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81-536: The Hertfordshire County Football Association Senior Challenge Cup , commonly called the Herts Senior Cup , is the oldest County-based football Cup competition based exclusively in Hertfordshire , England . It was first contested in the 1886-87 season and won by Hoddesdon Town . It has been contested every year since except for the years 1915 to 1918 when it was suspended during World War I . It

162-401: A round-robin tournament in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. This means that a total of six matches are played within a group. 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

243-426: 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 for nations, at the 1920 Summer Olympics , contested by Egypt and 13 European teams, and won by Belgium . Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928 . Those were also the first two open world championships, as 1924

324-455: A dozen FIFA officials were made since that time, particularly on 29 May and 3 December. By the end of May 2015, a total of nine FIFA officials and five executives of sports and broadcasting markets had already been charged on corruption. At the time, FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced he would relinquish his position in February 2016. On 4 June 2015, Chuck Blazer while co-operating with

405-420: A draw may be settled in extra time and eventually by a penalty shootout or by replaying the fixture. Another perceived disadvantage is that most competitors are eliminated after relatively few games. Variations such as the double-elimination tournament allow competitors a single loss while remaining eligible for overall victory. However, losing one game requires the competitor to win more games in order to win

486-470: A form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. There have been occasions where

567-526: A formula based on the FIFA World Rankings or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups. 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

648-443: A group. Since 1994 , three points have been awarded for a win , one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points). Considering six matches in a group each with three possible outcomes (win, draw, loss), there are 729 (= 3 ) possible final table outcomes for the 40 possible combinations of the four teams' points. However, 14 of the 40 points combinations (or 207 of the 729 possible outcomes) lead to ties between

729-456: A match between the losers of the semifinal matches called third place playoffs , the winner therein placing third and the loser fourth. Many Olympic single-elimination tournaments feature the bronze medal match if they do not award bronze medals to both losing semifinalists. The FIFA World Cup has long featured the third place match (since 1934 ), though the UEFA Euro has not held one since

810-504: A particularly dark cloud because of the 2015 FIFA corruption case, allegations and criminal charges of bribery, fraud and money laundering to corrupt the issuing of media and marketing rights (rigged bids) for FIFA games, with FIFA officials accused of taking bribes totaling more than $ 150 million over 24 years. In late May, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a 47-count indictment with charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy against 14 people. Arrests of over

891-620: A pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup . The 2002 FIFA World Cup , hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the first tournament with multiple hosts. South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010 . The 2014 FIFA World Cup was hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since Argentina 1978 , and

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972-408: A political matter so why not have more Africans? The competition is to bring all the people of all the world. If you don't give the possibility to participate, they don't improve." In October 2016, FIFA president Gianni Infantino stated his support for a 48-team World Cup in 2026. On 10 January 2017, FIFA confirmed the 2026 World Cup will have 48 finalist teams. By May 2015, the games were under

1053-500: A possible match-up with the top seed until one round later. MLS' format is identical, except that the conference quarterfinals is a best-of-three series. In some situations, a seeding restriction may be implemented; from 1975 until 1989 in the NFL , and from 1994 until 2011 in MLB there was a rule where at the conference or league semifinal, should the top seed and last seed (wild card) be from

1134-437: A quarter-final from the previous year . Sometimes the remaining competitors in a single-elimination tournament will be "re-seeded" so that the highest surviving seed is made to play the lowest surviving seed in the next round, the second-highest plays the second-lowest, etc. This may be done after each round, or only at selected intervals. In American team sports, for example, the NFL employs this tactic, but MLS , NHL and

1215-463: A random factor is always present in a real-world competition, this might easily cause accusations of unfairness. Variations of the single-elimination tournament include: Other common tournament types include: FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup , often called the World Cup , is an international association football competition among the senior men's national teams of the members of

1296-452: A revised format of the 2026 tournament, which features 12 groups of four teams each, with the top 8 third-placed teams joining the group winners and runners-up in a new round of 32. Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The locations were controversial because South America and Europe were by far the two centres of strength in football and travel between them required three weeks by boat. The decision to hold

1377-456: A women's version, although a FIFA Women's Club World Cup has been proposed. The FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup is held biannually, including the year before each Women's World Cup. Both tournaments were awarded in a single bidding process on three occasions, with the U-20 tournament serving as a dress rehearsal for the larger competition each time ( 2010 , 2014 and 2018 ). From 1930 to 1970,

