© GeoSport for Society, volume 5, no. 2/2016, pp. 79-87, Article no. 16.05.02.

018

GEOSPORT FOR SOCIETY

Scientific Journal founded in 2014 under aegis of University of Oradea (Romania),
University of Debrecen (Hungary), University of Gdánsk (Poland)
ISSN 2393-1353
Edited by Oradea University Press
1, University Street, 410087, Oradea, Romania
Journal homepage: http://geosport.uoradea.ro

FIFA World Cup. An analysis from the sport’s history and

geography perspective

Marius MARINĂU 1*, Petru PEŢAN 2, Florin MĂDUŢA 3,

Ştefan MAROTI 4
1. University of Oradea, Department of Physical Education, Sport and Physical Therapy, 1 University St., 410087
Oradea, Romania, e-mail: [email protected]
2. University of Oradea, Department of Physical Education, Sport and Physical Therapy, 1 University St., 410087
Oradea, Romania, e-mail: [email protected]
3. University of Oradea, Department of Geography, Tourism and Territorial Planning, 1 University St., 410087
Oradea, Romania, e-mail: [email protected]
4. University of Oradea, Department of Physical Education, Sport and Physical Therapy, 1 University St., 410087
Oradea, Romania, e-mail: [email protected]

* Corresponding author

Article history: Received: 16.11.2016; Revised: 18.11.2016; Accepted: 05.12.2016, Available online: 07.12.2016

Abstract: Relying on data provided by the sport's history, the authors address the
evolution of FIFA World Cup final tournaments, using in the analysis and presentation of
data, along with the methods specific to the sport’s domain, methods of geography. After
motivating and presenting the importance of the subject, the work refers to the conditions
and key events that helped organize the first edition of the competition. The qualifications,
venues, participation of the teams in the tournaments, final ranking in the latter stages,
medals that were obtained, are presented and analyzed by associating the map with different
ways of graphic representation.

Keywords: football, World Cup

Introduction
FIFA World Cup, seen from the interest the point of view that arouses among
sports lovers, the number of spectators and of those watching the matches on
television transmissions, represents, after the Olympic Games, the most extensive
sport competition. Therefore, the FIFA World Cup’s different aspects of are studied
by the specialists in various fields. Some papers analyze the world championships

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competitions along with other worldwide competitions, (Antal, 1974; Áros, 1980),
others refer to all the editions till the date (Vándor, 1986) or to a single edition (***
1958; Chirilă, 1966).
The complexity of this sport makes it to be studied, besides the researchers
in the field, also by the researchers from other fields of science, within some
multidisciplinary researches. Among these, there are some collaboration among the
specialists in geography and sport. In this direction, we mention studies that
examine, explain and show different aspects of the competition by associating the
methods specific to the sports field with those characteristic to geography (Grama et
al., 2015; Herman et al., 2016; Ilieș et al., 2015, 2016). By this approach, it can be
presented, among other things, the relationships that are established among the
spatial variations of distribution, structure, dynamics of the sports phenomenon,
and its geographical framework (Ilieş et al., 2015). The association of the map with
the diagram on columns, the frequency polygon, the static relief etc., it offers the
possibility of presenting, analyzing and understanding the phenomenon, that is
studied from another perspective than the usual one for those, who approach it only
from the specialist’s point of view in physical education and sports.
We believe that a paper, that studies the final tournaments of the FIFA World
Cups from the historical and geographical point of view, is timely, it interests, and it
contributes to a better knowledge of the phenomenon that is being studied. The
cartographic representation and the analysis made together with the geographer
complements the vision of the sports’ specialist, providing a plus of information.
The events that led to the organization of the World Cup
Since its founding, on 21st of May 1904 (Moises, 1969) Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association
Football –FIFA) has proposed that in 1906 to be organized the world championship.
With all the enthusiasm showed, the low level of the development of football in the
world at that time, the small number of national federations members, the lack of
support for this project from their part, the low level of infrastructure and
competition system in many member federations, the lack of determination of the
international body governing football, its limited organizational capacity, the
pressures from the British federations, headed by England, made the transposition
into practice of this goal to wait for a quarter of a century.
In contrast to the representatives of the world body governing football, the
members of the International Olympic Committee understood that the inclusion of
the sport in the Olympic program, organizing a competition with a worldwide
character can have a positive influence for guiding and developing this sport and the
Olympic movement, and they acted for this purpose. Football has become an
Olympic sport, and it has been included in the Olympic Games since 1908
(Wallechinsky, 1996).
After the First World War, at the Fédération Internationale de Football
Association Congress, held in 1920 in Paris, the representatives of football resumed
the efforts to organize a world championship. The contradictions among the
members and the financial difficulties delayed the implementation of President’s

