FIFA World Cup

The FIFA World Cup or the Football World Cup or simply the World Cup is an international football competition that’s structured and conducted by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association or FIFA. The Football World Cup tournament sees men’s national teams belonging to the member countries of FIFA face-off against each other for a shot at the coveted Cup. The participating teams, in order to make it to the World Cup final will have to first get past challenging stages that involve myriad qualifying matches. 

The idea of hosting a Football Word Cup tournament was first in itiated by Jules Rimet in 1928. Jules Rimet, back then, was the President of FIFA, he served as the same for a period of over thirty years. The whole idea began with football being a part of the Olympics and due to the popularity of the sport, a need for a tournament of its own was noticed. Jules Rimet, assisted by the Secretary of the French Football Federation, piloted the task of making the dream of a Football World Cup tournament a reality. The first FIFA World Cup tournament was held in 1930 at Uruguay. Only 13 teams participated in the tournament back then. The host country Uruguay successfully defeated Argentina in a scintillating final and thus became the first country to lay claim to the title of ‘World Football Champions’. The FIFA World Cup tournament is held once every four years and was temporarily suspended in 1942 and 1946 due to World War II.

The FIFA World Cup tournament from the years of its inception has evolved into a well organized and hugely popular tournament. The current format of the contest sees 32 teams vie against each other to progress to the later stages of the tournament and gain a shot at winning the Cup. The teams, to get to the World Cup Finals will have to first fight their way through qualifying matches that are held for a period of almost two years. The matches are held at least three years prior to a particular World Cup final. By default, the country that hosts the World Cup tournament will automatically qualify to the same. However, since the 2006 tournament, defending champions, according to changes made in FIFA guidelines, have been made to participate in the qualifying matches.

The 2010 World Cup event is hosted by South Africa and the 2014 tournament will be hosted by ‘football-country’ Brazil. The FIFA World Cup tournament, to this very day remains to be the biggest and most looked forward to sporting event in the world.