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The FIFA World Cup™ is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) the sport's global governing body. The first tournament took place in 1930 and it has occurred every four years since then, except for 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War. Iceland is the least populous nation to ever qualify for a World Cup, doing so in 2018.
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.
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played with a spherical ball between two teams of eleven players. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies, making it the world's most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field called a pitch with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by moving the ball beyond the goal line into the opposing goal.
A sports governing body is a sports organization that has a regulatory or sanctioning function. Sports governing bodies come in various forms, and have a variety of regulatory functions. Examples of this can include disciplinary action for rule infractions and deciding on rule changes ye in the sport that they govern. Governing bodies have different scopes. They may cover a range of sport at an International level, such as the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, or only a single sport at a national level, such as the Rugby Football League. National bodies may or may not be affiliated to international bodies for the same sport. The first international federations were formed at the end of the 19th century.
Contents
- By confederation
- AFC countries
- CAF countries
- CONCACAF countries
- CONMEBOL countries
- OFC countries
- UEFA countries
- Former countries
- Footnotes
- References
- See also
Every World Cup tournament other than the first has involved a qualification phase to determine which teams qualify for the tournament itself, often referred to as the World Cup finals (as distinct from the World Cup final, which refers to the final match of the tournament, played to determine the overall winners). 132 of the 211 current FIFA affiliates have not appeared in a World Cup finals tournament. In the tables below all qualification tournaments where the national team played at least one game are counted as attempts to qualify, even if the team subsequently withdrew or were disqualified. Withdrawals and disqualifications before the start of the qualification are excluded, as are occasions where teams withdrew or were disqualified during their campaign and had all their results from that campaign annulled.
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.
