Why soccer no longer has any business being at the Olympics

Soccer doesn’t need to be at the Olympics. It’s time the world’s most popular game is replaced with beach soccer and futsal. 

Soccer should no longer be an Olympic sport. There, I said it.

Why? Let me explain.

Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, but the Olympics are the wrong vehicle to showcase such talent. Soccer has the World Cup, which is bigger than the Olympics, and FIFA has done everything it can over the decades to ensure their marquee tournament isn’t eclipsed.

In men’s soccer, the tournament has been an under-23 competition since the 1992 Barcelona Games. The only exception has been that teams can bring three overage players if they choose to. Women’s teams, on the other hand, can field whatever age players they want. Teams in that tournament often bring their best players.

Nonetheless, interest in soccer at the Summer Games, be it now in Tokyo or any other time in the recent past has generally been low. Who has time for soccer when there’s swimming, gymnastics and track and field? Those are, and will forever be, the events we will all think back to once pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020 comes to an end.

Soccer’s international events make the Olympics redundant

I’m not alone in my assessment. The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew, who covered the soccer tournaments at London 2012 and Rio 2016, recently made this observation:

"Four years after London, I sat in the top deck of the Maracanã to watch Neymar’s Brazil claim gold against Germany: arguably, the only one of the host nation’s 19 medals it truly cared about. But even this moment of cathartic grace came at the end of a painfully forgettable tournament defined by half-bothered teams and the sight of Serge Gnabry running at a terrified Fiji defense on the way to a 10-0 Germany win.This, perhaps, is the biggest problem with Olympic football: a problem that feels specific to men’s football, but may in time come to subsume the women’s game too. Nobody really seems to know what it is: a development competition, a star vehicle, a sideshow knockabout."

That’s exactly right. The men’s tournament has featured some interesting matches over the last two weeks, but there’s always an overall feeling of who cares. Even the women’s tournament, as Liew points out, isn’t what it used to be. That’s because the Women’s World Cup has grown in prominence and importance over the last few editions.

First held at the 1900 Summer Games in Paris, the men’s soccer tournament was limited to amateur players until the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, when pros were first allowed to participate. Women’s soccer was first introduced at the 1996 Atlanta Games and has always been open to professionals.

We’ve all gotten plenty of international action this summer. The Olympics come after we were consumed over the past four weeks by the Euros (won by Italy), the Copa America (won by Argentina) and the Gold Cup (won by the United States). Does anyone really care who wins the gold medal?

Soccer isn’t alone here. Golf and tennis, one could argue, also have no place at the Olympics. A gold medal can never eclipse the championships these two sports already offer, both when it comes to prestige and audience interest, on a regular basis. Both golf and tennis are part of Tokyo 2020, but maybe you didn’t even notice.

What the Olympics do need is an injection of new sports. Surfing and skateboarding made their debut this summer and that’s great. Both are sports that deserve a larger stage (and audience) and it helps bring interest on the part of younger fans to the Olympics.

In that same vein, FIFA should work with the International Olympic Committee to bring beach soccer and futsal (a five-a-side indoor version played on a basketball court) to the Summer Games. Those two sports, which don’t always get the attention traditional soccer enjoys, would allow for teams to assemble whatever rosters they’d like. Even if pros played, the format would be different and refreshing. It’s exactly what the Olympics need.

What better venue than Rio’s Copacabana Beach for beach soccer five years ago. That’s where many Brazilians learned to play the game. Futsal also would have been a great addition, either in Rio or now, since that’s a game many play in winter nations when temperatures are too cold outside. There’s a chance to change that ahead of the 2024 Paris Games.

The Olympics already features 33 different sports represented by 50 separate disciplines across 339 events. Soccer no longer needs to be one of them.