World Cup Tales: How Mussolini's Italy Fixed the 1934 Tournament

On a waterlogged pitch in Milan, the Austrian goalkeeper was bundled over his own goal-line, allowing Enrique Guiata to score the only goal of the 1934 World Cup semi-final. The referee saw nothing wrong. It was a familiar story for Italy’s opponents throughout the tournament, one of strong-arm tactics overlooked and questionable decisions going the way of the host nation. Italy were in the final.

This was the World Cup that Benito Mussolini had coveted. When Italy’s bid to host the inaugural 1930 tournament failed, with the honour going to Uruguay, the Italians withdrew from the competition entirely in a fit of pique. Four years later, Uruguay returned the favour and declined to travel to Europe to defend their title. The British nations were still absent, and Argentina, runners-up in both the 1928 Olympics and the 1930 World Cup, sent only an amateur side. The tournament was missing three or four of the world’s strongest teams before a ball was kicked.

Mussolini himself had no great passion for the game, but he understood its potential for propaganda. He commissioned a second trophy, the Coppa Del Duce, an edifice six times the size of the Jules Rimet trophy itself. FIFA, it seemed, was in thrall to the Italian dictator, allowing him to exploit the competition for his own political ends. It was not the first or last time football’s governing body would make questionable choices for its hosts; the decision to award the 1982 finals to Spain was made while General Franco was still in power.

The Oriundi Question

The Italian coach, Vittorio Pozzo, made full use of the rules surrounding the oriundi, players of Italian parentage born in another country. Italy’s strong cultural links to Argentina proved a particular benefit. Pozzo fielded three members of the Argentinian team that had contested the 1930 final. He defended the practice by stating, “if they can die for Italy, they can play for Italy,” a reference to the country’s conscription laws.

The argument lost some of its force a year later. When Italy declared war on Abyssinia in 1935, several oriundi, including the semi-final goalscorer Guiata, were caught trying to flee to Switzerland. While the use of these players was entirely within the rules of the time, it contributed to the feeling that Italy were assembling a team by any means necessary.

A Path Paved in Doubt

The tournament itself was a straight sixteen-team knockout. Italy, the only host nation ever required to qualify, had already dispatched Greece before the finals began. They opened their campaign with a 7-1 demolition of the United States. The quarter-final against Spain proved tougher. After a brutal first match, a replay was needed to see Italy through. The Swiss newspaper Basler Nationalzeitung was scathing about the referee for the second game, Rene Mercet, writing that he “favored the Italians in a most shameful manner”. The referee for the first match, Louis Baert, was also heavily criticised for his performance.

After the controversial semi-final victory over Hugo Meisl’s Austrian ‘Wunderteam’, Italy prepared to face Czechoslovakia in the final. The referee appointments were now widely understood to be coming directly from Mussolini. The man in the middle was to be Ivan Eklind of Sweden, the very same official who had overseen the semi-final. One of his linesmen was Louis Baert, the referee from the first Spain match.

The night before the final, Il Duce did not hold a reception for the two teams or meet with his own players. He held court with Ivan Eklind.

Mission Accomplished

Despite the high stakes, Rome seemed curiously cool towards the final. The 50,000 capacity Stadio Nazionale PNF had 5,000 empty seats for the biggest match in world football. Those in attendance witnessed another game marred by weak officiating. Contemporary accounts describe a clear, two-footed lunge inside the Italian penalty area that went completely unpunished. Even with this advantage, Italy struggled.

With just fourteen minutes remaining, Antonín Puč gave Czechoslovakia the lead. It looked as if the script had gone wrong. But five minutes later, Raimundo Orsi, another of the oriundi, found an equaliser, forcing the match into extra-time.

A single goal from Angelo Schiavio won the match, the trophy, and the day for Italy and for Mussolini.

The question of whether Italy could have won without such assistance lingered. Pozzo’s team provided an answer four years later by successfully defending their title in France, beating Hungary 4-2 in the final. Even that victory was tainted by politics. For their quarter-final against the hosts in Paris, Mussolini instructed the team to play in all-black, the colour of his fascist party. It was, however, a victory earned on merit, even if the tournament was missing an Austrian side swallowed by the German Anschlüss and a Spain consumed by civil war.

FIFA eventually tightened its eligibility rules in 1964, preventing players from representing more than one country. The oriundi still exist in a different form, but the days of international teams effectively ‘signing’ players are gone. The crude intrusion of politics that so blighted the 1934 World Cup remains, though, a continuing, if subtler, tradition in the game. But the question marks over the refereeing in Rome and Milan are enough to cast a permanent shadow over the validity of Italy’s first world title.