Origins & Participants

In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic football tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs", and took responsibility for managing the event at the next three Olympiads: 1920–1928 (in the 1908 Olympic Games and the 1912 Olympic Games the football competitions had been organised by the Football Association and the Swedish Football Association respectively).
The 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of football in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games. On 26 May 1928, at the Amsterdam conference and on the opening day of the Olympic football tournament, FIFA president Jules Rimet announced plans to stage a tournament independent of the Olympics, open to all FIFA members. Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Uruguay would all lodge applications to host the event.
The first World Cup was the only one without qualification. Every country affiliated with FIFA was invited to compete. 28 February 1930 was set for teams to accept Uruguay's invitations. Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, the United States and Mexico all registered in time, but the date passed without a single trans-Atlantic country agreeing to play. Due to the long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean, very few European teams were attracted enough to take part. The Uruguayan Football Association even sent a letter of invitation to the Football Association (at that time not a member of FIFA). This was rejected by the FA Committee on 18 November 1929 ; two months before the tournament started, no team from Europe had officially entered.FIFA president Jules Rimet intervened, along with the Uruguayan government, which promised to pay the travel expenses of any European team.
Eventually four European teams made the sea trip: Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The Romanians (who had lost to Yugoslavia a month before the competition but who would win the Balkan Cup in 1931), managed by Costel Radulescu and coached by their captain Rudolf Wetzer and Octav Luchide, boarded the SS Conte Verde at Genoa, the French were picked up at Villefranche-sur-Mer on 21 June 1930 ; and the Belgians embarked at Barcelona.This is the same vessel which took Jules Rimet, the trophy itself and the three designated European referees: the Belgians Jean Langenus and Henri Christophe and Thomas Balway, a Parisien who may have been English. The Brazilian team were picked up when the boat docked in Rio de Janeiro on 29 June 1930 before arriving in Uruguay on 4 July 1930. It is at Rio that Balway was said to have learnt that his wife had died in France. Yugoslavia travelled via the mail steamship Florida from Marseille.
Of the journey Lucien Laurent said "We were 15 days on the ship "CONTE VERDE" getting out there. We embarked from Villefranche-sur-Mer in company of the Belgians and the Yugoslavians. We did our basic exercises down below and our training on deck. The coach never spoke about tactics at all.