1458-695: Is 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5, for example this is used for 16 seeds in the World Snooker Championship and 32 seeds in the World Darts Championship . Some tournaments stray from this, for example it is not the procedure that is followed in most tennis tournaments, where the 1 and 2 seeds are placed in separate brackets, but then the 3 and 4 seeds are assigned to their brackets randomly, and so too are seeds 5 through 8, and so on. This may result in some brackets consisting of stronger players than other brackets, and since only

1539-533: Is first - for example, if sorting the numbers 1-4 ascending, if 4 and 3 meet in the first round, 3 and 1 will lose in the first round and 2 will lose in the second, selecting 4 as the largest number in the set, but insufficient comparisons have been performed to determine which is greater, 1 or 3. Despite this, the candidate that loses in the final round is commonly considered to have taken second place (in this case, 2). When matches are held to determine places or prizes lower than first and second, these typically include

1620-1450: Is followed by the semi-final round, in which only four are left, the two winners of which then meet in the final or championship round . The round before the quarterfinals has multiple designations. Often it is called the round of sixteen , last sixteen , or (in South Asia) pre-quarterfinals . In many other languages the term for these eight matches translates to eighth-final (e.g., in these European languages: "huitième de finale" in French , "achtste finale" in Dutch, octavos de final in Spanish , Achtelfinale in German , åttondelsfinal in Swedish , ottavi di finale in Italian , oitavos-de-final in Portuguese , optimi de finală in Romanian , osmifinále in Czech , osemfinále in Slovak , and osmina finala in Serbo-Croatian ), though this term

1701-430: Is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final. On 10 January 2017, FIFA approved a new format, the 48-team World Cup (to accommodate more teams), which was to consist of 16 groups of three teams each, with two teams qualifying from each group, to form a round of 32 knockout stage, to be implemented by 2026. On 14 March 2023, FIFA approved

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1782-499: Is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy only until the post-match celebration is finished. They are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original immediately afterwards. All members (players, coaches, and managers) of the top three teams receive medals with an insignia of the World Cup Trophy ; winners' (gold), runners-up' (silver), and third-place (bronze). In

1863-487: Is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder. The 2026 FIFA World Cup was chosen to be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, marking the first time a World Cup has been shared by three host nations. The 2026 tournament will be the biggest World Cup ever held, with 48 teams playing 104 matches. Sixty matches will take place in

1944-517: Is rare in English itself, with noticeable use in American debate tournaments. The round before the round of sixteen is sometimes called round of thirty-two in English. Terms for this in other languages generally translate as "sixteenth final". Earlier rounds are typically numbered counting forwards from the first round, or by the number of remaining competitors. If some competitors get a bye ,

2025-449: Is the most prestigious association football competition in the world, as well as the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world. The viewership of the 2018 World Cup was estimated to be 3.57 billion, close to half of the global population, while the engagement with the 2022 World Cup was estimated to be 5 billion, with about 1.5 billion people watching the final match . Seventeen countries have hosted

2106-599: Is usually contested by the twenty-two most senior Clubs in the County, though this number has been higher and lower in previous years. Finals have nearly always been staged at a neutral venue in the County, apart from a few seasons in the mid-1960s when the final was played over two-legs. Since the 2004-05 season, finals have been staged at the Herts FA's headquarters at the County Ground, Letchworth Garden City , with

2187-570: The Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA ), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has been held every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930 , with the exception of 1942 and 1946 due to the Second World War . The reigning champions are Argentina , who won their third title at the 2022 tournament . The contest starts with the qualification phase , which takes place over

2268-552: The Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winning team. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde , but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the first tournament. 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

2349-672: The 1906 Intercalated Games . After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside 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 unsuccessful. At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London , football became an official Olympic sport. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England's football governing body,

2430-654: The 1936 Summer Olympics , but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup. The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 World Cup and all North and South American nations except Brazil and Cuba boycotted the 1938 tournament. Brazil was the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions, which Germany and Brazil sought to host, were cancelled due to World War II . The 1950 World Cup , held in Brazil ,

