World Cup: Trophy truth is stranger than fiction

The sight of the winning team captain holding the World Cup trophy aloft will be witnessed by around 3.5 billion TV viewers across the globe (judging by the 2018 finals in Russia), at all hours of the day and night, depending on the time zones.

The trophy itself has a fascinating history, almost as exciting as the football action itself. It has once been replaced, and twice stolen!

The original trophy, won by Uruguay at the first World Cup in 1930, was christened ‘Victory’, but later renamed the Jules Rimet Trophy in honour of the then Fifa president.

Made of gold-plated sterling silver and lapis lazuli, it depicted the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

Brazil won the trophy for the third time in 1970, earning the right to keep it, and a new trophy was commissioned – the Fifa World Cup Trophy, made of 18-carat gold and inlaid with malachite.

In 1983, the old trophy was stolen from a bullet-proof cabinet at the Brazil football headquarters. It was never recovered and the assumption was that it was melted down and sold.

Meanwhile, the new trophy was also stolen, this time just before the 1996 World Cup when it was on public display in Westminster. It was found a week later by a dog named Pickles in a residential garden, wrapped in newspaper.

These incidents have led to a replica of the trophy now being handed to the winning team, with the original remaining at Fifa’s Zurich headquarters. It leaves for special occasions only, such as trophy tours, the World Cup main draw and the presentation after the cup final.

Of interest, with WWII looming, the Italian vice-president of Fifa in 1938 removed the trophy from a bank vault in Rome and it lay hidden under his bed for the duration of the war, lest it was found and stolen by the Nazis.

This all shows: There’s more than one way of ‘lifting’ the trophy.

But one team will do so properly – and legally – on December 18. May the best team win!