Previous international competitions The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in
Glasgow in 1872 between
Scotland and
England. The first international tournament for nations, the inaugural
British Home Championship, took place in 1884 and included games between England, Scotland,
Wales, and
Ireland. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the start of the 20th century, it was held as a
demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the
1900 and
1904 Summer Olympics; however, the
International Olympic Committee has retroactively upgraded their status to official events, as well as the
1906 Intercalated Games. After
FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been unsuccessful. At the
1908 Summer Olympics in
London, football became an official Olympic sport. Planned by
the Football Association (the FA), England's football governing body, the event was for
amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the
England national amateur football team) won the
gold medals. They repeated the feat at the
1912 Summer Olympics in
Stockholm. With the Olympic event continuing to be a contest between amateur teams only,
Sir Thomas Lipton organised the
Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in
Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as
The First World Cup, and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited
West Auckland, an amateur side from
County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. Prior to the Lipton competition, from 1876 to 1904, games that were considered to be the "
football world championship" were meetings between leading English and Scottish clubs, such as the
1895 game between
Sunderland A.F.C. and the
Heart of Midlothian F.C., which Sunderland won. In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the
Olympic tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs", and took responsibility for managing the event. This paved the way for the world's first intercontinental football competition for nations, at the
1920 Summer Olympics, contested by
Egypt and 13 European teams, and won by
Belgium.
Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in
1924 and
1928. Those were also the first two
open world championships, as 1924 was the start of FIFA's professional era, and is the reason why
Uruguay is allowed to wear 4 stars.
World Cups before World War II convinced the
confederations to promote an international football tournament Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with
President Jules Rimet as the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in
Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions and to celebrate their
centenary of
independence in 1930, FIFA named
Uruguay as the host country of the
inaugural World Cup tournament. The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides, especially in the midst of the
Great Depression. As such, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from
Belgium,
France,
Romania, and
Yugoslavia to make the trip. , the location of the first World Cup final in 1930 in
Montevideo, Uruguay The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and the
United States, who defeated
Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by
Lucien Laurent of France. In the
final,
Uruguay defeated
Argentina 4–2 in front of 93,000 spectators in
Montevideo, and became the first nation to win the World Cup. After the creation of the World Cup, FIFA and the
IOC disagreed over the status of amateur players; football was dropped from the
1932 Summer Olympics. After the IOC and FIFA worked out their differences, Olympic football returned at the
1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup. were cancelled due to
World War II.
World Cups after World War II in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, shortly before the
1950 FIFA World Cup The
1950 World Cup, held in
Brazil, was the first to include British football associations.
Scotland,
England,
Wales, and
Northern Ireland had withdrawn from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football. The teams rejoined in 1946 following FIFA's invitation. The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions
Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil, in the match called "
Maracanazo" (Portuguese:
Maracanaço). In the tournaments between 1934 and
1978, 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when
Austria was
absorbed into
Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when
India, Scotland, and
Turkey withdrew, leaving the tournament with 13 teams. Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were:
United States, semi-finalists in 1930;
Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938;
North Korea, quarter-finalists in
1966; and
Mexico, quarter-finalists in
1970.
Expansion to 24 and 32 teams in
Johannesburg, South Africa, during a match at the
2010 FIFA World Cup The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in
1982, and then to 32 in
1998, allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. Since then, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, with several having reached the quarter-finals:
Mexico, quarter-finalists in
1986;
Cameroon, quarter-finalists in
1990;
South Korea, finishing in fourth place in
2002;
Senegal, along with
USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002;
Ghana, quarter-finalists in 2010;
Costa Rica, quarter-finalists in 2014; and
Morocco, finishing in fourth place in 2022. European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1994, 1998, 2006 and 2018 were all from Europe or South America and so were the finalists of all tournaments so far. Two hundred teams entered the
2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds. 198 nations attempted to qualify for the
