The mysteries and stories of the Jules Rimet Cup
The Jules Rimet Cup is the holy grail of world football, as it's still unknown whether it actually still exists. This trophy, in addition to having passed through the hands of world champions like Bobby Moore and Pele from the beginning of the FIFA World Cup until 1970, was also linked to many stories that make it even more legendary.
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Replica of Jules Rimet Cup trophy
What is (or was) the Jules Rimet Cup?
At a FIFA congress held on May 28, 1928, it was decided that for the upcoming first edition of the World Cup, a trophy would be awarded. Jules Rimet, then president of the governing body of world football, requested that it be made entirely of gold. The creation job was assigned to French artisan Abel Lafleur, who completed the work by April 1929 and named it "The Goddess of Victory".The cup was shaped like the goddess Nike, who in Greek mythology was the personification of victory and triumph. The artisan crafted it with highly stylized wings and her arms raised, holding a cup. It had a lapis lazuli base on which small plaques bearing the names of the champions would be placed. In July 1946, another FIFA congress was held, where it was decided that the cup would be named Jules Rimet, in honor of the French president's 25 years in office.
Hidden during the war
As the 1938 FIFA World Cup champion, Italy had the Jules Rimet Cup in its possession when World War II broke out. Ottorino Barassi, vice president of the Italian Football Federation at the time, decided to hide it in a bank in Rome. The Nazis had a policy of stealing treasures and valuable objects throughout Europe, and the cup was a likely target, so Barassi decided to hide it in his own home, specifically in a shoebox under his bed.Indeed, the Gestapo went to the Roman bank and discovered that Barassi had the cup. They then went to the vice president's home, but didn't find what they were looking for. Barassi himself, to throw them off the scent, told them that the cup was in Milan. The Jules Rimet Cup passed through two hands within the Italian Football Federation for safekeeping, a goal they achieved until 1947, years after the end of the war, when it was returned to FIFA. The cup arrived on time and without any problems for the next edition, held in Brazil in 1950. For the 1958 edition, when British journalists analyzed the photo of Brazilian captain Hilderaldo Bellini raising the trophy after being crowned champion, they discovered that the cup was 5 cm larger and that the base had changed from square to octagonal. This led some to believe that it was not the original cup; however, it was later clarified that the change was intentional so that the names of the new champions could be included.
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Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, London - where the Jules Rimet Cup trophy was stolen
The robbery of 1966
In March 1966, a little over three months before the World Cup in England, the Jules Rimet Cup was on display at Central Hall, Westminster, in London. On March 20, while an event was being held in one of the venue's rooms, a thief entered through the back and stole the cup without leaving any clues. Authorities were quickly alerted and began a search, with no clue as to where to start the investigation. The thief himself sent a letter to Joe Mears, president of the FA, requesting a meeting to arrange an exchange for the cup for £150,000.A detective posed as Mears and at the meeting place arrested Ted Bechley, who was an accomplice to the robbery. On March 27, a man was walking his dog in the park where the meeting was held, and the dog, Pickles, found the cup wrapped in newspaper. The man handed the cup over to the authorities and received, as a reward, 6000 pounds and food for Pickles for life, thanks to a dog food company.
Finally, the cup would be for the World Cup, which would remain on English soil since England won their, up to today, only World Cup. In 2018, it was revealed that the robber was a criminal named Sidney Cugullere, a crime that was later revealed by his family, who were among the few who knew the truth. Cugullere died in 2015 and never served any prison time for the robbery.
The final disappearance of 1983
In 1970, Brazil, with one of the best teams in the history of football, won its third World Cup, effectively securing the Jules Rimet Cup. The cup was on display for over a decade at the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Federation. On December 19, 1983, Sergio Pereyra Ayres, nicknamed Sergio Peralta, along with two accomplices, far from Cugullere's subtlety, broke into the facilities, even overpowering the security guards, and managed to steal the cup, which was on display along with a couple of other trophies. Peralta had visited the exhibition and noticed that the Cup had a lot of security on the front but was attached to the wall with wood, so the maneuver itself was not that difficult.The thieves would take the trophy to an Argentine jeweler, Juan Carlos Hernández, who traded stolen gold and was reportedly responsible for reducing the cup. A friend of Peralta's who knew what had happened reported them, and the thieves were arrested in 1984. The case also led to the investigation of Hernández, who also went to prison. Murillo Miguel was the name of the investigator who led the case and who came to interrogate Hernandez to find out what had happened to the cup. The Argentine pretended to know nothing, and Murillo noticed that he was a shrewd man, so he tried to explain to him that for Brazilians it was a slap in the face that an Argentine had converted the cup into gold bars.
When he told him this, the investigator said that Hernandez's face broke into a smile, and that made him think that he had indeed reduced the cup. However, Murillo himself thought that the jeweler, being so astute, would understand that the cup had a much greater value than just its weight in gold, since it was a world-historical piece, and therefore, it was strange that he would reduce it. Supporting the researcher's theory somewhat, years later an Italian magazine claimed that the theft was actually orchestrated by an Italian mobster and that the cup had actually been sold on the black market for works of art. If this were the case, the cup could still exist somewhere out there in the world.