FIFA World Cup Winners

Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), football’s global governing body founded the FIFA World Cup in 1930. It is an international association football competition that is held every four years. It was not held in 1942 and 1946, because of World War II. The current tournament involves 32 teams at various venues in a host nation decided by FIFA. During the preceding three years FIFA holds a qualification phase to determine which teams qualify for the World Cup Finals.

The FIFA World Cup has been held 18 times and only 7 nations have won this prestigious tournament. Brazil is the only country to have played in all the tournaments to date and to have won a total of five FIFA World Cups. Current title holders Italy are close behind with four titles, Germany with three, Argentina and Uruguay with two each and England and France with one title each. The tournament did not always feature 32 teams in the run for the trophy. It was first expanded to 24 teams in 1982 and later to 32 in 1998 to enable more teams from Africa, Asia, and North America to participate. Nevertheless the tournament has always been dominated by the South American and European countries that have been playing in the World Cup since 1930.

The FIFA World Cup is the most widely-viewed single sport event in the world with the final match of the 2006 World Cup being viewed by over 715 million people all over the world.

The trophy awarded from 1930 to 1946 was originally called the World Cup or Coup du Monde, it was renamed the Jules Rimet trophy in 1946. In 1970 Brazil was allowed to keep the trophy permanently after winning the World Cup thrice. The currently used trophy, the FIFA World Cup was designed by Italian designer Silvio Gazzinga and is made of solid gold and the base made of semi-precious malachite and the trophy bears the engraved year and name of every World Cup winner since 1974. A comprehensive list of winners of the FIFA World Cup since its introduction in 1930 is given below.