World Cup 2010: 2010 FIFA World Cup

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th

FIFA World Cup, the premier international footballtournament. It is scheduled to take place between 11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the culmination of a qualification process that began in August 2007 and involved 204 of the 208 FIFA national teams. As such, it matches the 2008 Summer Olympics as the sports event with the most competing nations.

This will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by an African nation, after South Africa beat Morocco and Egypt in an all-African bidding process. This decision left the Oceania Football Confederation as the only confederation yet to host the FIFA World Cup. Italy are the defending champions. The draw for the finals took place on 4 December 2009 in Cape Town.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th FIFA World Cup, the premier international footballtournament. It is scheduled to take place between 11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the culmination of a qualification process that began in August 2007 and involved 204 of the 208 FIFA national teams. As such, it matches the 2008 Summer Olympics as the sports event with the most competing nations.

Africa was chosen as the host for the 2010 World Cup as part of a policy to rotate the event among football confederations (which was later abandoned in October 2007). Five African nations placed bids to host the 2010

Following the decision of the FIFA Executive Committee not to allow co-hosted tournaments, Tunisia withdrew from the bidding process. The committee also decided not to consider Libya's solo bid as it no longer met all the stipulations laid down in the official List of Requirements.

After one round of voting, the winning bid was announced by FIFA president Sepp Blatter at a media conference

During 2006 and 2007, rumours circulated in various news sources that the 2010 World Cup could be moved to another country.^[2]^[3] Some people, including Franz Beckenbauer, Horst R. Schmidt and, reportedly, some FIFA executives, expressed concern over the planning, organisation, and pace of South Africa's preparations.^[2]^[4] However, FIFA officials repeatedly expressed their confidence in South Africa as host, stating that a contingency plan existed only to cover natural catastrophes, as had been in place at previous FIFA World Cups. ^[5]

Qualification

Main article: 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification

As the host nation, South Africa qualified automatically for the tournament. Nonetheless South Africa participated in World Cup qualifiers because the CAF qualifiers also served as the qualifying tournament for the 2010 African Cup of Nations. They were the first host since 1934to participate in preliminary qualifying. As happened in the previous tournament, the defending champions were not given an automatic berth, and Italy had to participate in qualification.

The qualification draw for the 2010 World Cup was held in Durban, South Africa, on 25 November 2007.

List of qualified teams

The following 32 teams qualified for the final tournament.

AFC (4)

CAF (6)

CONCACAF (3)

CONMEBOL (5)

OFC (1)

New Zealand

UEFA (13)

Countries qualified for World Cup Country failed to qualify Countries which did not enter World Cup Country not a FIFA member

This is the first World Cup that does not include any teams that are qualifying for the first time, although two of the qualifiers (Slovakia andSerbia) have previously appeared only as parts of former competing nations. Slovakia was previously part of Czechoslovakia, and Serbia has competed as part of Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro. In both cases FIFA considers these teams to have retained the earlier nations' records.

Controversy surrounded final qualification matches played between France and the Republic of Ireland, Costa Rica and Uruguay and Egypt and Algeria in November 2009.

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In the second leg of the play-off between France and the Republic of Ireland, French captainThierry Henry, unseen by the referee, illegally handled the ball in the lead up to the winning goal, which saw France make the final 32 teams ahead of Ireland. The incident caused widespread debate on how matches should be refereed at the highest level. FIFA rejected a request from theFootball Association of Ireland to replay the match, ^[6] whilst a widely reported later request by Ireland to be included as an unprecedented 33rd World Cup entrant was later withdrawn.^[7]^[8]Costa Rica complained over Uruguay's winning goal in the CONMEBOL–CONCACAF playoff, ^[9]whilst Egypt and Algeria's final match was surrounded by reports of crowd trouble.

