5 senior World Cups whose attendances were eclipsed by India's FIFA U17 World Cup 2017
The recently concluded FIFA U17 World Cup in India has turned out be an eye opener for the whole world in terms of the footballing potential that the country has. This was the first time India hosted a FIFA event and it broke numerous attendance records, showing its fan potential.
India has always been dubbed as a cricket-loving nation, but this FIFA U17 World Cup has shown us that more number of Indian fans have attended FIFA U17 World Cup games than the epic 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup co-hosted in the India. It's a feat very few sports enthusiasts believed could be broken especially by an age group football World Cup.
The FIFA U17 World Cup 2017 broke attendance records of all age group FIFA World Cup’s which include the previous records of China for the FIFA U17 World Cup and Colombia for the FIFA U20 World Cup. It is also interesting to see that India beat the total attendance figures of seven edition World Cups and in this article, we will take a look at the top 5 senior World Cups whose attendance figures were shattered by India.
Before we start with the top 5 we have two special mentions, which are the first two FIFA World Cups the 1930 edition in Uruguay, and 1934 edition in Italy, we haven't included these two editions because, in all true sense, the FIFA World Cup was still trying to find its feet then and it would be unfair to take them into account.
#5 1938 World Cup France (375,700)
It was only the third FIFA football world cup and it was being hosted in Europe for the second time but it was the first time France was hosting the FIFA mega event. The world then still had a lot of colonial presence and the tournament wasn't played in the same format, that is used now, but the passion and love for the game is unchanged even now. Spectators then also waited in long queues to buy tickets to watch the FIFA World Cup they do it now also.
The France 1938 edition saw a total of 375,700 spectators witness the tournament from the stands, a figure which India beat by a margin of 971,453 people.