THE HISTORY OF WORLD CUP

Thousands of people supporting their respective teams, flags all around, cheers and loud music being played is a mark of the beginning of the profligate tournament called the FIFA World Cup or simply the World Cup. This all started in the year 1930 when the inaugural world cup was played in Uruguay. The championship was played every four years ever since except for 1942 and 1946 due to World War II. The inaugural world cup was won by the host nation Uruguay, who have won this trophy two times.

The South American nations have been dominating the world of soccer, Brazil have won the title a record five times, Uruguay and Argentina have won it two times each. Overall in 18 world cup tournaments played, South American countries have won it 9 times. The trophy itself has a wonderful history. From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was named after the then president Jules Rimet. In 1970, Brazil who won the title for the third time became the owner of the trophy permanently according to the rules of FIFA. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983 and has not been recovered till date, apparently melted by the thieves. After 1970 a new trophy was designed by Silvio Gazzaniga. Gazzaniga described it as "The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory." This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the next tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original.

Earlier according to the rules, the host nations and the defending champions used to automatically qualify for the tournament, but now-a-days only the host team auto qualify. Brazil is the only nation to have qualified for all the world cup tournaments. The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers. The last world cup was played in 2006 and was won by Italy. The next world cup is to be played form 11^th June to 11^th July of this year in South Africa.