Hello and welcome everyone to soccer 101.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and on this episode, we're going to be taking a deeper look at the Olympics to get to the bottom of the decades-old question,

why isn't men's Olympic

soccer or football, Olympic football, more popular? A quick disclaimer about why I phrase it that

way, women's soccer at the Olympics is currently the second most important competition in the

women's game behind the World Cup. You will usually get the best players for some of the best

national teams, and it is awesome. You should watch.

And chances are, if you're listening to this episode, you probably already do. But the situation with the men's side of Olympic football is decidedly different. Today, we're going to look at

why that's the case, how we got to where we are today, and what changes, if any, could bring

the competition more prominence on the global stage.

To do so, we're going to have to take a trip in the way back machine.

Given that the World Cup didn't exist until the 1930s, for the first third of the 20th century,

the preeminent global sporting event was the Olympic Games, and the most important

international sporting organization was the International Olympic Committee or the IOC.

When the first modern Olympic Games took place in 1896, amateurism was the established rule.

The primary mind behind the creation of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Cupertine, wrote in his memoir,

quote, For every man, woman, and child, sport offers an opportunity for self-improvement quite

independent of profession

or position in life. Sport is the birthright of all equally into the same degree, and nothing can

replace it, end quote. Coopertine was a strong advocate for sport in everyday life, and strongly

repudiated the idea that athletic endeavors were strictly the domain of the wealthy. He fought

hard to ensure that amateurism prevailed at the domain of the wealthy. He fought hard to ensure

...