Governing body of association football in Austria
The Austrian Football Association (German: Österreichischer Fußball-Bund; ÖFB) is the governing body of football in Austria. It organises the football league, Austrian Bundesliga, the Austrian Cup and the Austria national football team, as well as its female equivalent. It is based in the capital, Vienna.
Since 1905, it has been a FIFA member, and since 1954, a UEFA member. Since 7 April 2002, Friedrich Stickler (Dipl. Eng.), the director of executive committee of the Austrian lottery, has been the president of the Austrian Football Association. Supporting him is its president, Kurt Ehrenberger, Frank Stronach, Dr. Gerhard Kapl, and Dr. Leo Windtner. In 2004, it was announced there are 285,000 players (both sexes) in Austria playing for 2,309 teams in the federation, although many more players play informally or for non-recognised teams. Thus the federation is the largest sporting organisation the country. Football is, perhaps with the exception of skiing, the most popular sport in Austria. Football possesses a large value, and has a rich history and tradition in Austria.
History
In 1894, the First Vienna Football Club, the first football team in Austria, were founded in Vienna. From this nucleus, the Austrian Football Association was established in 1904. One year after the establishment, Austria became a member of the international football federation FIFA and hosted the fifth FIFA congress in 1908. In 1913, they supervised the Galicja national team, which was directly subordinate to the Polish Football Association.
The milestones of the federation and past football history were the years 1930 to 1933, 1950 to 1954 and then 1958 as well as 1978, 1982, 1990 and 1998 with the participation of Austria at the World Cup.
Hugo Meisl was one of the best-known personalities in the early years of the Austrian Football Association, becoming general-secretary and national team coach in 1927. At the 1936 Summer Olympics, his team won silver after losing 2–1 to Italy, Austria's only international final. Meisl's team, nicknamed the Wunderteam, remained unbeaten from 12 April 1931 to 23 October 1932 in 14 successive matches. The highlights of this series were the 6-0 (Berlin) and 5-0 (Vienna) victories against Germany.
The 1950s saw more achievements with their well-known football greats such as Ernst Ocwirk (twice captain of the FIFA World Selection Team), Ernst Happel, Gerhard Hanappi and Walter Zeman. The FIFA World Cup 1954 ranks among being most successful in Austrian Football Association history. Twenty years after being in 4th place in the FIFA World Cup 1934 held in Italy, Austria returned to the circle of the best teams again.