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Jules Rimet proposal (Áros, 1994). The decision1 of the International Olympic
Committee Session in Amsterdam, 1928, to prohibit the participation of the
professional players in the Olympic football tournaments left this sport discipline
without a world competition in which athletes can participate regardless of their
status (***, 1996). This situation forced the members of FIFA to act without delay.
The Congress in Amsterdam, 1928, after the preliminary talks conducted by FIFA
with the federations from Central Europe, Mamusich Mihály, the representative of
Hungary, presented the draft of the World Championships, which were to be held in
the even years between two editions of the Olympic Games, with the participation of
both professional players and amateurs (...). The collective, appointed to develop the
Regulations of the FIFA World Cup presented at the Congress in Geneva, 1929,
establishing that the first edition to be held in 1930. At the Congress in Barcelona,
the right to organize the championship was assigned to Uruguay2. Thus, FIFA was
the fourteenth world governing forum that has managed to organize a world
championship (Kun, 1984).
The evolution of qualifications for the final tournament of the FIFA
World Cup
The survey on the number of the teams that participated in the qualification
stage for the final tournaments of this competition provides information regarding
the extent of this sport around the world; the popularity it enjoys world widely, the
recognition it has at international level, the value achieved by this sport over time,
the ratio of forces at a certain time etc.
If at the first editions of the FIFA World Cup the number of teams
participating in the qualification tournaments was reduced, after a while, the
participation in this stage grew in ampleness, reaching for the 2018 edition to enroll
208 teams3. The increase of the number of participants in the qualifying rounds for
the final tournaments was influenced by the development that football has seen
around the world’s countries, the growing interest it enjoyed among the young
people, the increase in the number of the affiliated national federations, the support
this sport enjoyed nationally, especially in the newly established states. In the new
independent states, participating and achieving some performances in official
international competitions, among them the FIFA World Cup, proved to be a way of
mobilizing the masses, forming the national affection, a binder in achieving national
unity national, an effective instrument of affirmation on international level, and a
projection the country's image abroad (Simri, 1982). Thus, after a decade in which
many former colonies declared their independence from the state, the number of
national representatives belonging to the confederations from Africa, Asia and
Oceania participants in the qualifications for the final tournament grew from one
edition to another4. Another important period, which led to a significant increase of

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_Summer_Olympics
2 http://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/fifa-congress/history/congress-barcelona-1929/index.html;
http://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/who-we-are/history/first-fifa-world-cup.html, vizitat la 21 februarie
2016
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup

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national teams that signed up to participate in the qualifying rounds for the final
tournament of the FIFA World Cup, was the early 1990s, after the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the apparition of the states member of the former Yugoslavia.
Participation in the final tournaments of the FIFA World Cup
Between 1930 and 2014, twenty final tournaments of the World Cup were
played. They were hosted by sixteen countries. Nineteen editions were hosted by
one country, and the right to organize the 2002 edition was awarded to South Korea
and Japan. Mexico, Italy, France, Germany and Brazil organized two editions of the
final tournament5. The distribution by continent shows that ten of them were played
in European countries, five in South America, three in North America, one in Asia
and Africa (fig. 1).

