2010 FIFA World Cup

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. Italy are the defending champions. The draw for the finals will take place on 4 December 2009 in Cape Town.
In 2005, the organisers released a provisional list of thirteen venues to be used for the World Cup: Mangaung/Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg (two venues), Kimberley, Nelspruit, Orkney, Polokwane, Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth, Tshwane/Pretoria (two venues), and Rustenburg. This was narrowed down to ten venues which were officially announced by FIFA on 17 March 2006:

Preparations:
Five new stadiums are to be built for the tournament (three new match venues and two new practice grounds), and five of the existing venues are to be upgraded. Construction costs are expected to be R8.4bn.
In addition to the stadiums being built and upgraded, South Africa is also planning to improve its current public transport infrastructure within the various cities, with projects such as the Gautrain and the new Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) titled Rea Vaya. Danny Jordaan, the president of the 2010 World Cup organising committee has said that he expects all stadiums for the tournament to be completed by October 2009.
The country is also going to implement special measures to ensure the safety and security of local and international tourists attending the matches in accordance with standard FIFA requirements.

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.

This is the first World Cup with no debutant associations, although two of the qualifiers (Slovakia and Serbia) have only previously appeared as parts of former competing nations. In both cases FIFA considers these teams to have retained the earlier nations' records.
FIFA threatened Chile with disqualification from the World Cup on 26 November 2009. Domestic club Rangers attempted to get the Chilean courts to annul their relegation from the Primera División de Chile because they fielded an ineligible player. FIFA disapproves of government interference in football and ordered the Chilean Football Federation to resolve the dispute within 72 hours or face "appropriate sanctions", including suspension. The following day, Rangers dropped the case and accepted relegation, meaning Chile's place in the World Cup is likely to be safe. The FIFA Executive Committee will rule on the issue on 3 December 2009.

Mascot:

The official mascot for the 2010 FIFA World Cup is Zakumi, an anthropomorphised leopard with green hair. His name comes from "ZA", the international abbreviation for South Africa, and "kumi", a word that means "ten" in various African languages. The mascot's colours reflect those of the host nation's playing strip – yellow and green.