Football World Cup

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The Football World Cup (official name: FIFA World Cup) is the most important competition in international football (soccer). Organised by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's governing body, the World Cup finals tournament is the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, more so than even the Olympic Games.

The finals tournament is held every four years, but the World Cup competition itself takes place over a three-year period. Teams representing 197 (for the 2006 competition) national football assocations compete in regional qualifying tournaments for a place in the finals. The finals tournament now involves 32 national teams (increased from 24 in 1998) competing over a 4-week period in a previously nominated host nation. A recent innovation has allowed more than one country to act as joint hosts. In the past, the host country and current world champions automatically qualified for the next World Cup, but from 2006 on only the hosts will get an automatic berth.

In all 207 nations have competed to qualify to the World Cup, but only eleven have made it to the final match, and of those eleven only seven national teams have actually won. As a consequence of this exclusiveness, the World Cup inspires a great deal of enthusiasm and national pride amongst the tournament's fans.

Six of the seven past world champions have won while playing in their homeland, and nations actively lobby to be selected as World Cup hosts. The only previous winner not to have won on home ground is the otherwise extremely successful Brazil, who famously lost the deciding match when they hosted the 1950 tournament. Even traditionally "weaker" nations have been successful during their spell as hosts, most recently South Korea, who made it to the semifinals while hosting the 2002 World Cup. Both England (1966 World Cup) and France (1998 World Cup) won their only World Cups whilst playing as host nations.

The next football World Cup will be held in Germany in 2006.

History

The World Cup was not the first international football competition. Amateur football became a part of the official Olympic programme for the first time in 1908 (See: Football at the 1908 Summer Olympics). In Turin in 1909, in what is sometimes described as The First World Cup, Sir Thomas Lipton organised a football tournament to contest the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. Italy, Germany and Switzerland sent their most prestigious professional club sides to the competition but The Football Association of England refused to be associated with it and declined the offer to send a team. Not wishing to have Britain unrepresented in the competition, Lipton invited West Auckland FC, an amateur side from the north-east of England and mostly made up of coal miners, to take part. West Auckland won the tournament and returned to Italy in 1911 to defend their title. In the second competition West Auckland beat Juventus 6-1 in the final and were awarded the trophy outright.

In the Olympic games of 1924 and 1928, Uruguay won the football gold medal, in what was considered a proto-world cup. Unofficialy, FIFA recognized Uruguay as World Champion. These victories led the FIFA to choose Uruguay as the home of the first FIFA sanctioned World Cup.

In 1927 the 1932 Summer Olympics were awarded to Los Angeles in the United States where the popularity of American football far surpassed that of the international game of association football (by then becoming known as soccer in the US). The general lack of interest from the Americans and a disagreement between FIFA and the IOC over the status of amateur players led to football being dropped from the official Olympic programme for the 1932 games. As a consequence, Jules Rimet, who had become president of FIFA in 1921, set about organising the inaugural World Cup tournament, to take place in Uruguay in 1930. The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic for European sides and up until two months before the start of the competition no team from that continent had promised to send a team. Rimet eventually persuaded teams representing Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total, thirteen nations took part - seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America. Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2 in front of crowd of 93,000 in Montevideo to become the first nation to win the World Cup trophy. In 1946 the World Cup trophy (Coupe du Monde) was renamed the Jules Rimet trophy in his honour.

In 1970, Brazil's third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the original trophy and a new trophy was then designed. Argentina, Germany (both times as West Germany), and Brazil have all won the second trophy twice. However, the current trophy will not be retired until the name plaque has been entirely filled with the names of winning nations. This will not happen until 2038.

Brazil, by a clear margin, is the most successful World Cup team overall, having won the tournament five times in total and finished as runners-up twice. Brazil is also the only nation to have participated in every World Cup so far. Germany, three-time winners (as West Germany) and four-time runners-up (three times as West Germany), are next, while Italy have also won three trophies and two-time runners-up. Argentina and Uruguay are both two-time World Champions, although Uruguay's two successes came rather a long time ago, in the early years of the tournament. England (1966 World Cup) and France (1998 World Cup) have both won the title once.

To date, the final of the World Cup has only been contested by European and/or South American teams. The greatest success of a North American team was reaching the semi-finals. This was achieved by the USA at the 1930 World Cup. The first Asian teams to make it to the semi-finals was at the 2002 World Cup, when South Korea and Turkey both did this (Turkey is however a member of the UEFA, and thus sometimes considered a European country when it comes to football). Two African teams have reached the quarter-finals: Cameroon at the 1990 World Cup and Senegal in 2002. The only visits of teams from Oceania in the finals tournament ended in the first round: Australia at the 1974 World Cup and New Zealand in the 1982 World Cup.

The next World Cup finals will be held in Germany, in 2006. As indicated below, the 2010 World Cup will be held in South Africa. The 2014 World Cup, which FIFA has earmarked for South America, is expected to be held in Brazil as CONMEBOL, the South American Football Confederation, has already backed it as their choice. For the 2018 finals, Netherlands and Belgium have expressed interest in holding the finals jointly, and England have also expressed a possibility of bidding for the prestigious event.

