By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 18^th 2025)

The Gold Medal for Olympic Hypocrisy

Al-Ahly boycotted the inaugural Cairo League (1922-23) which was won by Al-Mokhtalat. A year after the inaugural season of the League which later became the Egyptian Premier League as teams from outside Cairo were incorporated into the league, Egypt participated in the second of the three (summer) Olympic Games that Paris has hosted to date.

It was marked by controversy – one that would eventually drive a wedge between football at the Olympic Games and its organiser, FIFA.

Britain and Denmark had been the finalists in both 1908 and 1912 which were the first tournaments organised by FIFA. Britain was a late admission to the 1920 tournament over its demand to punish the nations defeated in the Great War. Britain got its way. The ban on Germany remained for 1924 despite the gross breach of Olympic principles by the previous and current hosts of 1920 and 1924’s Olympiads – their invasion of Germany’s industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley in 1923 to extract reparations.

Britain and Denmark boycotted the football tournament over wanting it to remain amateur, which in effect meant working class people would be excluded, so no problem over Olympic hosts invading countries to greedily extract reparations for a war that Germany did not start or want, but amateurism was a line too far.

The Dynasty Begins

So, 1924’s football tournament had 22 participants, including Egypt’s second participation and Uruguay’s first – the South Americans proved a class apart for the Europeans. Nevertheless, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Uruguay fielded some players who were in effect professionals. Switzerland won the silver medal. Uruguay won the tournament easily – only the Netherlands put up creditable resistance in a bad-tempered semi-final. The bronze medals were won by the Netherlands and Sweden who had thrashed defending champions Belgium 8-1 despite the Belgians featuring eight players from their triumph four years earlier.

The first round saw Switzerland dispatch Lithuania 9-0, Italy beat Spain, still including the legendary goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora 1-0, Czechoslovakia beat Turkey 5-2 and the United States beat Estonia who missed a penalty 1-0 – bizarrely the US team, making its dćbut, did not include the legendary goal-scorer Archibald Stark of the Bethlehem Steel[1] although it was just before his incredible season.

Hungary beat Poland 5-0 and Uruguay walloped Yugoslavia 7-0. Portugal withdrew from the competition, handing Sweden a walk-over. The second round saw Ireland beat Bulgaria 1-0 while the Netherlands thrashed Romania 6-0 and France went one better against Latvia. Switzerland beat Czechoslovakia 1-0 in a replay after a 1-1 draw. Belgium departed the competition, humiliated 8-1 by Sweden. Uruguay beat the USA 3-0 and Hungary lost to Egypt by the same score – Hegazi was still Egypt’s captain and scored their second goal. They lost 5-0 to Sweden in the third round and Uruguay sent France packing 5-1 in the third round. The Netherlands beat Ireland 2-1 after extra time and Switzerland defeated Italy by the same score. Both semi-finals resulted in 2-1 victories – Uruguay over the Netherlands and Switzerland over Sweden.

The Netherlands lost the bronze medal match 3-1 after a replay, made necessary by a 1-1 tie in the first match. Uruguay took the gold medal 3-0 against Switzerland , which is the source of the first of the four stars that graced their jerseys.

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[1] In the 1924-25 season Stark assaulted and conquered US Football’s record books. He scored a remarkable 67 goals, which included a record eight hat-tricks. Stark was inducted into US Soccer’s Hall of Fame in 1950 – a year of remarkable achievement for the sport in the USA. His record for the 1924-25 season means that neither Dixie Dean’s 60 in the 1927-28 season for Everton was not the world record it was credited as and nor did the great Hungarian forward, Ferenc Deák, who was then playing for Szentlőrinci AC – he scored 66 goals in that season in just 34 matches, but his tally was one goal shy of Stark’s tally.