The Fascist World Cup: Mussolini's Football Dictatorship

**Dominic Sandbrook** (0:08)
Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Rest Is History. So we have a brand new mini-series for you to mark the FIFA World Cup, which is happening in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. So what we're going to be doing is looking at some of the history, the deep history of the World Cup, and in particular, the story of how dictatorships have used football and used the World Cup in particular to bolster support for their regimes. So we'll be looking at propaganda, we'll be looking at the personalities of the dictators, we'll be looking at the stories of the tournaments and how they reflect public opinion and so on. Some amazing stories. In future episodes, we'll be looking at the great Brazilian team of the 1960s and early 1970s. That's the team of Pelé and Jairzinho and Jess and all these great players. The team that won in 1970, people say the best team of all time. But this was a point when Brazil had a military dictatorship. So we'll be looking at how the military dictatorship of Brazil from 1964 uses football.
We'll be looking at arguably the most controversial World Cup of all, which is 1978 Argentina. Some of you may remember we did a series about Eva Perón. And this is effectively the sequel to that. So we'll be looking at the military junta of the late 70s and how they used the 78 World Cup and the team of Mario Kempez, which won against the Dutch in the final. Big big story in Argentina. But we'll be kicking off with Italy. And with Mussolini's fascist regime and the World Cups of 1934 and 1938 So it's a really, really great subject. If you're not interested in football, don't worry. The history will very much be uppermost. A great subject needs a great guest. We have the greatest. We have the GOAT, as we like to call him.
The self-styled Irish national treasure.

**Paul Rouse** (1:54)
No.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (1:56)
A professor of history at University College Dublin, Paul Rouse. Paul, welcome back to The Rest Is History. It's great to have you on.

**Paul Rouse** (2:02)
Thanks a million, Dominic.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:03)
Because it's a football story, we've chosen this lovely location. Thanks to Chelsea Football Club. We're here at Stanford Bridge overlooking the pitch. With perfect timing, impeccable timing, Chelsea have decided today to rip up the pitch and do loads of building work on the stadium. So Paul, you will be competing with reversing vehicles, diggers, bulldozers, general men in yellow vests. But you're pumped for that, right?

**Paul Rouse** (2:25)
I'm ready.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:26)
You're ready.

**Paul Rouse** (2:26)
Brilliant.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:27)
So Paul, you were masquerading as a historian of Ireland in the last few series that we did. But this really is your home turf, isn't it? Because you're a historian of sport. Is that right?

**Paul Rouse** (2:36)
That's what I spend most of my time teaching and working on in University College Dublin is the history of sport. Nationally in Ireland, but also internationally. I teach a second year module on the global history of sport across the last 250 years in particular.

**Dominic Sandbrook** (2:51)
Lots to talk about here. Obviously, it's very much in the news at the moment, the World Cup and politics, because the World Cup is being held in the US.
Donald Trump has tried to take ownership of it. There have been a number of scandals. The Iran players had to move their base from the US to Mexico, business with a referee not being allowed in this time. Do you think this is something new? Or an example of how football has always been politicized and used by political leaders of one kind or another?

**Paul Rouse** (3:19)
The idea of soccer being politicized is nothing at all new. What is new is the precise manner in which it's revealing itself. In the case of America, I suppose the Trumpist focus on immigration and on the projection of America first. And that is in collision with the expressed hashtag. If you look at Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA's Instagram page, he seems to be unable to post without pulling the hashtag Football unites the world. And unfortunately, you cannot say that football unites the world if at the same time you're denying entry into your country of people because of where they come from. And including in that a referee of the competition. But again, this is not new. The whole way through from 1930
Like this is a political story. The whole way through the relationship. And there was a president of FIFA, an English man in the 50s and 60s, Stanley Rouse, no relation. He had no E in his name. He had this whole notion that sport and politics, and soccer and politics in particular, should not be put into the same wheelhouse. But they've always been there. Yeah.