In response to the incidents during qualification, and to a match fixing controversy, on 2 December 2009 FIFA called for an extraordinary general meeting of their Executive Committee. After the meeting, FIFA announced that they would be setting up an inquiry into technology and extra officials in the game, but they did not announce the widely-expected move of fast-tracking the introduction of goal-line referee's assistants, already being trialled in the Europa League, and instead restated that the competition in South Africa would be officiated as before, with just one referee, two assistants, and a fourth official.^[10] On the subject of fair play, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said:

Preparations

The Lukasrand Tower in Pretoria sporting a football in anticipation of the world cup

Five new stadiums have been built for the tournament, and five of the existing venues are to be upgraded. Construction costs are expected to be R8.4bn.^[13]

In addition to the stadiums being built and upgraded, South Africa is also planning to improve its current public transport infrastructure within the various cities, with projects such as the Gautrainand the new Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) titled Rea Vaya.^[14] Danny Jordaan, the president of the 2010 World Cup organising committee, has said that he expects all stadiums for the tournament to be completed by October 2009.^[15]

The country is also going to implement special measures to ensure the safety and security of local and international tourists attending the matches in accordance with standard FIFA requirements,^[16] including a temporary restriction of flight operation in the airspace surrounding the stadiums.^[17]

The readiness of this African nation to host one of the biggest events in a sports that is worshiped by millions has received positive response from FIFA. FIFA has rated the readiness of South Africa at eight on a scale of 10 ^[18] with the hope that they would be completely ready before the matches actually start.

Construction strike

70,000 construction workers^[19] who were supposed to be working on the new stadiums walked off their jobs on 8 July 2009. The majority of the workers receive R2500 per month (about £192, €224 or $313), but the unions allege that some workers are grossly underpaid. A spokesperson for the National Union of Mineworkers said to the SABC that the "no work no pay" strike will go on until FIFA assesses penalties on the organisers. Other unions threatened to strike into 2011. The World Cup organising committee downplayed the strike and expressed confidence that the stadiums will be ready.^[20]^[21]^[22]

Transportation

Major road networks have been improved to cater for the expected influx of people coming to the country who will be traveling to and from the match stadiums. The Gautrain (underground rail network) will be complete in time for the opening game, but only limited lengths of the route.

Major metros have also updated their current public bus systems to cater for visitors. Websites such as Vaya Nathi have been created for host city visitors to view bus route information in host cities.

Final draw

See also: 2010 FIFA World Cup seeding

The FIFA Organising Committee approved the procedure for the Final Draw on 2 December 2009. The seeding was based on the October 2009 FIFA World Ranking and seven squads joined hosts South Africa as seeded teams for the Final Draw. The committee also approved the composition of the other pots as well as the procedure for the final draw. Pot 2 was composed of teams from Asia, Oceania, and North and Central America and the Caribbean. Pot 3 included teams from Africa and South America. Pot 4 had the remaining European teams.

Hosts South Africa were automatically positioned as A1; the other seeded teams were drawn into the other groups B–H, but were always in position 1 of their group. Groups were drawn from A to H and the positions in the group were drawn for Pots 2 to 4. Geographical criteria also were respected, meaning that no two teams from the same confederation were drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group); i.e., South Africa cannot play the African teams from Pot 3 and Argentina and Brazil cannot be drawn against the three remaining South American teams. The first two African teams drawn from Pot 3 are placed with Argentina and Brazil. Similarly, hosts South Africa may not be paired with any of the other African nations (also placed in Pot 3).^[23]

Pot 1 (Host & Top seven)	Pot 2 (Asia, North America & Oceania)	Pot 3 (Africa & South America)	Pot 4 (Europe)
South Africa Brazil Spain Netherlands Italy Germany Argentina England	Australia Japan Korea DPR Korea Republic Honduras Mexico United States New Zealand	Algeria Cameroon Côte d'Ivoire Ghana Nigeria Chile Paraguay Uruguay	Denmark France Greece Portugal Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Switzerland

The group draw was staged in Cape Town, South Africa, at 19:00 (UTC+2) on 4 December 2009 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.^[24] The ceremony was presented by South African actress Charlize Theron, assisted by FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke.^[25]The balls were drawn by English football star David Beckham and African sporting figures Haile Gebreselassie, John Smit, Makhaya Ntini,Matthew Booth and Simphiwe Dludlu.^[26]