Abstract
This paper reviews the FIFA World Cups 1998–2010 with data available from the FIFA website and assesses the performance of each region in relation to the number of World Cup qualifications spots that the region is awarded. We raise the issue of whether FIFA should be more concerned with the participation of more members from its federations in the World Cup than the financial gain from doing so. Our non-econometric analysis illustrates that the current allocation may be resulting in the awarding of qualification spots to teams that if not unfair, certainly warrants discussion. We seek to demonstrate that the current system of qualification is based neither on ensuring the qualification of the best 32 teams in the world, nor does it fairly allocate qualification spots on the number of teams per federation or any other metric. We conclude with a plea for more transparent allocation processes.
Notes
1. FIFA President, Sepp Blatter quoted in The Guardian, 8 December 2010.
2. Lever, Soccer Madness.
3. Maharaj, ‘2010 World Cup: (South) Africa’s Time has Come?’
4. A number of documents are cited from www.fifa.com, in particular, the 2010 Financial report retrieved from http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/01/39/20/45/web_fifa_fr2010_eng[1].pdf.
5. Maguire and Pearton, ‘Global Sport and the Migration Patterns of France ‘98 World Cup Finals Players’.
6. Falter, Perignon, and Vercruysse, ‘Impact of Overwhelming Joy on Consumer Demand’.
7. Media Release, Fifa.com, retrieved from http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/southafrica2010/organisation/media/newsid=1360124/index.html.
8. Morris, The Soccer Tribe.
9. Levermore, ‘Sport: A New Engine of Development?’
10. Wolfe et al., ‘Sport and Organizational Studies: Exploring Synergy’.
11. Torgler, ‘The Economics of the World Cup’.
12. Cornelissen, ‘Football’s Tsars: Proprietorship, Corporatism and Politics in the 2010 FIFA World Cup’.
13. Monks and Husch, ‘The Impact of Seeding, Home Continent, and Hosting on FIFA World Cup Results’.
14. Ibid.
15. Szymanski and Zimbalist, National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer.
16. Markovits and Hellerman, Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism.
17. ‘Big Count’, 265 million playing football, FIFA Magazine.
18. Darby, ‘Africa and the “World Cup” FIFA Politics, Eurocentrism and Resistance’.
19. Kunz, ‘Big Count’, 265 million playing football, FIFA Magazine.
20. Scarf and Yusof, ‘A Numerical Study of Tournament Structure and Seeing Policy for the Soccer World Cup Finals’.
21. Dyte and Clarke, ‘A Ratings Based Poisson Model for World Cup Soccer Simulation’.
22. Parent, Eskerud, and Hanstad, ‘Brand Creation in International Recurring Sports Events’.
23. Johansson backs world cup expansion. The Telegraph [London] 21 May 2003, retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2404481/Johansson-backs-World-Cup-expansion.html.
24. Barrero, ‘FIFA Resists World Cup Expansion’, The Los Angeles Times, May, 2003. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/may/03/sports/sp-soccer3.
25. Breitbarth and Harris, ‘The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Football Business: Towards the Development of a Conceptual Model’.