FIFA World Cup Hosts
The organization of early FIFA World Cups was awarded to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The choice of location was highly controversial, given the three week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football at the time. The decision to hold the first cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing. The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.
After World War II, to avoid any future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternation between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The system evolved so that the host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA's Executive Committee. This is done under an exhaustive ballot system. The decision is currently made roughly seven years in advance of the tournament, though the hosts for the 2022 edition were chosen at the same time as those for the 2018 tournament.
Only Mexico, Italy, France and Germany have hosted the event on two occasions. Brazil will be the host for the second time in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Mexico City's Estadio Azteca is the only venue ever to have hosted two FIFA World Cup finals. Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã will be the second venue to achieve this feat after the 2014 World Cup, having already hosted the final match of the 1950 FIFA World Cup (although the 1950 World Cup did not have an actual final owing to a different format used).
Read more about FIFA World Cup Hosts: List of Hosts
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or cup:
“We Americans have the chance to become someday a nation in which all radical stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically. We can become a dynamic equilibrium, a harmony of many different elements, in which the whole will be greater than all its parts and greater than any society the world has seen before. It can still happen.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“There is not enough exercise in this way of life. I try to make up by active gymnastics before I dress when I get up, by walking rapidly in the lower hall and the greenhouse after each meal for perhaps five to ten minutes, and a good hand rubbing before going to bed. I eat moderately; drink one cup of coffee at breakfast and one cup of tea at lunch and no other stimulant. My health is now, and usually, excellent.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)