Ottorino Barassi’s World Cup medals: the man who hid the Jules Rimet Trophy under his bed
If the Jules Rimet Trophy could talk, it would probably ask why everyone kept trying to either steal it, lose it or melt it down.
Most football fans know the Pickles story.
Before the 1966 World Cup in England, the trophy was stolen while on display in London and later found in a South London hedge by a dog called Pickles, instantly making him more useful than most tournament mascots.
But that was not the first time the World Cup trophy had been in danger.
Long before Pickles got his nose involved, the Jules Rimet Trophy had survived a far more serious threat during the Second World War.
And at the centre of that story was Ottorino Barassi.
He wasn’t a World Cup final goalscorer, a captain, a goalkeeper, or even a player.
He was something very different, but arguably just as important.
He was one of the administrators who helped shape European and world football, a major figure in Italian football, a FIFA Executive Committee member, and, most famously, the man credited with hiding the Jules Rimet Trophy from the Nazis.
Now two World Cup winner’s medals connected to him - from 1934 and 1938 - are appearing in BUDDS’ World Cup Auction.
They tell one of the strangest, richest and most fascinating stories in football memorabilia.
The man behind the medal
Ottorino Barassi was born in 1898 and became one of the most influential Italian football officials of the 20th century.
Like many football people, he began near the pitch before ending up behind a desk. He played and refereed at regional level, worked as a football correspondent, and then moved into sports administration.
By the 1930s, he was deeply involved with the Italian Football Federation and played a major role in organising the 1934 World Cup in Italy.
That tournament is complicated, because it was staged in Fascist Italy and took place under the eye of Benito Mussolini’s regime.
Football never exists in a vacuum, however much we sometimes wish it did.
The 1934 World Cup was about sport, of course, but it was also about image, power, politics and national prestige.
Italy won it, beating Czechoslovakia 2-1 after extra time in Rome - a first World Cup triumph for the hosts.
For Barassi, who had been involved in the organisation of the tournament, it was a defining moment in his football life.
As a reward for his organisation of the successful event, he received a 1934 FIFA World Cup winner’s medal.
It’s gold, designed by Abel Lafleur, the same French sculptor who created the Jules Rimet Trophy itself, and features a winged figure of Victory based on the ancient Greek sculpture Nike of Samothrace.
Italy, 1938 and the last World Cup before the storm
Four years later, Italy did it again.
The 1938 World Cup was held in France, and Italy retained the trophy by beating Hungary 4-2 in the final.
In simple football terms, it made Italy the first nation to win back-to-back World Cups.
In wider historical terms, it was the last World Cup before the Second World War.
That gives the tournament a very different feel.
In 1934, Italy had ambition, nationalism and a desire to announce themselves on home soil. But in 1938, the world was about to fall apart.
Once again, Barassi’s impact on the Italian Football Federation led to him being presented with a second World Cup winner’s medal.
The 1938 medal was again made in gold, again designed by Abel Lafleur, and again carrying that same sense of official World Cup history.
Its reverse is inscribed for France 1938 and features Le Coq Gaulois, the Gallic rooster, alongside the World Cup wording.
Together, the 1934 and 1938 medals are not just Italian football medals. They’re medals from the only back-to-back World Cup wins before Brazil repeated the feat in 1958 and 1962.
They also come from the man who would soon be trusted, by circumstance more than choice, with the survival of the trophy itself.
The shoebox under the bed
This is where Barassi’s story moves from important to unbelievable.
During the Second World War, Italy were still the reigning World Cup holders.
The Jules Rimet Trophy was kept in a bank vault in Rome, which sounds sensible enough until Rome came under Nazi occupation and a solid gold trophy suddenly became the sort of thing you really did not want the wrong people finding.
Barassi understood the danger.
The fear was simple: if the trophy was discovered, it could be requisitioned and melted down.
So, he removed it from the bank and hid it in a shoebox under his bed.
Not a vault or a secret underground bunker.
Not some dramatic film scene with a false wall and a man in a long coat whispering passwords.
Just a shoebox, under his bed.
The Nazis reportedly searched his house but did not discover it.
Afterwards, Barassi sent the trophy to relatives in Foggia, where it remained hidden until the end of the war.
That’s the kind of story that sounds like it could have been invented after a few too many pints in the pub, but it happened.
And because of it, the Jules Rimet Trophy survived long enough to be returned to FIFA for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil.
There’s a grim irony that follows though.
After the trophy survived the Nazis, the war, being discovered by Pickles the dog and ahead of its tenth post-war tournament - it was stolen again in 1983 and has never been recovered.
With Brazil winning it outright in 1970, the long absence leads to many presuming it’s been melted down.
Though, if Barassi had not acted when he did, football’s most famous trophy might have disappeared decades earlier.
Why these medals matter
That’s why these two medals carry more meaning than their size suggests. They’re small objects inside an enormous story.
Italy’s first triumph and then back-to-back success, handed to an official so important in the on-field glory before his story became even more remarkable.
Together they point towards the bigger Barassi story: the administrator who didn’t just help run football, but physically protected one of its greatest symbols.
With the World Cup on the horizon, BUDDS’ World Cup Auction isn’t just about the most obvious names.
Of course, shirts, medals and items connected to players will always attract attention.
But pieces like these tell a different kind of story. Ottorino Barassi’s 1934 and 1938 World Cup winner’s medals belong to that wider world.
They’re part of the life of a man who helped organise World Cups, helped shape European football, served at FIFA level and, when the moment came, saved the most famous trophy in the sport by putting it in a shoebox under his bed.
That is football history and with BUDDS, it’s history you can own.