subject: World Cup Soccer : Still The Biggest Sporting Event In The World [print this page] World Cup Soccer 2006 is the eighteenth edition of the World Cup football and runs from June 9 to July 9, 2006 in Germany, which was chosen in June 2000 to organize the event.
From December 2003 to November 2005, the national teams from 198 countries are participating in a qualifying competition in order to designate the 31 teams can take part in the final tournament along with Germany, qualifies automatically as host nation .
The competition was won by Italy, who beat France in the final on penalties. This is the fourth title of world champion Italian team, after those obtained in 1934, 1938 and 1982. Germany took third place ahead of Portugal. Brazil, reigning world champion and favorite of the event is eliminated in the quarter-final stage by France. Sportingly, the tournament was marked by a return to domination by big teams in Europe and South America : while the previous World Cup in 2002 saw teams from Asia, North America and Africa go quite far in the competition (to the quarter and semi-finals), all quarter-finalists of the 2006 are European or South American, and all former winners of the competition are present except Uruguay in the quarterfinals.
The 2006 tournament is followed worldwide and its media coverage confirms that the World Cup football is the biggest sporting event in the world next to the Olympic Games . The sale of broadcast rights and sponsorship contribute to the economic success of competitive sport. World Cup 2006 is also a huge popular success in Germany, where she is nicknamed Sommermerchen (fairytale summer), and it also gives a very positive image of the country abroad .
After the designation of the host country in 2000, a German organizing committee is created to prepare for the holding of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Twelve stages are built or renovated for the occasion. In 2005 the organization of the Confederations Cup 2005 in Germany is, apart from the sporting aspect, also preparing for the World Cup which takes place a year later.
The willingness of the German Football Association, or Deutscher Fuayball-Bund (DFB) to host the World Cup in Germany was in November 1992. At that time, the federation and its president Egidius Braun begin promotion in the country of such application. In late 1996, Franz Beckenbauer agrees to become ambassador to the German bid. It takes the presidency in 1998 Bid Committee and in that capacity he transmits to FIFA president Sepp Blatter, November 26, 1998, declaration of official intent of the German federation for organizing the World Cup 2006 .
Alongside the DFB, four other federations claim to organize the event. These federations of South Africa, England, Brazil and Morocco . Federations of Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria, initially applying to host the tournament, withdrew from the allocation process in order not to dilute the African candidates.
On July 6, 2000, the FIFA executive committee meets in Zurich to designate the host of the 2006 World Cup. Brazil withdrew three days before the vote . For the first time, it takes more than one ballot to designate the host country. Morocco and England were eliminated in the first and second rounds respectively . Germany, which finished first in each round is finally chosen at the expense of South Africa in the third ballot by twelve votes against eleven and one abstention.
This nomination of Germany as host of the 2006 finals against South Africa created a controversy favorite. Charles Dempsey, a New Zealand member of the executive committee of FIFA, does give the first two ballots of vote in South Africa, as instructed by the Oceania Football Confederation to which it belongs, then he abstains from decisive third round, causing the German victory by one vote apart. If he had voted for South Africa in the final round, the two latter countries are thus tied with twelve votes each.
In such a case, a victory for South Africa would have been likely, since the designation of the winner would be returned to FIFA president Sepp Blatter , which supported the African candidate . Like eight other executive members, Dempsey had received the day before the vote a fax promising him a cuckoo clock and ham Black Forest. After the vote, the German magazine Titanic is denounced as the perpetrator of this bad joke . For his part, Dempsey said his abstention by the unbearable pressure to which it was submitted for the vote .
Following this incident, FIFA decided that the organization of the competition will now be rotated among continents. Thus, it was decided that the 2010 World Cup will be hosted by an African country, namely South Africa. FIFA later returns to this mode of appointment by rotation and decided in October 2007 that only will be excluded from the organization of a World Cup confederations that hosted the last two editions of the competition.
