Switzerland - a stronghold in European football, 1930–1954?

In the aftermath of the First World War, the practice of football underwent rapid development in continental Europe as a professional sport as well as a new diplomatic instrument. This article aims to analyse the role and the involvement of Swiss football leaders in this context of commercialisation, mediatisation and politicisation, from the 1930s to 1954, when in the same year Swiss officials organised the World Cup and held the Basel congress, which laid the first stone of a European governing body: the Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA). The analysis of those officials’ involvement stresses the importance of the role played by Switzerland in the administration of the game (the headquarters of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association have been based in Zurich since 1932, the UEFA moved to Bern in 1960), in the organisation of a great number of international games and competitions for clubs (Coupe of Nations in 1930) and national teams (World Cup in 1954), but also more broadly in the international relations, where sport – and especially football – was increasingly used as a tool of diplomacy in changing geopolitical configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]