Figure 1. The reparation on continents of the countries in which the final

tournaments were played6

In the history of the final tournaments, the number of teams participating in

one edition has undergone many changes. If in 1930 their number was not brought
under regulation, for the period 1934 to 1978 their number was set at sixteen, for
that to grow to twenty-four between 1982-1994, reaching to thirty-two teams from
1998 until present7. Starting with the 1934 edition, the number of teams

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_hosts
6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_hosts
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participating in the final tournaments of the World Championship and their

affiliation to geographical areas has been influenced by the decisions regarding the
seats assigned to each confederation. The disputing format of the preliminaries for
the qualifications of teams is regulated by each confederation.

Table 1. The number of teams participating in the final tournaments of The World Cup
Number of
Team/Country
participations
20 Brazil
18 Germany*, Italy
16 Argentina
15 Mexico
14 Spain, England, France
12 Belgium, Uruguay
11 Yugoslavia, Russia**, Sweden
10 United States of America, Switzerland, Netherlands
9 South Korea, Hungary, Czechoslovakia***, Chile
8 Scotland, Paraguay
7 Cameroon, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Austria
6 Portugal
5 Japan, Nigeria, Columbia
Saudi Arabia, Australia, Croatia, Tunisia, Algeria, Costa Rica, Peru,
4
Morocco, Denmark, Iran
Ghana, Ivory Coast, Honduras, Greece, Ecuador, Norway, Northern
3
Ireland, Ireland, South Africa, Bolivia
2 Egypt. Turkey, North Korea, El Salvador, New Zeeland, Slovenia
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, Indonesia, Wales, Israel, DR Congo,
East Germany, Haiti, Kuwait, Canada, Iraq, United Arab Emirates,
1
Jamaica, China, Senegal, Angola, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago,
Ukraine, Slovakia
*It includes the participation of West Germany;
**it includes the participation of USSR;
*** it includes the participation of Czechoslovakia

Analyzing the participation in the final tournaments of world football

championships, it results that the four hundred twenty five qualifications were
achieved by seventy-seven representative teams8. The distribution by continent
(table 2) shows that Europe has the largest share, 54.35%, followed by South
America, 18.82%, North America, 9.17%, Africa, 9.17%, Asia, 7.52%, and
Australia/Oceania, 0.94%. Brazil is the only team that was present in all twenty
editions. It is followed by Germany and Italy, each of them with eighteen
attendences, and Argentina with sixteen attendances. The countries and their
number of attendances to the final tournaments are presented in the Table (table 1).
A criterion, which we took in consideration in analyzing under the
qualitative aspect the results achieved by the teams participating in the final
tournaments was the qualification in quarter-finals (table 3). Of the total of 147
qualifications at this stage of the competition, there were carried out by European
teams, 68.7% (101 ratings), 23.8% (35 qualifications) from South America, 4, 1%
8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup

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Marius MARINĂU, Petru PEŢAN, Florin MĂDUŢA, Ştefan MAROTI Article no. 16.05.02.018

(101 ratings) from North America, 2% from Africa, and 1.4% Asia, with 3 or 2
qualifications. None of the teams of the Oceania confederation succeeded to rank
among the top eight teams at the final tournament of the FIFA World Cup 9.

Table 2. The distribution on confederations of the number of teams participating in the final
tournaments of the FIFA World Cup10
Conf. North South
Africa Asia Europe Oceania Total
Year America America
1930 - 2 7 - 4 - 13
1934 1 1 2 - 12 - 16
1938 - 1 1 1 12 - 15
1950 - 2 5 - 6 - 13
1954 - 1 2 1 12 - 16
1958 - 1 3 - 12 - 16
1962 - 1 5 - 10 - 16
1966 - 1 4 1 10 - 16
1970 1 2 3 1 9 - 16
1974 1 1 4 - 9 1 16
1978 1 1 3 1 10 - 16
1982 2 2 4 1 14 1 24
1986 2 2 4 2 14 - 24
1990 2 2 4 2 14 - 24
1994 3 2 4 2 13 - 24
1998 5 3 5 4 15 - 32
2002 5 3 5 4 15 - 32
2006 5 4 4 4 14 1 32
2010 6 3 5 3 13 2 32
2014 5 4 6 3 13 1 32
Total 39 39 80 30 231 6 425

