Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The locations were controversial because South America and Europe were by far the two centres of strength in football and travel between them required three weeks by boat. The decision to hold thefirst World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing.[44] The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these in France was disputed, as the South American countries understood that the location would alternate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the 1938 FIFA World Cup.[45]
Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the only tournament with multiple hosts.[46]South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup is hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since Argentina 1978,[47]and is the first occasion where consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |