Although polo is a very old sport, this championship is relatively new. Before this world championship was born, the most important tournaments were the British or the Olympic Games, since polo was included in five editions of these games.
The first British tournament was the Champion Cup, which was played from 1876 to 1939 Subsequently, the Champion Cup was replaced by the British Open Championship, which is played every year to get the Cowdray Park Gold Cup. The most important matches in the world were between the United States and England and the Copa America between Argentina and the United States, which was usually won by the Argentines.
In Buenos Aires on November 25, 1982, the International Polo Federation (FIP) was founded. For this federation to have the recognition of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), polo must have international standards.8 One of these rules is that sports must have a world championship. This is how it was decided to hold the first world championship in Argentina, the country that owns one of the most competitive polo leagues in the world.9 It was decided that the handicap should be 10 to 14 goals, aware of the difficulty of having differences between the different countries of the world in this way Argentina participates as long as they are not with teams of up to 40 goals and get an advantage over the others.
