In 1927, Pierre de Coubertin was invited by the Greek government to Olympia, to attend the unveiling of a commemorative stele created in order to honour his actions to revive the Olympic Games. During his stay in Greece, he discussed the need for an academic centre for the study of the Olympic Movement and its trends with his friend Ioannis Chrysafis, who headed the Department of Physical Education at the University of Athens.
Coubertin believed that the Olympic Movement should not deviate from its educational objectives and had written: "I have not been able to carry out to the end what I wanted to perfect. I believe that a centre of Olympic studies would aid the preservation and progress of my work more than anything else, and would keep it from the false paths which I fear".