Olympics from 1948 to 1980

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    Hi everyone, I need some opinions on this one.

    The big question is: Do we include games and data from some Olympic teams from this period. It would all be non-FIFA of course, but all the eastern (and some western) european, asian african, (most?) north american and oceanian teams seem to count these all full national team games and seem to have played with their best teams available nearly all of the time.

    There are two different opinions here at NFT. I would include the games of these teams as non-fifa games, and siebenW would not include them at all.

    So please, give this one a think and then your opinion. Thank you so much.

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    I Include them in my records, for all countries in CONCACAF, CAF, OFC and AFC regions. Europe is a bit of a grey area; some countries list them as A matches, some do not. As far as I know, no South American countries regard Olympic games in this period as full internationals.

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    Let's start with some background information:

    Football at the Olympics:

    1896 - 1904: "demonstration" football for local low tier club or college teams
    1908 - 1928: World Cup predecessor for full national teams
    1936 : World Cup alternate for full national teams
    1948 - 1980: "amateur" era for restricted national teams
    1984 - 1988: restriction for South America and Europa, full national teams for CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, OFC
    1992 - date: "youth" competition: u23 teams + 3 overaged players

    As a page for national teams NFT doesn't feature the early editions from 1896 to 1904. The editions from 1908 to 1928 are already online. While the 1984 and 1988 editions are online with UEFA and CONMEBOL teams as non-editable "Olympic" teams, as these had been restricted: they weren't allowed to field "World Cup" players. From 1992 on, NFT doesn't cover the Olympics anymore for being a "youth" tournament.

    All that so good. I think the next edition NFT should cover is the 1936 tournament. But the question now is about 1948 to 1980. To be fair, that "amateur" restriction had been from the very beginning, but back then in 1908 basically just some English top players were considered as "professional", with the English FA having an on and off relationship with FIFA during the first half of the 20th century anyway, the olympic tournament was basically the World Cup predecessor until FIFA launched their own World Cup, and since then the Olympic tournament kept declining. The 1936 tournament was still good being played by full strengths national teams. I may would do the cut here and set WWII as end date. The 1948 tournament seems to have good squads, while starting from 1952 in became obvious that nations like Germany, France, and so on sent 2nd string squads, ending up fielding amateur sides in later tournaments. Here the "amateur" status started to seriously affect the team strengths. On the other side, various nations kept on fielding their best players by declaring their local top tier leagues "amateur" leagues. Sometimes a bit ridiculous in cases like Siegfried Haltman had a contract by a regional Brazilian team, for which he didn't play any official league match. After an opponent's complaint, Surinam's match were rewarded against them for fielding Haltman. Resulting in these Olympic "amateur" teams were basically home-based teams from countries declaring their "pro" league as amateur league.
    In my opinion, we should try to establish common standards counting for all countries equally. And here we had the restriction for all countries NOT sending their best players, excluding their pro players. Some did follow that rule, some others did play tricks. I know this resulted in many countries playing with actual full strength teams. One problem here would be to determinate which country to include and which not. I already see endless discussions here. Just looking at the squads from the final tournaments, we can see indeed many full strength squads especially in Africa or Central America, built up by full capped FIFA players. But on the other side, if we look at Gabon's 2012 or Fiji's 2016 squad, these are also mainly full capped FIFA players even with age restrictions. Far more difficult to judge will be the countries eliminated in qualifiers. Seeing all these missing matches for AfCoNs in the 1980s, I doubt we have good data for Olympic qualifiers. Ivory Coast was very proud of their pro league in the late 1970s. So, when they played olympics did they field a youth team or players from 2nd tier clubs or did they just declare their pro league as "amateur"? What about the Northern African countries? Morocco already had half of their 1962 WCq starters playing in Europe. Those were the players not allowed for Olympics. But the other half was able to start olympics as well. Is this now a team to consider or set as non-editable "Olympic" team? Still, we may have about 60%+ players in the NFT system for other matches. And what about fielding different strength teams in different rounds? For example, Canada fielded a more experimental side in their first round vs Bermuda, but in the 2nd round they fielded only full capped players during the 1984 edition, the edition we had common standards. What is now without a common standard for 1948 to 1980, setting their first round match as "Canada (Olympic)" and the second round "Canada" full team?
    Another problem I have is why opening tournaments just because some FAs do individually count these games as full national team matches? For example, Finland (and other european countries) also counts their 1984 and 1988 Olympic matches as official, as they weren't affected by the World Cup restriction for never qualifying for a World Cup. If we open now 1948 to 1980 because of individual FA statistics, shouldn't we add Finland's (and other's) 1984 and 1988, too? Similiar for Malawi (and other COSAFA countries) counting their 2009 and 2011 CHAN matches as official. I just fear that doing the olympics 1948 to 1980 will open so much more and bringing another endless discussions. Especially, as it is not easy to decide which national team to count and which not. It surely won't be that easy to exclude CONMEBOL as a whole and include CONCACAF, CAF, OFC and AFC as a whole while following eu-football.info's classification for UEFA. For example, Mexico did field (quite) an amateur side for the 1984 edition (when the amateur status was already lifted for CONCACAF nations), I really can't imagine them fielding a team we want to include for 1980 and earlier. At the end, I fear we will start another gigantic topic on NFT which will be stopped half done, similiar like Island Games. At the end, the missing menpower on NFT, not having much people actually working on the database, will remain the major problem. And my fear here, much time will be spend on non-FIFA amateur olympic games ... and the discussions about which country to include and which not, will relevant historic data with full FIFA caps is still missing.

