The Odd Reason Behind India's Withdrawal from The World Cup 1950
In our story, we go this time to the 1950 World Cup, which was hosted by Brazil, and Uruguay was crowned with it.
Before the start of that edition, three teams that had already officially qualified for the World Cup decided to withdraw from the tournament at the last minute, such as Scotland, Portugal, as well as India!
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Scotland refused to participate in the 1950 World Cup, due to the distance from the South American continent, while Portugal attributed its decision to withdraw due to technical problems in the team and withdrew from the competition.
But the absence of the Indian national team remains the strangest at all, especially since the reason for its withdrawal from the 1950 World Cup was due to the refusal of the International Football Association (FIFA) for the Indian players to play barefoot.
In the qualifiers for the 1950 World Cup, the India team managed to secure its qualification to the finals effortlessly after Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines withdrew from the qualifiers. so India entered the history of the World Cup with its first official participation in the biggest tournament in the world.
But before the start of the 1950 World Cup, the Indian team suffered from poverty, as it did not find enough funds to prepare the team’s delegation traveling to Brazil to participate in the tournament, which led to the thought of withdrawing the team from the World Cup due to the inability of the Football Association in India, even to prepare the travel trip!
But this is not the only reason for India's withdrawal from participating in the 1950 World Cup, there is a more important reason! And it seems most bizarre of all, as the players of the Indian national team refused to play their matches in the World Cup in football boots!
Where players in India during that era, used to play football matches barefoot without shoes, a custom that is not new to the International Federation (FIFA), where the Indian team was participating in the Olympic Games barefoot!
But the rules of the World Cup prohibit the participation of any player barefoot! What annoyed the players of the India national team, who were completely against this idea.
Although the lack of funding was a sufficient reason for India to withdraw from the 1950 World Cup, but the International Federation (FIFA) agreed with the Indian Football Association, that the main reason for the withdrawal was the non-agreement of its players to wear sneakers during the match, to become the strangest reason Behind the withdrawal of a team from a major tournament as the World Cup and also the strangest in the history of football in general.
But the controversial thing is that the Indian national team, just two years after the 1950 World Cup, participated in the Olympic Games that were held in 1952, and its players appeared naturally barefoot, and was able to be among the major teams in the advanced positions in that edition!