Football in an Axis World

Blackwood

Banned
This is a thought that never really occurred to me before. How do you think football/soccer would have fared if the Axis powers had prevailed? Feel free to describe how they prevailed in any way you choose.

Would the game be seen merely as an outsider sport, or a rebel game? Would it have been outdated? Would the Axis powers have established a new FIFA-like organization controlled predominantly by and for Germans? Stagnation? Extinction?

My knowledge of German football in the early twentieth century isn't very broad, so I'll leave it to you. Go to it.
 
There was a documentary on fascism and football that I saw a few years ago. Here is the imdb link, dunno if you'd be able to find it or not http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1176899/

Both Mussolini and the Nazis were into using football for propaganda value so I can see it doing well in an Axis world. In the 1938 world cup in France you have Italy wearing an all black "fascist", most importantly in their quarter final victory over France. I seem to remember there was a pretty big staged match between Germany and Austria shortly after the anschluss which was supposed to finish in a draw but Austria "accidentally" won and Matthias Sindelar supposedly celebrated a bit too much in front of certain high ranking Nazi officials and ends up dying in mysterious circumstances. Germany won the rematch 9-1 :rolleyes:

There is also the infamous "death match" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_Match) which Escape to victory is highly loosely based on.

So I'm sure that football would have been a big part of an Axis world and they would try and use it for propaganda purposes but how successful they would be is another matter.
 
Well I can see football's popularity outside Europe taking even more of a downturn.
Maybe Rugby/AF, Cricket, or (gods forbid :eek:) baseball became international earlier.
A lot depends on how the Axis won. A surviving SU may even lead to their national sport (whatever that is!) becoming popular.
 
Well I can see football's popularity outside Europe taking even more of a downturn.
Maybe Rugby/AF, Cricket, or (gods forbid :eek:) baseball became international earlier.
A lot depends on how the Axis won. A surviving SU may even lead to their national sport (whatever that is!) becoming popular.

I'm not sure what the biggest sport was in the SU but I have a feeling it was probably football. In Moscow in particular all the important groups had their own teams they backed, CSKA Moscow was the army team, Spartak the collective farmers team and Dynamo was the ministry of internal affairs team. Guess who backed Lokomotiv Moscow :) I'm not sure how big Ice Hockey was in the SU but I think that was the other major sport there and most of the football teams had sister Ice Hockey teams.
 
There was also one Denmark-Nazi Germany match staged following the occupation of Denmark on 5. june 1941 which actually ended tumultously because of the Danes rejecting it as collaboration.

A great propaganda tool for the Nazi's it would be used to show German(ic) supremacy of conquered peoples and anybody else being willing to engage it.
 
This is completely off track but reminded me of the comment made by Otto von Hapsburg, pretender to the AH throne. Once he was asked if he’d watched the (not quite so) recent Austria/Hungary international football match. He replied, “Who were we playing?”
 
Well I can see football's popularity outside Europe taking even more of a downturn.
Maybe Rugby/AF, Cricket, or (gods forbid :eek:) baseball became international earlier.
A lot depends on how the Axis won. A surviving SU may even lead to their national sport (whatever that is!) becoming popular.

No chance, the South American nations were the primary movers behind the inauguration of the FIFA World Cup and an Axis victory would see an outbreak of Fascism and pseudo-Fascism erupt on that continent so Football would remain strong in that corner of the world. Britain and France (however they existed) would probably turn to Rugby League or Rugby Union more - or perhaps even horseracing given the extremely high prevalance of the sport in both countries between the wars.
 
In Harry Turtledove's book In the Presence of Mine Enemies, one thing mentioned is soccer, and there are a few things, like Germany winning the 2006 World Cup, the German Federation of Sports controls pretty much everything (favouring German sportsmen over any other sportsman) and there is mention of a Brazilian multi-racial national team with Negroes and Native-Americans that play good enough that they can challenge Germany with ease.
 
Sport in an Axis world

On the assumption of an Axis-dominated Europe, I suspect sport would have continued and perhaps even flourished once the fighting had ended.

Horse racing took place in Germany during WW2 in OTL and in occupied France, the Arc de Triomphe was run as usual so there's little doubt horse racing would continue in Germany, France, Italy, GB, Ireland and elsewhere. The course at the Hoppegarten in Berlin would be the stage for the FuehrerPreis, the biggest race in Europe.

Football - yes, that would continue whether or not the World Cup itself survived. I suspect the Germans would have vigorously promoted a European Championship tournament and clubs, once purged of any Jewish influence, would have resumed and flourished. I could Arsenal vs Munich for the European Cup Final in 1972 for example.

Motor Racing - another strong sport and enjoyed by Italians and Germans so a European Grand Prix series looks likely. Ferraris racing Mercedea-Benzes and Daimlers round Imola and Nurburgring - definitely.

Tennis - another likely sport. The Germans had some good players and I suspect that, unless war-damaged, Wimbledon would still take place.

Golf - I don't see why not.

Shooting & Hunting - more popular under the patronage of Hermann Goering.

Athletics - Definitely. The Germans would try to dominate the events that the Americans won at Berlin in 1936.

Hard to know what, if any, sports the Axis would have discouraged. We would probably see Handball more popular than Basketball for example but swimming would be fine. Indeed, the Axis would have actively encouraged sport as a way of uniting the European peoples.
 
In Harry Turtledove's book In the Presence of Mine Enemies, one thing mentioned is soccer, and there are a few things, like Germany winning the 2006 World Cup, the German Federation of Sports controls pretty much everything (favouring German sportsmen over any other sportsman) and there is mention of a Brazilian multi-racial national team with Negroes and Native-Americans that play good enough that they can challenge Germany with ease.
Germany and Brazil would, I think, come to dominate world football. Matches between them would be particularly fierce as far as fan rivalry went- Nazi thugs in the German crowd, and hardcore anti-fascists (the other side of the alt-Cold War) in the Brazil one. Think the recent Turkey-Armenia match, but worldwide!

If there is an Israel ITTL, they refuse to play against Germany, so any match scheduled between them is recorded as a 3-0 win for the Germans. The Israelis are fine with this, as they would probably lose by more if they were to actually play the match!
Israel might, because of this, play in Asia not UEFA.
 
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