Real Madrid is leveraging its historical strength while football fans eagerly await another feast after the recent conclusion of the Euro 2024 competition in Germany. France is preparing to host the Olympic Games this summer in Paris, where football matches will take place from July 24 to August 10. The Madrid club had long announced that it would not allow its players to participate in the Olympics, as it coincides with the preparation period for the new 2024/2025 season.
By this decision, Real Madrid has deprived several of its stars from participating in the Olympics, including new arrival Kylian Mbappe, who was a candidate to carry the flag for his country in the opening ceremony had he remained with his former club Paris Saint-Germain. Other clubs have also been rigid in allowing their players to participate in the Olympics, either through a public decision or an implicit verbal agreement with their stars, preventing the 16 participating national teams in football from benefiting from including three players over the age of 23.
European clubs are armed with the argument that football in the Olympics is a competition that does not fall under the international agenda of FIFA.
Will the rules change? Following the stance of Real Madrid and other clubs, there have been calls to FIFA to recognize football in the Olympics as an official competition that allows countries to summon any players they wish. However, looking back at historical records, it does not seem that FIFA is poised to amend this regulation, as Real Madrid continues to triumph in a battle that began 92 years ago.
Football has been part of the Olympic competitions since the second edition in Paris in 1900, while it did not appear twice, in Athens in 1896 and Los Angeles in 1932. Football was absent from the 1932 Olympics to give a greater promotional opportunity for FIFA’s new tournament, the "World Cup," which first kicked off in 1930 in Uruguay. Subsequently, FIFA placed numerous restrictions on the Olympics, leading the World Cup to become the premier tournament over time.
There were even restrictions on European and South American teams, requiring them to use amateur players until the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. At that time, teams from these continents were allowed to include professional players who did not participate in the World Cup. The limitations continued with the establishment of a new rule that players must be under the age of 23, starting from the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Four years later, at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, a new breakthrough occurred by allowing the participation of three players over the age of 23, alongside the introduction of women’s football competitions that had no age or player type restrictions. Thanks to these regulations, several stars shone brightly by leading their countries to Olympic gold, such as Nigerian Emmanuel Amunike in 1996, Cameroonian Patrick Mboma in 2000, Argentine duo Roberto Fabián Ayala and Juan Román Riquelme in 2004 and 2008, Mexican Jesús Corona in 2012, and Brazilian duo Neymar Junior and Dani Alves in 2016 and 2020.