2511-421: The 1980 edition . Sometimes, contests are also held among the losers of the quarterfinal matches to determine fifth to eighth places. In one scenario, two "consolation semifinal" matches may be conducted, with the winners of these then facing off to determine fifth and sixth places and the losers playing for seventh and eighth; those are used often in qualifying tournaments where only the top five teams advance to

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2592-426: The 2002 edition , fourth-place medals were awarded to hosts South Korea . Before the 1978 tournament, medals were only awarded to the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the final and the third-place match. In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners' medals. Since 2006, winners of the competition are also awarded

2673-716: The Asian Football Confederation and the Confederation of African Football , two shared between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL , and a guaranteed place for the Oceania Football Confederation . Platini was clear about why he wanted to expand the World Cup. He said: "[The World Cup is] not based on the quality of the teams because you don't have the best 32 at the World Cup ;... but it's a good compromise. ... It's

2754-743: The Caribbean Football Union 's region a position in the World Cup. In the edition of 25 October 2013 of the FIFA Weekly Blatter wrote that: "From a purely sporting perspective, I would like to see globalisation finally taken seriously, and the African and Asian national associations accorded the status they deserve at the FIFA World Cup. It cannot be that the European and South American confederations lay claim to

2835-513: The FBI and the Swiss authorities admitted that he and the other members of FIFA's then-executive committee were bribed in order to promote the 1998 and 2010 World Cups. On 10 June 2015, Swiss authorities seized computer data from the offices of Sepp Blatter . The same day, FIFA postponed the bidding process for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in light of the allegations surrounding bribery in the awarding of

2916-573: The NBA do not (and neither does the NCAA college basketball tournament ). Although MLB does have enough teams (12) in its playoff tournament where re-seeding would have made a large difference in the matchups; only the WNBA's at the minimum, which is at least four from each conference for a total of 8. The NBA's format calls for the winner of the first-round series between the first and eighth seeds (within each of

2997-694: 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 in France was disputed, as the South American countries understood that the location would alternate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the 1938 FIFA World Cup . Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup , to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began

3078-453: The 2018 and 2022 tournaments. Then-secretary general Jérôme Valcke stated, "Due to the situation, I think it's nonsense to start any bidding process for the time being." On 28 October 2015, Blatter and FIFA VP Michel Platini, a potential candidate for presidency, were suspended for 90 days; both maintained their innocence in statements made to the news media. On 3 December 2015 two FIFA vice-presidents were arrested on suspicion of bribery in

3159-487: The World Cup, most recently Qatar , who hosted the 2022 event. The 2026 tournament will be jointly hosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico, which will give Mexico the distinction of being the first country to host games in three World Cups. The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England . The first international tournament for nations,

3240-410: 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

3321-453: The competition, seeding is often used to prevent this. Brackets are set up so that the top two seeds could not possibly meet until the final round (should both advance that far), none of the top four can meet prior to the semifinals, and so on. If no seeding is used, the tournament is called a random knockout tournament. Standard seeding pairs the highest and lowest, then second highest and second lowest and so on, for an 8 seed tournament this

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3402-510: The competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium , France , Romania , and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total, 13 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 the United States , who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history

3483-707: The event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team ) won the gold medals . They repeated the feat at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm . With the Olympic event continuing to be a contest between amateur teams only, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament

3564-445: The event's inception in 1930, and a total of 80 national teams have competed. The trophy has been won by eight national teams. With five wins, Brazil is the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Cup winners are Germany and Italy , with four titles each; Argentina , with three titles; France and inaugural winner Uruguay , each with two titles; and England and Spain , with one title each. The World Cup

3645-428: The exception of 2010-11 , when the final was moved to Underhill as the final was contested between two Football League clubs, Barnet and Stevenage , prompting safety concerns. The current holders are St Albans City . Source: Single-elimination tournament In English , the round in which only eight competitors remain is generally called (with or without hyphenation) the quarter-final round; this

3726-419: The first defending champions to play qualifying matches. The final tournament format since 1998 has had 32 national teams competing over the course of a month in the host nations. There are two 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

3807-537: 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, especially in the midst of the Great Depression . As such, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of

3888-450: The hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as was the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups , which were awarded to Russia and Qatar , with Qatar becoming the first Middle Eastern country to host the tournament. For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament was rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host

