Paul Rouse

The one in Bologna had a statue of Mussolini on a horse at the back of the stadium, looking down across everything.

They did a third thing.

They wanted people to come.

and to see what Italy was like.

So they basically invented tourist packages for people to come to the World Cup and subsidize travel to Italy and between the cities on the rail within Italy.

They arranged this brilliant radio infrastructure.

So radio was pushing into people's homes

by the early 1930s.

But the Italians did more than that.

They erected loudspeakers on poles in the main squares of villages and towns and in cities and in their suburbs.

And the games were also relayed to 12 competing countries around the place.

So the technology was only developing in terms of international

relay, but for European countries, it was straightforward.

The fascist symbol was everywhere.

It was put on tickets and the tickets were designed and printed to a really high standard so that people could bring them home with them.

So this is the construction of a memorabilia, this iconography of the World Cup.

And the Italians were right at the heart of this kind of idea of sporting merch or souvenirs to bring away with them.

And of course,

Mussolini put himself at the center of the imagery of this.

He kind of ordered the construction of the artist, the fabrication of the Coppa del Duce, this trophy that was six times bigger than the trophy that was to be given to the World Cup winner.