2010 FIFA World Cup/import

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th FIFA World Cup, the premier international football tournament. It is scheduled to take place between 11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the culmination of a qualification process that began in August 2007 and involved 204 of the 208 FIFA national teams. As such, it matches the 2008 Summer Olympics as the sports event with the most competing nations.

This will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by an African nation, after South Africa beat Morocco and Egypt in an all-African bidding process. This decision left the Oceania Football Confederation as the only confederation yet to host the FIFA World Cup. Italy are the defending champions. The draw for the finals took place on 4 December 2009 in Cape Town.

Host selection
Africa was chosen as the host for the 2010 World Cup as part of a new policy to rotate the event among football confederations (which was later abandoned in October 2007). Five African nations placed bids to host the 2010 World Cup:
 * 🇱🇾 / 🇹🇳 (co-hosting)
 * 🇱🇾 / 🇹🇳 (co-hosting)

Following the decision of the FIFA Executive Committee not to allow co-hosted tournaments, Tunisia withdrew from the bidding process. The committee also decided not to consider Libya's solo bid as it no longer met all the stipulations laid down in the official List of Requirements.

After one round of voting, the winning bid was announced by FIFA president Sepp Blatter at a media conference on 15 May 2004 in Zürich. South Africa was awarded the rights to host the tournament, defeating Morocco and Egypt.


 * 🇹🇳 withdrew on 8 May 2004 after joint bidding was not allowed
 * 🇱🇾 bid was rejected: bid did not meet the list of requirements and joint bidding was not allowed

Qualification
As the host nation, South Africa qualifies automatically for the tournament. However, South Africa did participate in World Cup qualifiers because the CAF qualifiers also serve as the qualifying tournament for the 2010 African Cup of Nations. They were the first host since 1934 to participate in preliminary qualifying. As happened in the previous tournament, the defending champions were not given an automatic berth, and Italy had to participate in qualification.

The qualification draw for the 2010 World Cup was held in Durban, South Africa, on 25 November 2007.

List of qualified teams
The following 32 teams qualified for the final tournament.


 * AFC (4)
 * 🇦🇺 australia
 * 🇯🇵 japan
 * 🇰🇵 north korea
 * 🇰🇷 south korea
 * CAF (5+1)
 * 🇨🇲 cameroon
 * 🇨🇮 côte d'ivoire
 * 🇬🇭 ghana
 * 🇳🇬 nigeria
 * (hosts)
 * CONCACAF (3)
 * 🇲🇽 mexico
 * 🇺🇸 united states
 * CONMEBOL (5)
 * 🇦🇷 argentina
 * 🇧🇷 brazil
 * OFC (1)
 * 🇳🇿 new zealand
 * UEFA (13)
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 england
 * 🇫🇷 france
 * 🇩🇪 germany
 * 🇮🇹 italy
 * 🇷🇸 serbia
 * 🇸🇰 slovakia
 * 🇸🇮 slovenia
 * 🇪🇸 spain
 * 🇩🇪 germany
 * 🇮🇹 italy
 * 🇷🇸 serbia
 * 🇸🇰 slovakia
 * 🇸🇮 slovenia
 * 🇪🇸 spain
 * 🇸🇰 slovakia
 * 🇸🇮 slovenia
 * 🇪🇸 spain

Referees

 * AFC
 * Khalil Al Ghamdi
 * 🇺🇿 Ravshan Irmatov
 * Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh
 * 🇯🇵 Yuichi Nishimura


 * CAF
 * Mohamed Benouza
 * 🇲🇱 Koman Coulibaly
 * Jerome Damon
 * Eddy Maillet


 * CONCACAF
 * 🇸🇻 Joel Aguilar
 * 🇲🇽 Benito Archundia
 * Carlos Batres
 * 🇲🇽 Marco Antonio Rodríguez


 * CONMEBOL
 * Carlos Amarilla
 * 🇦🇷 Hector Baldassi
 * Jorge Larrionda
 * Pablo Pozo
 * 🇨🇴 Oscar Ruiz
 * 🇧🇷 Carlos Simon


 * OFC
 * 🇳🇿 Michael Hester
 * 🇳🇿 Peter O'Leary


 * UEFA
 * Olegario Benquerenca
 * Massimo Busacca
 * 🇧🇪 Frank De Bleeckere
 * 🇸🇪 Martin Hansson
 * 🇭🇺 Viktor Kassai
 * 🇫🇷 Stephane Lannoy
 * 🇮🇹 Roberto Rosetti
 * 🇩🇪 Wolfgang Stark
 * 🇪🇸 Alberto Undiano Mallenco
 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Howard Webb

Group stage
In the following tables:
 * Pld = total games played
 * W = total games won
 * D = total games drawn (tied)
 * L = total games lost
 * GF = total goals scored (goals for)
 * GA = total goals conceded (goals against)
 * GD = goal difference (GF−GA)
 * Pts = total points accumulated

The teams placed first and second (shaded in green) qualified to the round of 16.