2010 FIFA World Cup

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th FIFA World Cup, the premier international football tournament. 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.

Host selection

Fans celebrating the forthcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa (Camps Bay, Cape Town)Main article: FIFA World Cup hosts

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 World Cup:

Egypt

Libya /  Tunisia (co-hosting)

Morocco

South Africa

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 on 15 May 2004 in Zürich. South Africa was awarded the rights to host the tournament, defeating Morocco and Egypt.

 South Africa 14

 Morocco 10

 Egypt 0

 Tunisia withdrew on 8 May 2004 after joint bidding was not allowed

 Libya bid was rejected: bid did not meet the list of requirements and joint bidding was not allowed

During 2006 and 2007, rumours circulated in various news sources that the 2010 World Cup could be moved to another country. 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. 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.

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 1934 to 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.