Table 3. Records on continents according to the performances 11

Continent/Confederation
North South
Africa Asia Europe Oceania
America America
First Place nr. 0 0 9 0 11 0
I % 0 0 45 0 55 0
Second Place nr. 0 0 5 0 15 0
II % 0 0 25 0 75 0
Third Place nr. 0 1 3 0 16 0
III % 0 5 15 0 80 0
Fourth Place nr. 0 0 5 1 14 0
IV % 0 0 25 5 70 0
Place
nr. 3 5 13 1 45 0
V - VIII
% 4.5 7.5 19.4 1.5 67.1 0

9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup
10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup
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For the ranking among the first four teams, the situation is similar: 70% of
these were achieved by teams from Europe (Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain,
Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Portugal, Croatia
Turkey, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Belgium, Bulgaria), 27.5% by those from South
America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile), and only one qualification for the
representatives of the confederations from Asia (South Korea), and North America
(USA), representing 1,25%12.
The most important criterion for setting the value of a team participating in
the FIFA World Cup is the number of medals that it had obtained. The sixty medals
were awarded to the representatives from nineteen countries, 24.67% of the total
number of participating countries. In the unofficial ranking on medals, first place is
occupied by Brazil - five gold, two silver and two bronze medals, followed by
Germany - four gold, four silver and four bronze medals, Italy, four gold, two silver
medals and one bronze medals etc. (table 4).

Table 4. The national teams that were awarded medals at FIFA World Cup 13
Edition Gold Silver Bronze
1930 Uruguay Argentina USA
1934 Italy Czechoslovakia Germany
1938 Italy Hungary Brazil
1950 Uruguay Brazil Sweden
1954 Germany Hungary Austria
1958 Brazil Sweden France
1962 Brazil Czechoslovakia Chile
1966 England West Germany Portugal
1970 Brazil Italy West Germany
1974 RFG Netherlands Poland
1978 Argentina Netherlands Brazil
1982 Italy West Germany Poland
1986 Argentina West Germany France
1990 West Germany Argentina Italy
1994 Brazil Italy Sweden
1998 France Brazil Croatia
2002 Brazil Germany Turkey
2006 Italy France Germany
2010 Spain Netherlands Germany
2014 Germany Argentina Netherlands

70% of medals were awarded to fourteen national teams from Europe, 21%
to three representatives from South America, and 9% to one national team from
North America. The teams from the Oceania, Asia and Africa confederations have
failed to obtain medals in the final tournament of the World Football
Championship. In terms of gold medals, 55% was awarded to athletes from the

12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup#Teams_reaching_the_top_four
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European national teams (Germany, Italy, France, England and Spain), and 45% to
national teams from South America (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) (fig. 2).

Figure 2. The unofficial ranking of medals

Conclusions
Football is, chronologically, the second team sport game that its world leading
forum managed to organize a world championship. With the two hundred and eight
teams registered to take part in the qualifying rounds for the last final tournament,
by audience this competition enjoys among the viewers, the World Cup has become
one of the most watched sporting events.
Seventy-seven national representatives attended at the twenty final
tournaments of the World Cup, for a total of four hundred twenty-four
qualifications. The teams with the most appearances were Brazil, the only team that
was present at all the final tournaments, followed by Germany and Italy with
eighteen attendances, and Argentina with sixteen attendances.
The distribution by continents shows that the teams from Europe have had
the most appearances at the final tournaments, 54.35%, followed by those from
South America with 18.82%, from North America with 9.17%, from Africa with
9.17%, from Asia with 7.52%, and from Australia/Oceania with 0.94%. Apart from
one bronze medal, all the other medals, twenty gold, twenty silver and nineteen
bronze, were won by European and South American teams.

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In the unofficial ranking of countries by medals, the podium is occupied by

Brazil, with five gold medals, two silver medals and two bronze medals, followed by
Germany, with four gold medals, four silver medals and four bronze medals, and
Italy, with four gold medals, two silver medals and one bronze medal.

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