Football at the 1896 Summer Olympics

Football at the 1896 Summer Olympics

Tournament details
Host country	Greece
City	Athens
Dates	12 April 1896
Teams	2
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Final positions
Champions	Denmark (1st title)
Runners-up	Greece
Tournament statistics
Matches played	1
Goals scored	9 or 15 (1 per match)
1900 →

At the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, an unofficial football event was held on 12 April between two representative teams of Greece and Denmark at the Podilatodromio.^[1] The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognize the existence of an official football tournament at the 1896 Olympics and the majority of works devoted to the 1896 Olympic Games do not actually mention a football competition; however, there is incontrovertible evidence that the aforementioned match was played as either a part of the (unofficial) programme, or as a "demonstration sport" during the Olympic Games.^[2]

The reason why this match was more or less ignored was because of a recommendation from Crown Prince Constantine, the chairman of the 1896 Olympic Organizing Committee, who publicly said that the sports which were not part of the official Olympic programme should not be mentioned, and thus, due to its unofficial classification, the football match was forbidden to be reported anywhere, neither by the local or the national press.^[1][2][3] As a result, the final score of the game remains uncertain with various sources agreeing it was either a 9–0 or a 15–0 victory for the Danish, who were later awarded bronze medals by the local organizing committee.^[1] Remarkably, it was Prince Constantine's younger brother, George, Prince of both Greece and Denmark, who refereed the football match.^[1]