    MY SUGESTION here, is to leave out the olympic matches for the moment, and concentrate on the missing historic data from 1923 to 1981. The next olympic tournament we should do is 1936. After that when we are done with 1936 historic data, or better after having the entire historic data, we can come back to the Olympics, starting from 1948, which was far more relevant in terms of full national teams than 1980, and work out the olympic tournaments from 1948 to 1980. Having all the other historic matches by then, we also have better facts to decide which Olympic team can be considered full national team and which not. Players already in the NFT system having just played Olympics may can be left in the national team for that year with either (0/0) matches/appearances or by (-/-). At the end, I am open for any kind of international matches, but by what Benjamin and archivist teached me, I understand that NFT is concentrating on the official FIFA data first trying not to get lost in too small details.

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    [Blocked Image: https://www.national-football-teams.com/bundles/nftportofrontend/img/tournaments/africancupofnations.png]African Nations Cup

    [Blocked Image: https://www.national-football-teams.com/bundles/nftportofrontend/img/tournaments/asiacup.png]Asian Cup

    [Blocked Image: https://www.national-football-teams.com/bundles/nftportofrontend/img/tournaments/copaamerica.png]Copa América

    [Blocked Image: https://www.national-football-teams.com/bundles/nftportofrontend/img/tournaments/euro.png]European Championship

    [Blocked Image: https://www.national-football-teams.com/bundles/nftportofrontend/img/tournaments/goldcup.png]Gold Cup

    [Blocked Image: https://www.national-football-teams.com/bundles/nftportofrontend/img/tournaments/ofc.png]Oceania Cup

    [Blocked Image: https://www.national-football-teams.com/bundles/nftportofrontend/img/tournaments/worldcup.png]World Cup

    I think this is more important.Once the important things are done,then you can start playing tournaments with restrictions.If there will be is time and desire.

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    Quote from bakerrp

    I Include them in my records, for all countries in CONCACAF, CAF, OFC and AFC regions. Europe is a bit of a grey area; some countries list them as A matches, some do not. As far as I know, no South American countries regard Olympic games in this period as full internationals.

    That is pretty much how I understand it. I still think it would be good to include them, and I lean towards doing so. SiebenW and me have talking about this since forever, and we won't agree on this.

    I will wait some more days for more opinions to come along, but at the moment, I think that I will include them.

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    I made a decision, as we need one: We will include Olympics between 1948 and 1980. We will add all games from this olympic timer period as non-FIFA, and we will only add line-ups for the teams which consider these games to be full internationals. So not for any south american teams, and not for most western european teams. I will start with Iran today.

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    Reading a bit more about the 1936 Olympics, I have to admit that the "amateur" era already began here. Actually, Olympics had always been an amateur competition, but the point by which it really starts to effect the competition was the introduction of the FIFA World Cup in 1930. And since then, already the 1936 Olympics lost their FIFA recognition, and hence already the 1936 edition will be non-FIFA matches here.
    For the 1936 Olympics several countries did not participate about the controversy about professionalism and not being allowed to field their best players. There are even 3 to 5 FAs who don't count the 1936 Olympics in their official senior team's statistic. Some like winning Italy do even if they were forced to field a weakener squad. Personally, I'd like to have all 1936 Olympic participants as editable team, but it already starts with the Great Britain team mixed of English and Scottish players, so that one is for sure uneditable. So, the question is about countries like Austria and Hungary. I'd like to have them, but I have to admit that the case about the 1936 Olympics is not as clear as I mentioned it in my original post, and maybe it's best to leave this decision to the webmaster. Hence this topic may can be extended from "Olympics from 1948 to 1980" to "Olympics from 1936 to 1980".