Interesting Facts About FIFA World Cup :: FIFA 2010 World Cup

• FIFA World Cup started in 1930 under the stewardship of International Federation of Association Football also called "Fédération Internationale de Football Association" which is the governing body. The headquarter is in Zurich, Switzerland.
• All in all, FIFA acknowledges 208 national associations (plus their associated men's national teams) and 129 women's national teams and yes women have their own tournament as well.
• The first international football game or match was between Scotland and England,
• The game football was played mostly in England before it became officially played

The most awaited FIFA 2010 World Cup will commence on June 11, 2010 and will end after one month - July the 11th. The most awaited culmination of the activity is of course the announcement of the winner in which the defending champion is Italy. Everybody is awaiting the start of the game which is a big event of course in almost three fourths of the worlds population. in this hub, I gathered some interesting facts about FIFA in general and the World Cup FIFA 2010.

South Africa is the official host of FIFA World Cup 2010.

• The defending champion is Italy (2006 World Cup Champion)
• The first FIFA World Cup was hosted by Uruguay in 1930.
• There is what we call The Rankings in FIFA -- World Rankings in which the top three are Brazil ,Spain and Portugal in that order, as of May 2010. This is updated monthly and rank each team based on their performance in terms of international competitions, qualifiers, and friendly matches. In women's football there is also world rankings which is said to be " updated four times a year".
• These are the sponsors of FIFA: Coca Cola, Emirates, Hyundai - Kia Motors, Sony, Visa and Adidas
• Like any other sports or competition there are controversies like financial irregularities. Some controversies are allegations of financial irregularities,-- "international cash-for-contracts scandal following the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner ISL, and revealed how some football officials have been urged to secretly repay the sweeteners amd vote rigging for the retention of Sepp Blatter's as the head of the organization.
• There is also rigid discipline of national associations, and they are well implemented. FIFA is very active in the overall implementation of the sports competition around the world. One of the rule related to discipline is to "suspend teams and associated members from international competition when a government interferes in the running of FIFA's associate member organisations or if the associate is not functioning properly". A case in point is the "Iraq national team was suspended in May 2008, due to government interference with independent national sports authorities but later on they were reinstated". There is another ruling that states that a "a player can be registered with a maximum of three clubs, and appear in official matches for a maximum of two, in a year measured from July 1 to June 30 has led to controversy,"

• There are eight structured tournaments under Men's Tournaments and for women there are four.