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The World Cup is a solid gold trophy that is awarded to the winners of the
FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has ...
association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
tournament. Since the advent of the World Cup in 1930, two trophies have been used: the Jules Rimet Trophy from 1930 to 1970, before the FIFA World Cup Trophy from 1974 to the present day. It is one of the most expensive trophies in sporting history, valued at $250,000. The first trophy, originally named ''Victory'', but later renamed in honour of
FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
president Jules Rimet, was made of gold plated sterling silver and lapis lazuli. It depicted Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Brazil won the trophy outright in 1970, prompting the commissioning of a replacement. The original Jules Rimet Trophy was stolen in 1983 and never recovered. The subsequent trophy, called the "FIFA World Cup Trophy", was introduced in 1974. Made of 18 karat gold with bands of
malachite Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fracture ...
on its base, it stands 36.8 centimetres high and weighs 6.175 kilograms (30,875 carats). The trophy was made by the Stabilimento Artistico Bertoni company in Italy. It depicts two human figures holding up the Earth. The current holders of the trophy are
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
, winners of the 2022 World Cup.


Jules Rimet Trophy

The Jules Rimet Trophy was the original prize for winning the
FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has ...
. Originally called "Victory", but generally known simply as the ''World Cup'' or ''Coupe du Monde'', it was renamed in 1946 to honour the FIFA President Jules Rimet, who in 1929 passed a vote to initiate the competition. It was designed by French sculptor
Abel Lafleur Abel Lafleur (4 November 1875 – 27 January 1953) was a French sculptor who designed and made the FIFA World Cup trophy, first simply called 'Coupe du Monde', later renamed the Jules Rimet Trophy. The trophy was 35 cm in height, weighe ...
and made of gold-plated sterling silver on a lapis lazuli base. In 1954 the base was replaced with a taller version to accommodate more winner's details. It stood 35 centimetres (14 in) high and weighed 3.8 kilograms (8.4 lb). It comprised a decagonal cup, supported by a winged figure representing Nike, the ancient Greek goddess of victory. The Jules Rimet Trophy was taken to Uruguay for the first
FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has ...
aboard the '' Conte Verde'', which set sail from Villefranche-sur-Mer, just southeast of Nice, in June 1930. This was the same ship that carried Jules Rimet and the footballers representing France, Romania, and Belgium who were participating in the tournament that year. The first team to be awarded the trophy was Uruguay, the winners of the
1930 World Cup The 1930 FIFA World Cup was the inaugural FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national football teams. It took place in Uruguay from 13 to 30 July 1930. FIFA, football's international governing body, selected Uruguay as host nation ...
. During World War II, the trophy was held by 1938 champion
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. Ottorino Barassi, the Italian vice-president of
FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
and president of
FIGC The Italian Football Federation ( it, Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio; FIGC), known colloquially as ''Federcalcio'', is the governing body of football in Italy. It is based in Rome and the technical department is in Coverciano, Florence. I ...
, secretly transported the trophy from a bank in Rome and hid it in a shoe-box under his bed to prevent the Nazis from taking it. The 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden marked the beginning of a tradition regarding the trophy. As Brazilian captain Hilderaldo Bellini heard photographers' requests for a better view of the Jules Rimet Trophy, he lifted it up in the air. Every Cup-winning captain ever since has repeated the gesture. On 20 March 1966, four months before the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England, the trophy was stolen during a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall. It was found seven days later wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of a suburban garden hedge in Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood, South London, by a black and white mongrel dog named Pickles. As a security measure, The Football Association secretly manufactured a replica of the trophy for use in exhibitions rather than the original. This replica was used on occasions up until 1970 when the original trophy had to be handed back to FIFA for the next competition. Since FIFA had explicitly denied the FA permission to create a replica, the replica also had to disappear from public view and was for many years kept under its creator's bed. This replica was sold at an auction in 1997 for £254,500, when it was purchased by FIFA. The high auction price, ten times the reserve price of £20,000–£30,000, was led by speculation that the auctioned trophy was not the replica trophy but the original itself. Testing by FIFA confirmed the auctioned trophy was a replica. Soon afterwards FIFA arranged for the replica to be lent for display at the English National Football Museum, which was then based in
Preston Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...
but is now in Manchester. The Brazilian team won the tournament for the third time in 1970, allowing them to keep the real trophy in perpetuity, as had been stipulated by Jules Rimet in 1930. It was put on display at the Brazilian Football Confederation headquarters in
Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
, in a cabinet with a front of bullet-proof glass. On 19 December 1983, the wooden rear of the cabinet was opened by force with a crowbar and the cup was stolen again. Four men were tried and convicted in absentia for the crime. The trophy has never been recovered, and it is widely believed to have been melted down and sold. Only one piece of the Jules Rimet Trophy has been found, the original base, which FIFA had kept in a basement of the federation's Zürich headquarters prior to 2015. The Confederation commissioned a replica of their own, made by Eastman Kodak, using of gold. This replica was presented to
Brazilian military The Brazilian Armed Forces ( pt, Forças Armadas Brasileiras, ) are the unified military forces of the Federative Republic of Brazil. Consisting of three service branches, it comprises the Brazilian Army (including the Brazilian Army Aviati ...
president
João Figueiredo João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo (; 15 January 1918 – 24 December 1999) was a Brazilian military leader and politician who was the 30th president of Brazil from 1979 to 1985, the last of the military regime that ruled the country follo ...
in 1984.


