For the
1950 World Cup in Brazil, four countries from Asia were invited to participate in the qualifiers. The Philippines, Indonesia, Burma and India. Because the first three teams withdrew from the qualifiers, India qualified automatically. India was placed in a group with champions Italy, and also Paraguay and Sweden. But, India refused to participate in the tournament because FIFA forbade any of the players to compete barefoot.
Wikipedia:
Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia all withdrew, so India qualified automatically. However, India withdrew later following a FIFA ruling that players were not allowed to play barefoot. India had never been able to qualify for the World Cup before and have never been able to do since then, which means they are the only team to have qualified for the World Cup and that never played a World Cup match.
1 comments:
Contrary to belief, India did not refuse to go due to FIFA's rule disallowing them to play barefoot, but because there was "insufficient practice time and disagreements over team selection".
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