to stay home. 

In 1930, it took 16 days to cross the Atlantic by steamship, so European players would be away from home for roughly two months — which meant being away from their day jobs for two months.

Most football players were amateurs at the time, but even the professionals would have needed a day job to supplement their meager wages. 

The Romanian team, for example, was only able to participate because King Carol II guaranteed the players would still have jobs when they returned.

He also personally selected the squad.

Teams from neighboring countries had it easier. Argentine captain Nolo Ferreira, for example, missed just one match, against Mexico, when he returned home to take a college exam. (His replacement scored a hat trick.)

No one left the 2026 World Cup to take an exam. None that I know of have day jobs.

This is good news for footballers. Very good: Lionel Messi is expected to earn $140 million this year.

But it’s good news for everyone else, too.

One way to measure the rise of mass affluence over the past century is that the world's best athletes no longer need day jobs — the world is rich enough to devote hundreds of billions of dollars to watching them play.

We now have so much disposable income that FIFA will make roughly $13 billion of revenue on the 2026 World Cup, and pay out $871 million of prizes. 

This was unimaginable in 1930, of course. But there were signs of what was to come.

The final between Argentina and Uruguay had 93,000 spectators in attendance — 21% of the tournament’s total.

Argentina’s student-captain had returned by then, but it wasn’t enough. Uruguay prevailed 4-2, turning the city of Montevideo into a raucous street party. The next day was declared a national holiday.

In Buenos Aires, crowds of Argentines vented their disappointment by marching to the Uruguayan embassy and attempting to break in.

Football was clearly on its way to becoming as important as life and death.

If not more so.

Let’s check some charts.

There was no prize money for the World Cup until 1982 when Italy won the tournament and $2.2 million of the $20 million total. This year’s winner will earn $50 million of the $871 million total.

An estimated 6.5 million people will have attended the World Cup this year, eclipsing the previous record of 3.6 million in 1994 (also in the US). The 1994 Cup might retain the record for per match attendance, however. The 2026 total will be divided by 104 matches, vs. just 54 in 1994.

The World Cup trophy contains nearly $600,000 of gold. The trophy handed to the winner on Sunday will be a replica. The original trophy from 1930 was stolen in 1983. Its successor, pictured above, does not leave FIFA headquarters.

As recently as 1984, footballers in England’s top division were relatively normal earners: their £25,000 average salary was only about 3x the UK average. Today, their £3.5 million average is 89x the average.

An exclusive club:

The richest club in football is Real Madrid, which did €1.2 billion in revenue last year. The next richest sports team comes from the other kind of football: the Dallas Cowboys did $1.2 billion last year (€1.05 billion).

There used to be more goals:

1930 was one of the highest-scoring World Cups in history. Both semi-finals ended 6-1, with Argentina beating the US and Uruguay beating Yugoslavia. 

Which brings us to the most amazing fact about the 1930 World Cup: the US made the semi-finals.

Have a great weekend, football fans.

— Byron Gilliam