Advertisement

Help
You are here: Rediff Home » India » Sports » Football » Reuters > Report
Search:  Rediff.com The Web
Advertisement
  Discuss this Article   |      Email this Article   |      Print this Article

204 teams enter for 2010 World Cup
Get Sports updates:What's this?
Advertisement
March 30, 2007 20:36 IST

A record 204 countries have entered the qualifying competition for the 2010 World Cup finals, FIFA said in a statement on Friday.

The number beats the previous record of 199 teams which entered for the 2002 World Cup finals and only Bhutan, Brunei, Laos and the Philippines have not registered to take part.

The number of entrants for 2010 includes host nation South Africa and Montenegro, which became the 53rd member of UEFA in January and is expected to be admitted as the 208th member of FIFA at the world governing body's Congress in Zurich in May.

The qualifying competition starts in August 2007 with the Oceania confederation using matches played in the South Pacific Games as a preliminary qualifying tournament for their region.

South Africa have automatically qualified as hosts for the finals which begin on June 11, 2010 with the final scheduled for July 11.

Of the 31 places available for the qualifiers, 13 will go to European teams and five will be taken by African qualifiers.

Playoffs will determine the exact number of qualifiers from the other confederations with Asia providing either four or five qualifiers, CONCACAF three or four, South America four or five and Oceania either none or one.

Asia and Oceania teams will meet in one playoff while South American and CONCACAF teams play in the other.



© Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
 Email this Article      Print this Article

© 2007 Rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer | Feedback