Before the World cup was launched, the football events arranged as a part of the Olympics in Summer were offered the most prestige. The game was facing an evolution to professionalism in the 1920s that was not at all constant with the Olympic spirit. Also, the government body, FIFA, made plans to organize a FIFA world cup. The decision to plan the FIFA world cup was declared in 1928 on May 26.
All World Cup tournaments
The official first FIFA world cup was played in 1930 in Uruguay, and from then, the FIFA event has been held every four years with exceptions for interruption because of the second world war. Also, there was an unofficial pre-FIFA world cup that already took place in the late 1800s and when only some of the national teams came into existence. Another unofficial world cup was planned before 1930, named Sir Thomas Lipton trophy in 1909 and 1911. The Summer Olympics football competitions might be a remark of which the best national teams were before the year 1930. The Olympic events consisted, also only of amateur teams, with the World cup becoming the real deal.
FIFA World Cup and Brazil
Brazil has won the maximum number, such as five times. Also, they are the only ones to have never won it when they hosted the event. Brazil was the only country to have appeared in each FIFA edition from 1930 to 2014.
In 2014, the first goal-line technology came into existence. The Fuelco Mascot was an endangered Brazilian armadillo that was three-banded. The official ball of Brazuca is the Brazillian pride in the way of life. They ensure to stop working when the team is playing a match. Also, the bank is shut down for three hours before the game.
FIFA World Cup Qualification – How It Works
There are thirty-two teams that take part in the World Cup. The host gets an entry to the FIFA world cup automatically. There are eight groups in the FIFA world cup of four teams each. Thirty-one other teams have to battle it out to qualify for the rounds three years before the tournament.
Every group has two teams that go through the second match. Teams decrease in this order in successive rounds until the final match. The Golden Ball is rewarded to the valuable player in the last match. The top scorer also gets the Golden Boot. The previous world cup took place in Russia in 2018 and after that in Qatar.
World Cups before World War II
Because of the success of Olympic football events, FIFA, with Jules Rimet, who was the president as the driving force, started searching for staging its own international event outside the Olympics. On 1928, 28th May, the FIFA congress in Amsterdam planned to stage the world championship. The national associations of preferred countries were invited to send a team, but Uruguay’s choice as a venue for the competition meant an expensive and long holiday across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides.
With Uruguay being two-time official football champions and to celebrate their independence in 1930, Uruguay was named as the host country at the launching of the World Cup event. Rimet persuaded teams from France, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Belgium to make the holiday. No European nation pledged to send a team until two months before the competition. 13 countries took part in total, four from Europe, Seven from South America, and two from North America.
The first two world cup rounds took place on 13 July 1930 and were won by the US and France, who defeated Belgium 3-0 and Mexico 4-1. The first goal was scored in the FIFA world cup history by France and a player named Lucien Laurent. In the last round, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 in front of more than 93000 individuals and became the first one to win the FIFA world cup in Montevideo. FIFA and IOC, after the creation of the World cup, disagreed with the status of amateur players and so the Summer Olympics was dropped in 1932. When they worked out the differences between FIFA and IOC, Olympic football returned at the Summer Olympics in 1936 but was overshadowed by the prestigious World Cup.
The problems related to the World Cup events were the difficulties of intercontinental war and travel. Some of the South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the FIFA world cup of 1934 and all south and north.
Expansion to 48 teams
In October 2013, Sepp Blatter talked about the Caribbean Football union region in the World cup. In this edition of 2013, 25th October of the FIFA weekly, Sepp Blatter wrote that: From a purely sporting point of view, he may wish to see globalization taken seriously, and Asian and African national associations accorded the status that they deserve at the FIFA world cup.
There is no possibility that South American and European confederations lay claim to the huge berths at the World Cup. Those two marks advised commentators that Blatter might be putting himself for re-election to the presidency of FIFA.
Blatter might be an opponent for the Presidency of FIFA following the publication of the Magazine. President Michel Platini of UEFA said that he wanted to extend the World cup of FIFA to 40 national associations, which led to an increase in the number of participants across the globe by eight. Platini also stated that he might allocate an extra berth to UEFA, two each of the Confederation of African football and Asian Football confederation, two shared between CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, and a guaranteed place for the OFC or
Oceania Football Confederation.
Platini wanted to expand the World cup. He said that it does not depend on the quality of teams, as you don’t have the best 32 at the FIFA world cup but a compromise. He believed in competition to bring all the individuals across the globe. If you don’t give them a chance to participate, then they will never improve, as per Platini.
2016 in October, Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, said that his support will be there for 48 team FIFA world cup in 2026. FIFA approved the World cup 2026 48 final team list on 10th January 2017.
Interesting Facts about FIFA World Cup
- India became eligible for the world cup in 1950 but withdrew when they thought that playing barefoot was against the guidelines.
- FIFA did not allow shirt swapping in 1986 as they did not want players being barechested on the ground.
