{"id":14244,"date":"2026-06-27T07:32:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T00:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=14244"},"modified":"2026-06-27T07:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T00:34:12","slug":"does-the-world-cup-favor-democratic-or-autocratic-nations-i-did-some-number-crunching-to-find-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/does-the-world-cup-favor-democratic-or-autocratic-nations-i-did-some-number-crunching-to-find-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the World Cup favor democratic or autocratic nations? I did some number crunching to find\u00a0out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Canada takes on Qatar on June 18, 2026, in a battle between a democracy and an autocratic nation. Emilee Chinn\/Getty Images<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is often said \u2013 by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and many others \u2013 that soccer is the \u201cmost democratic sport.\u201d That sentiment is based in large part on the sport\u2019s global appeal and long history of popularity across class and racial lines.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whether that axiom applies to the quadrennial World Cup tournament is a different question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On occasions in the past, authoritarian governments have used the tournament to boost their regimes. Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini did so when Italy hosted the 1934 World Cup, manipulating the games and handpicking officials to boost the chances for the home team, who went on to beat democratic Czechoslovakia in the final. Likewise, in 1978, Argentina\u2019s dictatorship used both the tournament\u2019s hosting and the national team\u2019s victory to \u201csportswash\u201d the brutal repression that had accompanied the military junta\u2019s seizure of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fascist Italy hosted and won the second World Cup in 1934. Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In each of those notable cases, the team of an authoritarian country won the tournament. But as a political scientist and soccer enthusiast, I was curious to see how countries in authoritarian versus democratic countries had fared in the World Cup over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in the run-up to this year\u2019s tournament, I looked back through the records of the 22 past World Cups; I also cast an eye over the expanded 48 countries represented at the 2026 tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the World Cups between 1930 and 2018, I turned to Polity data, which looks at how power is concentrated in the political system. On a minus 10 to plus 10 scale, democracies are those with a Polity score of plus 6 and plus 10; autocracies have a minus 6 to minus 10; and anocracies \u2013 countries that are \u201cpartially free\u201d \u2014 have a rating of minus 5 to plus 5<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many scholars recommend using multiple datasets when analyzing regime type. And for the World Cups from 1974 to 2026, I also used rankings by the nonprofit Freedom House, which produces an annual index of the state of civil and political rights in every country in the world. They measure countries as free, partly free and not free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the data shows<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the first few World Cup tournaments, free countries did not perform particularly well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1930-1962, there were two authoritarian champions (Italy in 1934 and 1938), three anocratic winners (Uruguay in 1930 and 1950 and Brazil in 1962) and two democratic winners (West Germany in 1954 and a pre-dictatorship Brazil in 1958).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to finalists, in the first 32 years, there were six authoritarian countries represented in the final games, four anocracies and a mere four democracies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But since 1966 \u2014 the first World Cup meeting between two democracies, with England prevailing over West Germany \u2014 there have been only two authoritarian winners: Brazil in 1970 and Argentina in 1978 \u2013 the last autocratic country to win the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 10 winning countries from 1982-2018 have all been democracies. Further, all runners-up since 1962 have been democracies, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the entire 1930-2018 period, Polity data shows that 71.4% of participants in final games have been democracies, with less than 20% of finalists being autocratic nations and 9.5% being anocracies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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