Football at the 1896 Summer Olympics

The organization of a football tournament at the 1896 Games was directly raised during the first-ever IOC meeting held in November 1894, which means that an Olympic football tournament was originally planned to be held at the games.[1] By early 1896, the Greek Olympic Organizing Committee had been informed that four foreign football teams were interested in sending a team, and thus, on 17 March, it was decided to include football in the official programme of the 1896 Games.[3] However, none of the four clubs showed up in Athens, and thus, despite the Greek preparations for a football tournament, it was ultimately decided to remove football from the official Olympic programme due to the small number of participants on 28 March, in a meeting of the Greek organizing committee.[1]

The deadline for both federations and clubs to sign up was six days later, and on 3 April the Secretary-General had only received name lists from Greece and Denmark.[1] Football was thus (like boxing, cricket, horse racing, rowing and sailing) only unofficially part of the Olympic programme in Athens in 1896.[1]

The 'Podilatodromio' in Athens, venue for the tournament, as seen in 1896

All the matches were hosted at "Neo Phaliron Velodrome" (or "Podilatodromio"), originally a velodrome and sports arena in the Neo Faliro District of Piraeus. This venue was also used for the track cycling events at the 1896 Olympics.[4]

The match attracted a significant number of spectators at the time, over 6,000 people attended the Velodrome.[2]

The Greek team was the Sports Club Athinaikos Athlitikos Syllogos, one of the pioneers of Greek football and it also represented Greece at the Track Cycling Competitions which were also conducted at the Podilatodromio.[2] Denmark was represented by players of Københavns Roklub and Østerbro Boldklub, two clubs who had been among the founding members of the Danmarks Idrætsforbund (DIF, Danish Sports Confederation), founded on 14 February 1896,[1] and Roklub's president, Eugen Schmidt, became DIF's first president.[5] Kobenhavns Roklub had a good football team in the 1890s, so they received an invitation from the founder of the modern Olympic games, Pierre de Coubertin, to participate in the 1896 Olympics, and apparently, they sent just two players to represent them, Eugen Schmidt and Holger Nielsen, so the rest of the team was made up of Danish sailors and businessman, members of the Østerbro Boldklub, who just happened to be in Athens at the time.[2] Both Schmidt and Nielsen competed in other events at the 1896 Summer Olympics, with Schmidt competing in both the 100 metre sprint, and the military rifle shooting event, although he did not achieve any notable feats.[6] Nielsen competed in fencing, firearms and discus events.[7]

• Athinaikos Athlitikos Syllogos: Pavlos Kountouriotis, Kavalieratos Anninos, Konstantinos Zervoudakis, Dimitrios Petrokokkinos, Georgios Karamanos, Stavros Antoniadis, Spyridon Angonakis, P. Gasparis, Epamaindos Harilaos and Georgios Nikolopoulos.[1]
•  Denmark KR and ØB: Eugen Schmidt and Holger Nielsen.[2]

In 2017, Olympic historians Volker Kluge and Bill Mallon published the results of an investigation into a possible football game at the 1896 Olympic Games and concluded that;

"Football is sometimes listed as having been contested in 1896 as an exhibition sport or demonstration sport at the Olympic Games, although no such designation existed at the time of the 1896 Olympics. Supposedly, a match between a Greek club and a Danish club was conducted. No 1896 source supports this and we think this is most likely an error that has been perpetrated in multiple texts. No such match occurred."[8]

• Young, David C. (1996). The Modern Olympics, A Struggle for Revival. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-5374-6.