The senior men’s national teams of the members of the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA), the world’s governing organization of association football, compete in the FIFA World Cup, commonly referred to as the World Cup. Since the first competition in 1930, the championship has been given out every four years, with the exception of 1942 and 1946, when it was postponed due to the Second World War. France, who won their second championship at the 2018 competition in Russia, are the current champions.
The qualification phase of the present structure determines which teams advance to the tournament phase, and it occurs over the previous three years. 32 teams fight for the championship over the course of around a month in the tournament phase at locations in the host nation or nations. The host country(ies) are ineligible by default.
Twenty-one championship matches, with 79 national teams, have been played as of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Eight national teams have claimed the prize as their own. Brazil is the only team to have competed in every event and has won five times. Germany and Italy are the other World Cup champions, each with four titles; Argentina, France, and Uruguay, first-place finisher, each with two titles; and England and Spain, each with one title.
The World Cup is not only the most renowned association football competition ever, but it’s also the most watched and followed sporting event ever. An estimated 715.1 million viewers, or a tenth of the world’s population, watched the World Cup final, bringing the total number of viewers for the tournament to an estimated 26.29 billion. [1][2][3] [4]
The World Cup has been hosted by 17 nations. While Uruguay, Switzerland, Sweden, Chile, England, Argentina, Spain, the United States, Japan and South Korea (jointly), South Africa, and Russia have each hosted once, Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, and Mexico have each hosted twice. The 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar, and the 2026 World Cup will be co-hosted by Canada, the United States, and Mexico, making Mexico the first nation to host matches in three World Cups.