Début of National Teams

Each successive World Cup has greeted at least one new national football team, as detailed below. Brazil holds the honour of being ever present at the World Cup Finals, and in 2005 became the first ever reigning champions to have to (and manage to) qualify for the World Cup.

• 1930 - Image:Flag of Argentina.svg Argentina Image:Belgium flag large.png Belgium Image:Bolivia flag large.png Bolivia Image:Brazil flag large.png Brazil Image:Chile flag 300.png Chile Image:France flag large.png France Image:Mexico flag 300.png Mexico Image:Paraguay flag large.png Paraguay Image:Peru flag large.png Peru Image:Romania flag large.png Romania Image:Uruguay flag large.png Uruguay Image:Us flag large.png United States Image:Flag of SFR Yugoslavia.svg Yugoslavia*
• 1934 - Image:Austria flag large.png Austria Image:Flag of Czech Republic.svg Czechoslovakia Image:Egypt flag large.png Egypt Image:Germany flag 1933 1.png Germany Image:Hungary flag large.png Hungary Image:Flag of Italy.png Italy Image:Netherlands flag large.png Netherlands Image:Spain flag large.png Spain Image:Sweden flag large.png Sweden Image:Switzerland flag large.png  Switzerland
• 1938 - Image:Flag of Cuba.svg Cuba Image:Netherlands flag large.png Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) Image:Flag of Norway.svg Norway Image:Poland flag large.png Poland
• 1950 - Image:England flag large.png England
• 1954 - Image:Flag of Scotland.svg Scotland Image:South korea flag large.png Korea Republic Image:Flag of Turkey.svg Turkey Image:Germany flag large.png West Germany
• 1958 - Image:Northern Ireland flag.png Northern Ireland Image:Wales flag large.png Wales Image:Flag of the Soviet Union.png USSR
• 1962 - Image:Bulgaria flag large.png Bulgaria Image:Colombia flag large.png Colombia
• 1966 - Image:Flag of North Korea.svg Korea DPR Image:Portugal flag large.png Portugal
• 1970 - Image:El salvador flag large.png El Salvador Image:Israel flag large.png Israel Image:Flag of Morocco.svg Morocco
• 1974 - Image:Australia flag large.png Australia Image:East Germany flag.png East Germany Image:Haiti flag large.png Haiti Image:Zaire flag.gif Zaire
• 1978 - Image:Iran flag large.png Iran Image:Tunisia flag large.png Tunisia
• 1982 - Image:Algeria flag large.png Algeria Image:Cameroon flag large.png Cameroon Image:Honduras flag large.png Honduras Image:Kuwait flag large.png Kuwait Image:New zealand flag large.png New Zealand
• 1986 - Image:Canada flag large.png Canada Image:National Flag of Denmark.svg Denmark Image:Iraq flag large.png Iraq
• 1990 - Image:Costa rica flag large.png Costa Rica Image:Ireland flag large.png Ireland Republic Image:Uae flag large.png United Arab Emirates
• 1994 - Image:Greece flag large.png Greece Image:Nigeria flag large.png Nigeria Image:Russia flag large.png Russia Image:Saudi arabia flag large.png Saudi Arabia
• 1998 - Image:Croatia flag large.png Croatia Image:Jamaica flag large.png Jamaica Image:Flag of Japan.svg Japan Image:South africa flag large.png South Africa Image:Flag of Serbia and Montenegro.png FR Yugoslavia*
• 2002 - Image:Flag of Peoples Republic of China.svg China PR Image:Ecuador flag large.png Ecuador Image:Senegal flag large.png Senegal Image:Slovenia flag large.png Slovenia
• 2006 - [Qualification On-Going] Image:Angola flag large.png Angola Image:Cote d'ivoire flag large.png Côte d'Ivoire Image:Ghana flag large.png Ghana Image:Togo flag large.png Togo Image:Ukraine flag large.png Ukraine
  • At least one more first-time qualifier is assured. Neither participant in the AFC-CONCACAF playoff — Image:Bahrain flag large.png Bahrain or Image:Trinidad and tobago flag large.png Trinidad and Tobago — has appeared in a World Cup final. Both Image:Flag of Czech Republic.svg Czech Republic and/or Image:Slovakia flag large.png Slovakia could qualify through the UEFA playoffs, as neither has qualified since Czechoslovakia dissolved in 1993.

* After Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia & Slovenia seceded from the SFR Yugoslavia in 1992, Serbia and Montenegro formed the FR Yugoslavia. They competed as Yugoslavia until 2003 when they became Serbia and Montenegro and qualified for 2006 finals under the new name.

Football World Cup tournaments

FIFA hasn't yet specified which continent will host the World Cup in 2018 and 2022, even though several nations have already announced their intention to bid.