The Cricket World Cup is the international championship of One Day International (ODI) cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), every four years, with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament. The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and is considered the "flagship event of the international cricket calendar" by the ICC.
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War. The current champion is France, which won its second title at the 2018 tournament in Russia.
Rugby union, widely known simply as rugby, is a full-contact team sport that originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.
The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament was first held in 1987, when the tournament was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia.
Test cricket is the form of the sport of cricket with the longest match duration, and is considered the game's highest standard. Test matches are played between national representative teams that have been granted Test status, as determined and conferred by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The term Test stems from the fact that the long, gruelling matches are mentally and physically testing. Two teams of 11 players each play a four-innings match, which may last up to five days. It is generally considered the most complete examination of a team's endurance and ability.
African music is a tradition mainly played at gatherings at special occasions. The traditional music of Africa, given the vastness of the continent, is historically ancient, rich and diverse, with different regions and nations of Africa having many distinct musical traditions. Music in Africa is very important when it comes to religion. Songs and music are used in rituals and religious ceremonies, to pass down stories from generation to generation, as well as to sing and dance to.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. The bidding process for hosting the tournament finals was open only to African nations. In 2004, the international football federation, FIFA, selected South Africa over Egypt and Morocco to become the first African nation to host the finals.
The Rugby Championship is an international rugby union competition contested annually by Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Prior to the 2012 tournament, when Argentina joined, it was known as the Tri Nations. These are the four highest ranked national teams in the Southern Hemisphere, the Six Nations is a similar tournament in the Northern Hemisphere. The competition is administered by SANZAAR, a consortium consisting of four national governing bodies: the South African Rugby Union, New Zealand Rugby Union, Rugby Australia and the Argentine Rugby Union The inaugural Tri Nations tournament was in 1996, and was won by New Zealand – known as the All Blacks. South Africa won their first title in 1998, and Australia their first in 2000. Following the last Tri Nations tournament in 2011, New Zealand had won ten championships, with South Africa and Australia on three titles each. The first Rugby Championship was won by New Zealand, who won all six of their matches.
Super Rugby is a professional men's rugby union international club competition involving teams from Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Japan. Building on various Southern Hemisphere competitions dating back to the South Pacific Championship in 1986, with teams from a number of southern nations, the Super Rugby started as the Super 12 in the 1996 season with 12 teams from 3 nations: Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. The Super 12 was established by SANZAAR after the sport became professional in 1995. With the top players from nations that represent 16 of the 24 top-three finishes in the history of the Rugby World Cup, the competition is widely regarded as rugby union's toughest provincial competition.
The ICC Champions Trophy was a One-Day International (ODI) cricket tournament organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC), third in importance only to the 50-over and 20-over World Cup.
The Nigeria national football team represents Nigeria in men's international football. Nicknamed as the Super Eagles it is governed by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). They are three-time Africa Cup of Nations winners, with their most recent title in 2013, after defeating Burkina Faso in the final. In April 1994, the Super Eagles were ranked 5th in the FIFA rankings, the highest FIFA ranking position ever achieved by an African football team. Throughout history, the team has qualified for six of the last seven FIFA World Cups, missing only the 2006 edition and have reached the round of 16 three times. Their first World Cup appearance was the 1994 edition. The team represents FIFA and Confederation of African Football (CAF).
The 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification competition was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation — the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC (Oceania), and UEFA (Europe) — was allocated a certain number of the 32 places at the tournament. A total of 197 teams entered the qualification process for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. In 2001 FIFA ended automatic qualification of the reigning champion, so that 2002 champions Brazil became first to participate in the qualifying tournament. The hosts (Germany) retained their automatic spot.
An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the professional, collegiate, or high school level. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conferences often, but not always, include teams from a common geographic region.
The FIFA World Cup qualification is the process that a national association football team goes through to qualify for the FIFA World Cup finals. The FIFA World Cup is the largest international team sport competition in the world with a qualification process required to reduce the large field of countries from 211 to just 32 for the World Cup finals.
In rugby union, a Grand Slam occurs when one team in the Six Nations Championship beats all the others during one year's competition. This has been achieved 40 times in total, for the first time by Wales in 1908, and most recently by Wales in 2019. The team to have won the most Grand Slams is England with 13.
The World Rugby Rankings is a ranking system for men's national teams in rugby union, managed by World Rugby, the sport's governing body. The teams of World Rugby's member nations are ranked based on their game results, with the most successful teams being ranked highest. A point system is used, with points being awarded on the basis of the results of World Rugby-recognized international matches. Rankings are based on the team's performance, with more recent results and more significant matches being more heavily weighted to help reflect the current competitive state of a team. The ranking system was introduced the month before the 2003 Rugby World Cup, with the first new rankings issued on 8 September 2003. World Rugby now also publishes rankings for women's teams.
The national rugby union teams of Scotland and South Africa have been playing each other in Test rugby since 1906, and as of October 2015, they have met in 27 Test matches. Their first meeting was on 17 November 1906, and was won 6-0 by Scotland and their most recent match was on 17 November 2018, and was won 26-20 by South Africa.
The 2012 Varsity Cup was contested from 6 February to 9 April 2012. The tournament was the fifth season of the Varsity Cup, an annual inter-university rugby union competition featuring eight South African universities.
The 2019–21 ICC World Test Championship is the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship of Test cricket. It started from 1 August 2019 with the first Test of the 2019 Ashes series, and will finish with a final at Lord's in England in June 2021.
The Basketball Africa League (BAL) is Africa's premier men's basketball league scheduled to begin play in March, 2020. The league consists of twelve teams, each qualified through their domestic competition, to similar to the formats of the UEFA Champions League and Africa Basketball League. The league is a joint effort between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and FIBA with sponsorship from Nike, Jordan Brand and Pepsi.
