When Brazil won the World Cup in 1970, football needed a new trophy to award to its champions.Football visionary and former FIFA president Jules Rimet himself decreed that the trophy bearing his name should be given permanently to the first country to win it three times, so when that happened FIFA launched a competition to design a replacement.The winner was an Italian trophy-maker called Silvio Gazzaniga, who tried to make his design as different to the previous one as possible. “The Jules Rimet trophy was an expression of art nouveau,” his son, Giorgio, told The Athletic in 2022. “He wanted to give a new version of the spirit of art in the 20th century.”He conceived a trophy that incorporates the globe, for fairly obvious reasons, held up by two men, representing the two teams that contest a football match. They are also reaching to the sky, to depict the moment of joy in victory, which in turn depicts the motion and dynamism of the sport. It also represents glory and the work required to reach it: the continents on the globe shine, but the body of the trophy is matte.
At its base are two green rings made of malachite, which include 20 rectangular spaces where the names of winners are engraved. Maths fans will note that takes us to the 2030 World Cup, which doesn’t necessarily mean the current trophy will be replaced after that, but with FIFA you never know.Dunga lifts the World Cup at the Rose Bowl following Brazil’s victory over Italy in 1994 (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an interesting or evocative name: it’s officially called the FIFA World Cup Trophy. The exterior is 18-karat gold, it’s 36 centimetres tall and weighs 6.142kg. It cost about £7,690 ($9,390) to make, which is about £98,500 ($130,500) in today’s money.There are some pretty strict rules about who is allowed to touch the trophy, limited to those that have actually won it, heads of state and other select dignitaries. And that’s why there was such outrage at celebrity meat slicer Salt Bae’s antics after the 2022 final: not just that he had interrupted Argentina’s celebrations, but that he had violated sacred FIFA statutes. And we simply can’t have that.The winners don’t keep the trophy these days: until 2006, they got to hang onto the original for four years, but now it is swiftly taken off their hands and they’re given a replica. The original trophy resides at FIFA HQ in Zurich.Jun 8, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms
