Mystery that surrounds Fifa World Cup

Editor's note: One of the rare columns I enjoy reading these days is by Simon Kuper in Financial Times.
Kuper provides a global perspective on sports and on April 15, he wrote about the mystery surrounding the Fifa World Cup.
Here is the Financial Times story
By Simon Kuper
Years ago in London I met a man who worked for an auction house.
Over steak sandwiches in a West End pub he unfolded a real-life detective story about the greatest prize in sport: the original football World Cup, the Jules Rimet trophy.
People think it was stolen in Brazil in 1983 and melted down into goldbars.
But according to my friend, the trophy was intact and had recently been sold in London.
The French sculptor Abel Lafleur had made the trophy for the first World Cup in 1930. It was a magnificent piece: a 15-inch solid gold statuette of Nike, Greek goddess of victory.
My friend the auctioneer's story began in March 1966, when Nike was stolen from a London stamp exhibition.
England was then preparing to host the 1966 World Cup. The theft shamed the Football Association. But a week later, a dog named Pickles unearthed the stolen trophy under some bushes in south London.
After Pickles' discovery, the FA gave the cup for safekeeping to its regular jeweller George Bird. Martin Atherton, a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire who has brilliantly traced the trophy's travails, describes how in the months before the World Cup Bird cycledit around London from exhibition to exhibition.
The trophy sat in his bicycle basket, concealed only by a cloth. Eventually Bird decided this wasn't safe. He suggested to the FA that he make a replica of the trophy: safer to exhibit this than the real thing. Atherton describes what happened next.
The FA asked Fifa'spermission to produce a replica. Football's world governing body said no. But the FA secretly commissioned Bird anyway. He made a gilded bronze trophy -probably for free, as a gift to the FA.
Now there were two Jules Rimet trophies:the real one and the replica, identical to the layman's eye. On July 30 1966, three policemen drove to Wembley for the World Cup final between England andWest Germany. In the car with them were both Jules Rimets.
After England's 4-2victory, the Queen handed captain Bobby Moore the real trophy. Later the toothless midfielder Nobby Stiles danced on the pitch with it. But then the policemen wrested the cup from Stiles and gave him the replica instead. The British authorities wanted to keep the real trophy safe. That evening, from the balcony of a Kensington hotel, the England team waved the replica to the crowd.
Nobody noticed the difference. In 1970, came the next World Cup in Mexico. The FA had to return the trophy to Fifa. But which trophy? There were two. And so, said my friend the auctioneer: "Theygave back the replica."
In Mexico, Brazil won its third World Cup and was allowed to keep the Jules Rimet trophy forever. A very different cup was sculpted to replace it. In 1983, the Jules Rimet was stolen from the Brazilian FA's headquarters. Police believe it was melted down into gold bars. "But the stolen trophy wasn't the real one," said my friend theauctioneer. "It was the replica."
One of the two Jules Rimet trophies had stayed in London after 1970, stored under Bird's bed. Atherton explains: "It officially did not exist and so could not be put on open display."
Twice Bird'shouse was burgled, and twice the thieves missed the cup. The jeweller died in 1995. Two years later his family auctioned his trophy. "Replica", states the Sotheby's catalogue for the auction. "Reserve price £20,000-£30,000."
That seemed a lot for a bronze fake. But it sold for £254,500, nine times the highest price previously paid at auction for a piece of football memorabilia. "It's an absurd price," my friend told me.
"Unless you know it's the real trophy. And the winning bidder knew." The winning bidder was Fifa itself, and the Brazilian FA probably bid too. Fifa wanted the trophy because it had heard the story of the switch: the story that the real cup had remained in England in 1970.
"Fifa took the decision to buy this trophy as it was thought to be the original one," Fifa confirmed to me. But the international football federation wasn't sure whether the trophy at auction was indeed the real golden cup, or merely the bronze replica.
Fifa didn't ascertain this at the viewing days before the sale, probably because it's not done at viewing sessions to produce testing equipment to check whether an object is gold. Fifa's purchase was a gamble.
Immediately after buying the trophy, it had an expert examine it. You can imagine the scene:a backroom, a couple of football officials and a jeweller.
And then the jewellerwould have broken the news: the trophy wasn't the real World Cup, but a cheap gilded bronze replica. Both my friend the auctioneer and Fifa had been wrong: the switch had never happened. Expecting to snag the real Jules Rimet, Fifa had blown £254,500 on a fake.
It has since loaned the thing to the National Football Museum in Preston. One question remains. Where is the real Jules Rimet trophy? Was it really melted down into gold bars, or is it now under some Latin American bed?