New trophy

A replacement trophy was commissioned by FIFA for the
1974 World Cup The 1974 FIFA World Cup was the tenth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in West Germany (and West Berlin) between 13 June and 7 July. The tournament marked the first time that ...
. Fifty-three submissions were received from sculptors in seven countries. Italian artist Silvio Gazzaniga was awarded the commission. The trophy stands tall and is made of or 30,875 carats of 18 karat (75%) gold, worth approximately US$161,000 in 2018. Its base is in diameter containing two layers of
malachite Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fracture ...
. Chemist Sir Martyn Poliakoff claims that the trophy is hollow, because if it were solid gold, the trophy would weigh and would be too heavy to lift. This is easy to understand since 18 k gold is an alloy made of 18 parts of
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
, 5 parts of
silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
and 1 part of
copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...
with a mean density of 15.6 gr/cm3. The trophy weighs 6175 g, this amount of alloy is just a volume of 390 cm3 or, in other words, would be a cube with a side of 7.3 cm, and the World Cup is clearly larger. This argumentation proves that the World Cup is indeed hollow. Moreover, its original manufacturer, who is the same that makes the official replicas, confirmed this characteristic. Produced by ''
Bertoni, Milano GDE Bertoni is a trophy and medal manufacturer, in Milan, Italy. Until 1995, the company was known as 'Bertoni, Milano'. The company's most famous production is the FIFA World Cup Trophy, which it made in 1971 after winning an international comp ...
'' in Paderno Dugnano, it depicts two human figures holding up the Earth. Gazzaniga described the trophy thus, "The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory". The trophy has the engraving "FIFA World Cup" on its base. After the 1994 FIFA World Cup, a plate was added to the bottom side of the trophy where the names of winning countries are engraved, names therefore not visible when the trophy is standing upright. The original trophy is now permanently kept at the
FIFA World Football Museum The FIFA Museum is an association football museum operated by FIFA. The museum is located in Zürich, Switzerland, across town from the FIFA headquarters. It opened on 28 February 2016. The project, costing over SFr500 million ($563m), is curren ...
in Zurich, Switzerland. It only leaves there when it goes on its FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour. It is present at the Final draw for the next World Cup, and on the pitch at the World Cup opening game and Final. The FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour was inaugurated for the
2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Germany 2006, was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host th ...
competition. The Cup used to be kept by the winning team until the final draw of the next tournament, however, that is no longer the case. Instead the winners of the tournament receive a bronze replica which is gold-plated rather than solid gold. The inscriptions state the year in figures and the name of the winning nation in its national language. For example, "1974 " or "1994 ". In 2010, the name of the winning nation was engraved as "2010 Spain", in English, not in Spanish. This was corrected in the new plate after the 2018 World Cup. As of 2018, twelve winners have been engraved on the base. The plate is replaced each World Cup cycle and the names of the trophy winners are rearranged into a spiral to accommodate future winners, with Spain on later occasions written in Spanish (). FIFA's regulations now state that the trophy, unlike its predecessor, cannot be won outright: the winners of the tournament receive a bronze replica which is gold-plated rather than solid gold.
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
became the first nation to win the new trophy for the third time when they won the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
became the second nation to achieve this feat following their win in Qatar at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


Eventual replacement

Since the base of the trophy only has space for new engravings to be made up until the 2038 World Cup, a new trophy will eventually be made for the 2042 World Cup.


Winners

Historic list of all ''holders of the trophy'' (winners of the FIFA World Cup). Jules Rimet Trophy * – 1958, 1962, 1970 * – 1930, 1950 * – 1934, 1938 * – 1954 * – 1966 FIFA World Cup Trophy * / – 1974, 1990, 2014 * – 1978, 1986, 2022 * – 1982, 2006 * – 1994, 2002 * – 1998, 2018 * – 2010


See also

*


References


External links


The story of the 1966 theft
'' The Observer''
FIFA Trophies (PDF)
(archived, 24 Feb 2020)
Official website of Silvio Gazzaniga, the sculptor of the trophy
*
FIFA World Cup 2022 All Matches TimeFIFA World Cup Trophy Worksheet for Kids
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fifa World Cup Trophy Awards established in 1974 Trophy World Cup Trophy Gold objects