It is often said – by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and many others – that soccer is the “most democratic sport.” That sentiment is based in large part on the sport’s global appeal and long history of popularity across class and racial lines
But whether that axiom applies to the quadrennial World Cup tournament is a different question
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’s dictatorship used both the tournament’s hosting and the national team’s victory to “sportswash” the brutal repression that had accompanied the military junta’s seizure of power.
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
So in the run-up to this year’s 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
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 – countries that are “partially free” – have a rating of minus 5 to plus 5
Many scholars recommend using multiple datasets when analysing 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
What the data shows
In the first few World Cup tournaments, free countries did not perform particularly well
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)
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
But since 1966 – the first World Cup meeting between two democracies, with England prevailing over West Germany – there have been only two authoritarian winners: Brazil in 1970 and Argentina in 1978 – the last autocratic country to win the tournament
The 10 winning countries from 1982-2018 have all been democracies. Further, all runners-up since 1962 have been democracies, too
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
When using the Freedom House index, I found that free states have made up 23 of the 26 final game participants from 1974 onward, or 88% of the total, and 11 champions
There’s only been one partly free winner – Brazil in 1994 – and one not free winner, Argentina in 1978
How does this compare with worldwide numbers of regime type over time? In 1930, the year of the first FIFA tournament, Polity data shows that only 21.7% of the world’s countries were democratic, with 44.6% being authoritarian and 33.7% deemed anocratic. By 1966, democracies fell to 20.8%, while authoritarian countries made up 40.8% of the world. During the 2018 World Cup, the world’s countries deemed to be democracies had risen to almost 60, using Polity data, while authoritarian states slipped to 12%. The rest are either anocratic or “transitioning.”
Democracy – a winning formula?
But what about the 2026 World Cup participants? Of the 48 countries represented, 43.1% are “free” nations The “not free” group comprised 26.7% of all countries. This is a near reversal of 1974, the first World Cup year for which Freedom House data is available. Back then, free nations made up 27% of countries in the world, while not free countries comprised 41.4% of world’s nations
And democracies are tipped for success in 2026. The top 11 FIFA-ranked countries are all “free.” For the top 19 countries, all but two – Morocco and Ecuador – are free, and those two are ranked by Freedom House as “partly free.” Of the lowest-ranked 11 countries in the tournament, more than half are unfree
Countering the sportswashing
The data shows that democracies are overrepresented at the World Cup and also tend to do better than authoritarian nations – but does that matter? I would argue “yes.”
At a time when autocratic nations use sport as a propaganda tool, and FIFA seemingly turns a blind eye to the human rights records of hosting nations, the fact that democracies tend to prevail on the pitch feels like a victory for free nations
LaGrange College undergraduates Jenna Pittman, Daniel Cody and Eli Rogers contributed to the research on which this article is based
John A Turesis Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College
This article was first published onThe Conversation
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