2010 FIFA World Cup
Was Held In South Africa

The 2010 FIFA World cup will make the 19th world cup event for this premier international football tournament. This proclaimed tournament is scheduled to take place on June 11th and run all the way through the month of June, and cease as of July 11th 2010.
This momentous event is going to be held in South Africa. The qualification process that began on August of 2007, involved 204 different FIFA national teams. In a lot of respects, many say that the FIDA World Cup tournament bears a close resemblance to the 2008 Summer Olympics.
The reason why people care to compare both events is because the events that take place at this tournament are amongst competing nations that are based across the globe. In order for a particular team to qualify to compete in the tournament, they must be willing to undergo different preliminary tournaments that will judge their athletic abilities.

The Qualification Process
The qualification process for the FIFA World Cup tournament is nothing less of strenuous. The nations that have met all the preliminary paperwork that is required to compete in the event are taken through a series of different tournaments in order to justify if they have what it takes to compete in the major tournament that is held for 30 days per year.
The tournaments are organized by six different FIFA confederations. The confederations are set apart as follows: you have the AFC which represents Asia, the CAF which represents Africa, CONCACAF which represents North America, CONMEBOL which represents South America, OFC which is Oceania, and UEFA which is the European federation.
All of these divisions are given an allocated number of thirty two places at the tournament. So, in total 204 teams had to be entered into the qualification process. South Africa, since they are acting as the host for this year’s events, qualifies automatically in the final tournament as a competitor.
The qualification matches, began being played as of the 25th of August 2007. The qualification process was concluded November 18th. During this tournament there were over 2337 goals that were scored and over 848 matches played, to determine the qualifying teams for the 2010 event.

Selection of the host for the 2010 FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup event will be held in Africa. In fact, the 2010 tournament will mark the first time in 19 years, that this tournament has been up and running that it is being hosted by an African nation. The final word about South Africa winning the tournament for 2010, was not officially announced until December the 4th 2009.
Africa won on the bet on account of a new policy that was instilled for the tournament, insisting that the tournament rotates accordingly amongst the different football federations that choose to be a part of the festivities. There were approximately five different African nations that placed a bid on where the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament should be held.

Who Qualified For the 2010 FIFA World Cup Tournament?
There are a total of 32 nations that play in the final tournament. However, if you have not been keeping up with the preliminary rounds of the tournament, chances are you may have missed out on the teams that qualified for the tournament.
There are 4 AFC groups that qualified for the upcoming tournament. These countries that qualified are Australia, Japan, Korea DPR as well as the Korea Republic.
There are 5 groups that qualified for the CAF group. Amongst this group the qualifying countries are Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d’lvoire, Ghana, Nigeria as well as South Africa. South Africa, automatically qualifies to join in on the tournament because they are the hosting country of the 2010 event.
Out of the CONCACAF group there are three countries that qualified for the tournament. Amongst these countries are Honduras, the United States as well as Mexico.
The CONMEBOL group saw 5 qualifying countries. The countries in this group include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, as well as Uruguay.
For the OFC one country qualified for the tournament, which is New Zealand.
However, the UEFA group has the largest amount of qualifying countries in the entire tournament. With an astounding 13 countries that qualified, this European group is already looking stronger than their competitors. The countries that qualified for this group are Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland.
Based on the rankings of teams that qualified for the event, South Africa, the hosting country was actually the lowest ranked team in the tournament.

Prize money for the 2010 FIFA World Cup
What would a tournament be, if there was no monetary prize being offered to its participants? FIFA previously confirmed that the total amount of prize money being offered for the tournament in 2010 is approximately $420 million.
This amount is a large increase compared to the money that was offered to participating teams in 2006. In fact, statistics show that this amount is more than 60 percent more than what winning teams received in 2006.
Before the tournament commences, each team that has qualified for the event receives one million dollars. This amount is strictly to be used for any preparation costs that need to be rectified before the tournament can commence.
After the tournament has commenced, the payout schedule for teams still existing with their groups in tack is $8 million. However, after the first games the prize schedule differs immensely.
$9 million will be rewarded to the teams that make it to round 16. Another $18 million will be rewarded to the team that makes it into the quarter finals. While, $20 million goes to whomever makes it into the Semi-finals, $24 millions goes to the runners up and an astounding $30 million will be given to the winners of the tournament.
You can only imagine, how intense the competition is going to be for this year’s tournament with these large sums of money at stake for any team that can climb its way to the top.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup Mascot
No tournament is complete, without its own official mascot. This fact rings true for the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament as well. The mascot for this event will be Zakumi. The mascot is actually an adorable creature that resembles a leopard with green hair.
His name is derived from various African languages. Za is the abbreviation for South Africa, while Kumi is a word that means ten in many different African languages. The mascot is adorned in the host’s nation’s colors, which are none other than yellow and green.
The mascot’s birthdays, actually coincides with the year 1994. During this year, non-racial elections were granted in South Africa. At the time of the tournament Zakumi will be 16 years old. The mascot’s motto has already been placed on many digital boards during the 2009 FIFA competitions. Zakumi lives by the motto of “Zakumi’s game is fair play”.
For all the nations that are hoping to bring a large chunk of money back to their countries, let’s hope that this game is played fair and square.

