100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF FIFA -

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded on May 21, 1904 in Paris, in the presence of representatives from Belgium, Danemark, France, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The headquarters of FIFA are in Zurich, and presently there are 204 football associations from all continents who are their members. Since its founding, FIFA’s goals have remained the same: contribute to the development of football, strengthen friendly relations among the national associations, fight the violation of football game rules and protect football from dishonourable behaviour. According to the territorial principle, FIFA is divided into six confederations: European Union of Football Associations (UEFA), South-American Confederation (CSF), Central and North-American Confederation (AFC), African Confederation (CAF), and the Oceania Confederation (OFC). Though the Croatian Football Association was founded long ago, in 1912, due to various historical circumstances it was only in 1941 that the Football Association of the Independent State of Croatia applied and was accepted into full membership of FIFA and played 15 international games under its auspices. Croatia was accepted into the FIFA membership for the second time after becoming an independent state as an internationally acknowledged state in 1992. Since 1930, when the first World Football Championship in Uruguay was held, FIFA has been organizing world football championships of national football teams every four years – the Jules Rimet Cup, called so in honour of the long-time President of the International Football Association. So far there were 17 World Cup organized, and the most successful footballers were the Brazilian footballers having won five championships, while Germany and Italy achieved three victories and Uruguay and Argentine two victories each. Numerous Croatian footballers played at world championships, and there would certainly have been more had they been allowed to play for their country. As a matter of fact, in the Socialist Yugoslavia, and even more in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Croatian footballers shared the fate of their people and frequently their unquestionable footballers’ quality was not a criterion to have them chosen to play for the national team. Before the Second World War, the national team of the old Yugoslavia participated at only one world championship – the one in Uruguay in 1930, but due to political reasons five footballers from Zagreb and two from Split could not leave for Uruguay to play there. The former state did not participate in the 1934 and 1938 championships, while in all other post-war world championships, to which the national teams of the Socialist Yugoslavia secured the right to play, Croatian footballers, too, participated in the games. Let us remember only some of them: Ivica Horvat, Zlatko Čajkovski, Stjepan Bobek, Bernard Vukas, Tomislav Crnković, Dionizije Dvornić, Branko Zebec, Branko Kralj, Vladimir Beara, Ivan Šantek, Željko Matuš, Joško Skoblar, Vlatko Marković, Petar Radaković, Andrija Anković and Dražen Jerković, the last mentioned being declared best scorer of the 1962 World Championship in Chile on account of scoring four goals. Then there were also Ivan Buljan, Dražen Mužinić, Ivica Šurjak, Jurica Jerković, Franjo Vladić, Velimir Zajec, Ivan Gudelj, Zlatko Vujović, Stjepan Deverić, Zoran Vulić, Robert Prosinečki, Tomislav Ivković, Robert Jarni and Davor Jozić. After the establishment of the independent and internationally acknowledged state of Croatia, Croatian footballers have finally been able to play under their national flag and national emblems, and the first appearance of Miroslav Blažević’s selected team at the 1998 World Championship in France, when the Croatian team won the bronze medal, will forever be entered with golden letters in the book of the history of Croatian football. In the match for the third place, Croatia won against The Netherlands 2:1, though the Dutch team, according to many observers, presented the finest football at this WC. Davor Šuker was declared best scorer of the French championship.