Early voting results

The organization of early FIFA World Cups was awarded to countries at meetings of FIFA’s congress. The choice of location was highly controversial, given the three week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football at the time. The decision to hold the first cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing. The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.