2006 FIFA World Cup. A record 204 countries entered qualification for the
2010 FIFA World Cup.
Expansion to 48 teams In October 2013, Sepp Blatter spoke of guaranteeing the
Caribbean Football Union's region a position in the World Cup. In the edition of 25 October 2013 of the
FIFA Weekly Blatter wrote that: "From a purely sporting perspective, I would like to see globalisation finally taken seriously, and the African and Asian national associations accorded the status they deserve at the FIFA World Cup. It cannot be that the European and South American confederations lay claim to the majority of the berths at the World Cup." Those two remarks suggested to commentators that Blatter could be putting himself forward for re-election to the FIFA Presidency. Following the magazine's publication, Blatter's would-be opponent for the FIFA Presidency,
UEFA President
Michel Platini, responded that he intended to extend the World Cup to 40 national associations, increasing the number of participants by eight. Platini said that he would allocate an additional berth to UEFA, two each to the
Asian Football Confederation and the
Confederation of African Football, two shared between
CONCACAF and
CONMEBOL, and a guaranteed place for the
Oceania Football Confederation. Platini was clear about why he wanted to expand the World Cup. He said: "[The World Cup is] not based on the quality of the teams because you don't have the best 32 at the World Cup ... but it's a good compromise. ... It's a political matter so why not have more Africans? The competition is to bring all the people of all the world. If you don't give the possibility to participate, they don't improve." On 10 January 2017, FIFA confirmed the 2026 World Cup will have 48 finalist teams.
2015 FIFA corruption case By May 2015, the games were under a particularly dark cloud because of the 2015 FIFA corruption case, allegations and criminal charges of bribery, fraud and money laundering to corrupt the issuing of media and marketing rights (rigged bids) for FIFA games, with FIFA officials accused of taking bribes totaling more than $150 million over 24 years. In late May, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a 47-count indictment with charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy against 14 people. Arrests of over a dozen FIFA officials were made since that time, particularly on 29 May and 3 December. By the end of May 2015, a total of nine FIFA officials and five executives of sports and broadcasting markets had already been charged on corruption. At the time, FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced he would relinquish his position in February 2016. On 4 June 2015,
Chuck Blazer while co-operating with the
FBI and the Swiss authorities admitted that he and the other members of FIFA's then-executive committee were bribed in order to promote the 1998 and 2010 World Cups. On 10 June 2015, Swiss authorities seized computer data from the offices of
Sepp Blatter. The same day, FIFA postponed the bidding process for the
2026 FIFA World Cup in light of the
allegations surrounding bribery in the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. Then-secretary general
Jérôme Valcke stated, "Due to the situation, I think it's nonsense to start any bidding process for the time being." On 28 October 2015, Blatter and FIFA VP Michel Platini, a potential candidate for presidency, were suspended for 90 days; both maintained their innocence in statements made to the news media. On 3 December 2015 two FIFA vice-presidents were arrested on suspicion of bribery in the same Zurich hotel where seven FIFA officials had been arrested in May. An additional 16 indictments by the US Department of Justice were announced on the same day.
Biennial World Cup proposition A biennial World Cup plan was first proposed by the
Saudi Arabian Football Federation at the 71st
FIFA Congress on 21 May 2021 and prominently backed by former Arsenal manager
Arsène Wenger and national federations in Africa and Asia. Continental confederations such as UEFA and CONMEBOL are not on board with the plan but, in total, the idea is supported by 166 of the 210 member associations of FIFA.
Other FIFA tournaments in
Vancouver hosting a
2015 Women's World Cup match An equivalent tournament for
women's football, the
FIFA Women's World Cup, was first held in
1991 in
China. The women's tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men's, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991. Men's football has been included in every
Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports, the men's
football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players. Women's football made its
Olympic debut in 1996. The
FIFA Confederations Cup was a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country. The first edition took place in
1992 and the last edition was played in
2017. In March 2019, FIFA confirmed that the tournament would no longer be active owing to an expansion of the
FIFA Club World Cup in 2021. FIFA also organises international tournaments for youth football (
FIFA U-20 World Cup,
FIFA U-17 World Cup,
FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup,
FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup), club football (
FIFA Club World Cup,
FIFA Women's Club World Cup (starting in
2028),
FIFA Intercontinental Cup,
FIFA Women's Champions Cup), and football variants such as
futsal (
FIFA Futsal World Cup,
FIFA Futsal Women's World Cup) and
beach soccer (
FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup), the latter not having a women's version. The FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup is held biannually, including the year before each Women's World Cup. Both tournaments were awarded in a single bidding process on three occasions, with the U-20 tournament serving as a dress rehearsal for the larger competition each time (
2010,
2014 and
2018). == Trophy ==