The Match ball for the tournament
The match ball for the event will be named Jabulani. This name was actually thought up, by the Adidas Company. This term translates to bringing joy to everyone. Inadvertently, it is a very encouraging name for all nations that will be competing in the 2010 event.
The number eleven also plays a significant role in the 2010 event. The ball that will be used for the event is the eleventh ball that was manufactured by the German sports makers. The ball also features a series of eleven different colors. Each color on the ball represents each player that is on the pitch.
The other ironic thing about the number eleven for this event is there are eleven official languages that are avidly spoken in South Africa. The games are also going to be held on the eleventh day of June, and end on the eleventh day of July.

South Africa Prepares for the tournament
In order to get everything underway for the tournament to be held in South Africa in 2010, the residents of South Africa have been extremely busy ensuring that their stadiums are up to par for this grand tournament.
In order to do so, South Africa has implemented a total of five new stadiums to be constructed for the tournament. Three of these stadiums are going to be used for new match venues, while two of the stadiums are being set aside for practice grounds for the teams.
Five of the venues are presently undergoing renovations in order to have everything in working order before the games are set to begin. The construction costs for the tournament are staggering; however South Africa is willing to do all that they can to ensure that all of the nations competing in the tournament are equipped with everything that they need.
Aside from the stadiums that are being built for the event, South Africa is also planning on improving its public transportation. By implementing a brand new Bus Rapid Transit, the residents of South Africa are hard at work ensuring that their country meets all necessary standards for the event.
Aside from all the construction that is taking place in South Africa, the people of South Africa are also implementing special measures to ensure the safety as well as the security for all international tourists that will be present when the tournament is taking place. These security measures must be implemented according to FIFA requirements.

2010 FIFA World Cup Contentions
It seems whenever there is a major world event that is being showcased in a particular country a lot of evictions are destined to take place. Many people are already complaining, that because of the event that they are being evicted from their homes without warning.
These evictions are actually being made in a means to help beautify the city and give tourists a great outlook on the country. Many people that are avidly referred to as shack-dwellers are actually being asked to leave their homes in order to correspond with the FIFA standards for venues for tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup event.
The largest controversy that residents of South Africa face is the new renovation projects that are taking place in Cape Town. The plans for this new and improved city in South Africa, is to remove 20,000 residents from their homes.
The residents will be given a place to stay. However, they will be forced to have to leave their dwellings and seek shelter in a sight that cannot be seen from the N2 freeway.
During July of 2009, a lot of South African residents decided to ban together and protest the move that they were being forced to make. South Africans claimed that only the poor communities were being forced to have to make this move. They demanded basic services as well as jobs and adequate housing for their families.
Many residents of South Africa believe that funds that could be used in order to make the country a better place to reside in, are being used for the World Cup project. This contention continues to be a problem in South Africa today, as many people adamantly agree that this proclaimed move is completely uncalled for.

The Final Draw for the tournament
The final draw for the upcoming tournament was approved on the 2nd of December 2009. The draw is basically a period of time when all the people from FIFA get together and begin to plan out the events of the tournament.
There are many different rating scales that are used in order to match the appropriate teams together for the tournament. If by chance there is a tie in any of these tournaments, the FIFA committee, will have to work past this tie in order to determine what team was victorious over the other.
There are many different principals and stats that are used in order to determine which teams will be facing the other towards the beginning of the tournament.

Saddle up for the ride
The 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament that is being held in South Africa this year, has an impressive amount of nations battling it out in a game of football in order to determine which country is the best. Monetary prizes are being awarded to participating teams that rank fairly well throughout the tournaments one month run.