3969-533: The inaugural British Home Championship , took place in 1884 and included games between England, Scotland, Wales , and Ireland . As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the start of the 20th century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics ; however, the International Olympic Committee has retroactively upgraded their status to official events, as well as

4050-577: The majority of the berths at the World Cup." Those two remarks suggested to commentators that Blatter could be putting himself forward for re-election to the FIFA Presidency. Following the magazine's publication, Blatter's would-be opponent for the FIFA Presidency, UEFA President Michel Platini , responded that he intended to extend the World Cup to 40 national associations, increasing the number of participants by eight. Platini said that he would allocate an additional berth to UEFA , two each to

4131-456: The men's football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players. Women's football made its Olympic debut in 1996 . The FIFA Confederations Cup was a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by

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4212-399: The next round; or some method of ranking the four quarterfinal losers might be employed, in which case only one round of additional matches would be held among them, the two highest-ranked therein then playing for fifth and sixth places and the two lowest for seventh and eighth. The number of distinct ways of arranging a single-elimination tournament (as an abstract structure, prior to seeding

4293-446: The number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations' teams. The qualification process can start as early as almost three years before the final tournament and last over a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments differ between confederations. Usually, one or two places are awarded to winners of intercontinental play-offs . For example,

4374-414: The opportunity to face every other player/team. Also, if the competitors' performance is variable, that is, it depends on a small, varying factor in addition to the actual strength of the competitors, then not only will it become less likely that the strongest competitor actually wins the tournament, in addition the seeding done by the tournament organizers will play a major part in deciding the winner. As

4455-604: The other. If a small number of teams play in a single elimination tournament, sometimes a consolation bracket is included to allow the eliminated teams to play more than once. This was the format of the Little League World Series until 1992. The format is less suited to games where draws are frequent. In chess , each fixture in a single-elimination tournament must be played over multiple matches, because draws are common , and because white has an advantage over black. In association football , games ending in

4536-613: The plan but, in total, the idea is supported by 166 of the 210 member associations of FIFA. An equivalent tournament for women's football , the FIFA Women's World Cup , was first held in 1991 in 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. Men's football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports,

4617-587: The players into the tournament) is given by the Wedderburn–Etherington numbers . Thus, for instance, there are three different arrangements for five players: However, the number of arrangements grows quickly for larger numbers of players and not all of them are commonly used. Opponents may be allocated randomly (such as in the FA Cup); however, since the "luck of the draw" may result in the highest-rated competitors being scheduled to face each other early in

4698-454: The preceding three years to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase. In the tournament phase, 32 teams compete for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over the course of about a month. The host nation(s) automatically qualify for the group stage of the tournament. The competition is scheduled to expand to 48 teams, starting with the 2026 tournament . As of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, 22 final tournaments have been held since

4779-436: The previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil, in the match called " Maracanazo " (Portuguese: Maracanaço ). In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978 , 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when Austria was absorbed into Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India , Scotland , and Turkey withdrew, leaving

4860-412: The quarter-finalists in 1994, 1998, 2006 and 2018 were all from Europe or South America and so were the finalists of all tournaments so far. Two hundred teams entered the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds. 198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup . A record 204 countries entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup . In October 2013, Sepp Blatter spoke of guaranteeing

4941-571: The regular season (or did not take place, in some cases). In international fencing competitions, it is common to have a group stage . Participants are divided in groups of 6–7 fencers who play a round-robin tournament, and a ranking is calculated from the consolidated group results. Single elimination is seeded from this ranking. The single-elimination format enables a relatively large number of competitors to participate. There are no "dead" matches (perhaps excluding "classification" matches), and no matches where one competitor has more to play for than

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5022-550: The right to wear the FIFA Champions Badge , up until the time at which the winner of the next competition is decided. 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 ( Africa , Asia , North and Central America and Caribbean , South America , Oceania , and Europe ), overseen by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides

5103-446: The round at which they enter may be named the first round , with the earlier matches called a preliminary round , qualifying round , opening round , or the play-in games . Examples of the diverse names given to concurrent rounds in various select disciplines: Notes: The knockout round of the 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament: Without any additional matches, the only position a single-elimination tournament can reliably determine

