The World Cups that were never played: 1942 and 1946
World War II left football without a World Cup for 12 years. And an Italian official hid the trophy under his bed to save it from the Nazis.
Between the 1938 World Cup in France and the 1950 edition in Brazil there is a twelve-year gap. The reason: the 1942 and 1946 editions were never held, cancelled by the Second World War.
Before the conflict there had been interest in hosting the 1942 event — Germany and Brazil put forward bids — but no host was ever chosen. The invasion of Poland, in September 1939, unleashed the war and buried any football plans. By 1946, with Europe devastated, there was no tournament either.
Amid that hiatus, the trophy lived its own odyssey. As Italy were the reigning champions (they had won in 1934 and 1938), they held the Jules Rimet Cup. To stop the Nazis from seizing it, the Italian official Ottorino Barassi secretly removed it from a Rome bank and hid it in a shoe-box under his bed. That is how the trophy survived the war.
At the head of FIFA remained Jules Rimet, its president for 33 years and founder of the first World Cup in 1930, to which — the story goes — he travelled with the trophy in his luggage.
Football had to wait until 1950 to be reunited with its great tournament. That forced pause is the only interruption in World Cup history, a reminder of how war halted everything, sport included.
Source: Wikipedia (History of the FIFA World Cup; FIFA World Cup Trophy; Ottorino Barassi; Jules Rimet).