The FIFA World Cup, occasionally called the Football World Cup or Soccer World Cup, but usually referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, . The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation.(
During the 18 tournaments that have been held, seven nations have won the title. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy, the current champions, have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each, and England and France, with one title each.
The World Cup is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, where an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany. The next World Cup will be held in South Africa, between 11 June and 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.
Previous international competitions
The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England, with the first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, taking place in 1884. At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football began to increase in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.
After FIFA was founded in 1904, there was an attempt made by FIFA to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside of the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association ( football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organised by the Swedish Football Association.
With the Olympic event continuing to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup, and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title, and were given the trophy to keep forever, as per the rules of the competition.
In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs", and took responsibility for managing the event. This paved the way for the world's first intercontinental football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium. Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928.
First World Cup
Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship organised by FIFA. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions ( and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.
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 Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from 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.
The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and USA, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France.[9] In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in doing so became the first nation to win the World Cup.[10]
Other FIFA tournaments
FIFA Women's World Cup, was first held in 1991 in the People's Republic of China. The women's tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men's, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.
Trophy
From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde. In 1970, Brazil's third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983, and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.
After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven different countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg . The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: "The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory."
This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the next tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original.
Format
Qualification
Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament. They are held within the six FIFA continental zones , by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations' teams.Final tournament
The current final tournament features 32 national teams competing over a month in the host nation( stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage.
In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings and/or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups.[28] The other teams are assigned to different "pots", usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation.
Each group plays a round-robin tournament, guaranteeing that every team will play at least three matches. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss ( two or more teams end up with the same number of points, tiebreakers are used: first is goal difference, then total goals scored, then head-to-head results, and finally drawing of lots .
The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the "round of 16" (or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match and the final.
Selection of hosts
Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The choice of location gave rise to controversies, a consequence of the three-week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing. The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournamenThe host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA's Executive Committee. This is done under a single transferable vote system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a "Hosting Agreement" from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA
Organisation and media coverage
he World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot or logo. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot Recent World Cups have also featured official match balls specially designed for each World Cup.
Results
Summaries of previous tournaments
| Team | Titles | Runners-up | Third place | Fourth place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Brazil | 5 (1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002) | 2 (1950*, 1998) | 2 (1938, 1978) | 1 (1974) |
 Italy | 4 (1934*, 1938, 1982, 2006) | 2 (1970, 1994) | 1 (1990*) | 1 (1978) |
 Germany^ | 3 (1954, 1974*, 1990) | 4 (1966, 1982, 1986, 2002) | 3 (1934, 1970, 2006*) | 1 (1958) |
 Argentina | 2 (1978*, 1986) | 2 (1930, 1990) | — | — |
 Uruguay | 2 (1930*, 1950) | — | — | 2 (1954, 1970) |
 France | 1 (1998*) | 1 (2006) | 2 (1958, 1986) | 1 (1982) |
 England | 1 (1966*) | — | — | 1 (1990) |
 Netherlands | — | 2 (1974, 1978) | — | 1 (1998) |
 Czechoslovakia# | — | 2 (1934, 1962) | — | — |
 Hungary | — | 2 (1938, 1954) | — | — |
 Sweden | — | 1 (1958*) | 2 (1950, 1994) | 1 (1938) |
 Poland | — | — | 2 (1974, 1982) | — |
 Austria | — | — | 1 (1954) | 1 (1934) |
 Portugal | — | — | 1 (1966) | 1 (2006) |
 Chile | — | — | 1 (1962*) | — |
 Croatia | — | — | 1 (1998) | — |
 Turkey | — | — | 1 (2002) | — |
 United States | — | — | 1 (1930) | — |
 Yugoslavia# | — | — | — | 2 (1930, 1962) |
 Belgium | — | — | — | 1 (1986) |
 Bulgaria | — | — | — | 1 (1994) |
 Korea Republic | — | — | — | 1 (2002*) |
 Soviet Union# | — | — | — | 1 (1966) |
 Spain | — | — | — | 1 (1950 |
Awards
At the end of each World Cup, awards are presented to the players and teams for accomplishments other than their final team positions in the tournament. There are currently six awards:
- The Golden Ball for the best player, determined by a vote of media members (first awarded in 1982); the Silver Ball and the Bronze Ball are awarded to the players finishing second and third in the voting respectively;
- The Golden Shoe (sometimes called the Golden Boot) for the top goalscorer (first awarded in 1982, but retrospectively applied to all tournaments from 1930); most recently, the Silver Shoe and the Bronze Shoe have been awarded to the second and third top goalscorers respectively;
- The Yashin Award for the best goalkeeper, decided by the FIFA Technical Study Group (first awarded in 1994);
- The Best Young Player Award for the best player aged 21 or younger at the start of the calendar year, decided by the FIFA Technical Study Group (first awarded in 2006).
- The FIFA Fair Play Trophy for the team with the best record of fair play, according to the points system and criteria established by the FIFA Fair Play Committee (first awarded in 1978);[48]
- The Most Entertaining Team for the team that has entertained the public the most during the World Cup, determined by a poll of the general public (first awarded in 1994);
An All-Star Team consisting of the best players of the tournament is also announced for each tournament since 1998.
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