5184-741: The same Zurich hotel where seven FIFA officials had been arrested in May. An additional 16 indictments by the US Department of Justice were announced on the same day. A biennial World Cup plan was first proposed by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation at the 71st FIFA Congress on 21 May 2021 and prominently backed by former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger and national federations in Africa and Asia. Continental confederations such as UEFA and CONMEBOL are not on board with

5265-399: The same division, they cannot play each other; in that case, the top seed plays the worst division champion; the second-best division champion plays the wild card team. This is due to the scheduling employed for the regular season, in which a team faces any given divisional opponent more often than any given non-divisional opponent – the tournament favors match-ups that took place fewer times in

5346-420: The second and third places. In such case, the ranking among these teams is determined by: 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

5427-571: The thieves. After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy , was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga . The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb). The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while

5508-476: The top 32 players of 128 are seeded in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, it can happen that the 33rd-best player in a 128-player field could end up playing the top seed in the first round. An example of this occurring was when World No. 33 Florian Mayer was drawn against, and defeated by, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the first round of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships , in what was also a rematch of

5589-584: The tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. Prior to the Lipton competition, from 1876 to 1904, games that were considered to be the " football world championship " were meetings between leading English and Scottish clubs, such as the 1895 game between Sunderland A.F.C. and the Heart of Midlothian F.C. , which Sunderland won. In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as

5670-537: The tournament with 13 teams. Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: United States , semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba , quarter-finalists in 1938; North Korea , quarter-finalists in 1966 ; and Mexico , quarter-finalists in 1970 . The tournament

5751-470: The tournament. In a single-elimination tournament without any seeding, awarding the second place to the loser of the final is unjustified: any of the competitors knocked out before getting to play the losing finalist might have been stronger than the actual losing finalist. In general, it is only fair to use a single-elimination tournament to determine first place. To fairly determine lower places requires some form of round-robin in which each player/team gets

5832-401: The tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany's victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament . However, the policy of continental rotation did not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018 . This

5913-438: The two conferences the league has) to face the winner of the first-round series between the fourth and fifth seeds in the next round, even if one or more of the top three seeds had been upset in their first-round series; critics have claimed that this gives a team fighting for the fifth and sixth seeding positions near the end of the regular season an incentive to tank (deliberately lose) games, so as to finish sixth and thus avoid

5994-551: The winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the Asian zone entered a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup . From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations receive automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil , winners in 2002 , were

6075-777: The winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country. The first edition took place in 1992 and the last edition was played in 2017 . In March 2019, FIFA confirmed that the tournament would no longer be active owing to an expansion of the FIFA Club World Cup in 2021. FIFA also organises international tournaments for youth football ( FIFA U-20 World Cup , FIFA U-17 World Cup , FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup , FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup ), club football ( FIFA Club World Cup ), and football variants such as futsal ( FIFA Futsal World Cup ) and beach soccer ( FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup ). The latter three do not have

6156-579: Was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each 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

6237-627: Was expanded to 24 teams in 1982 , and then to 32 in 1998 , allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. Since then, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, with several having reached the quarter-finals: Mexico , quarter-finalists in 1986 ; Cameroon , quarter-finalists in 1990 ; South Korea , finishing in fourth place in 2002 ; Senegal , along with USA , both quarter-finalists in 2002; Ghana , quarter-finalists in 2010; Costa Rica , quarter-finalists in 2014; and Morocco , finishing in fourth place in 2022. European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g.,

6318-586: Was scored by Lucien Laurent of France. In the final , Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of 93,000 spectators in Montevideo , and became the first nation to win the World Cup. After the creation of the World Cup, FIFA and the IOC disagreed over the status of amateur players; football was dropped from the 1932 Summer Olympics . After the IOC and FIFA worked out their differences, Olympic football returned at

6399-423: Was the first occasion where consecutive World Cups were held outside Europe. The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA's Council. This is done under an exhaustive ballot 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

6480-431: Was the first to include British football associations. Scotland , England , Wales , and Northern Ireland had withdrawn from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football. The teams rejoined in 1946 following FIFA's invitation. The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay , who had boycotted

6561-665: Was the start of FIFA's professional era, and is the reason why Uruguay is allowed to wear 4 stars . Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet as 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. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as

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