Durban gears up for 2010 draw
Brad Morgan
8 October 2007
South Africa's "Surf City" hosts the first official event leading up to the 2010 Fifa World Cup, the preliminary draw for the qualifying tournament, on 25 November.
The draw, which determines the qualifying groups for soccer's showpiece competition, will be a sizeable event in its own right.
The entire Durban International Convention Centre has been booked out to accommodate the large number of Fifa officials, representatives of countries taking part in the draw, and more than 300 journalists from around the world who will be covering the event.
Last week, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government approved an R8-million budget to be spent on preparations for the event, which will coincide with the opening in Johannesburg of Soccerex 2007, the first South African edition of the world's biggest business-to-business football exhibition.
Local Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan, speaking at a 2010 communicators conference in
Johannesburg in August, said the "exceptionally complex planning" for the draw was well advanced.
Record number of countries
A record 204 out of Fifa's 208 member countries have entered the qualifying tournament. Only the Philippines, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam and Laos will miss out.
The previous record entry was established in qualifying for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, with 194 of Fifa's 198 members at the time participating.
The draw in Durban will feature teams competing in the European, Asian, North American, Central American and Caribbean zones. Not included will be Oceania, South America and Africa, whose qualifying matches will already have started.
In Europe, 53 teams will be competing for 13 places, while the South American confederation, Conmebol, will see 10 teams competing for four or five places; the exact number of sides will be determined after playoffs against a North American, Central American, or Caribbean
nation.
Concacaf, the confederation that includes North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, pits 35 teams against one another, playing for three or four places, to be determined by a playoff against South America.
In Asia, 43 nations will meet to try and win either four or five places at the 2010 World Cup. A playoff against Oceania will decide how many Asian teams make it to South Africa.
Fifty-three Africans teams are competing for five places. South Africa, as hosts, automatically qualify for the finals.
Oceania is not certain of producing a finals qualifier. Ten teams will be in action, after which Oceania's number one will play a team from Asia for a place in SA.
First World Cup
The World Cup has grown remarkably since it first took place in 1930. Hosted by Uruguay, the event included only 13 countries.
Qualifying for the World Cup first took place in 1933, when 27 teams entered the qualifying
round.
The strangest story yet from qualifying occurred in 1950, when India qualified for the finals in Brazil after a large number of withdrawals from Asia and Africa. The Indians subsequently withdrew from the event after Fifa refused to allow their players to appear barefoot. Since that time, India has not qualified for the World Cup finals.
For the 1958 tournament, there were 50 matches played for 14 places at the finals in Sweden.
Significantly, it was the first appearance at the World Cup finals by the man regarded as the greatest player of them all, Pelé. He was just 17 years old at the time, but he made his mark, netting twice in the final to help Brazil to a 5-2 win over Sweden.
Four years later there was another big step forward when, thanks to the de-colonisation of Africa, 50 nations played 100 qualifying matches for the 1966 finals, which were hosted in England.
Fifa membership growth
With the collapse of the
Soviet Union and smaller nations gaining Fifa membership, the number of countries doing battle for a place at the World Cup finals in South Africa in 2010 has, for the first time, topped the 200-mark.
Three countries - the Republic of Ireland, Portugal, and Luxembourg - have taken part in qualifying for the previous 17 World Cup finals. Sweden and Switzerland have contested qualifying 16 times. They didn't need to qualify on the other occasions as Sweden hosted the finals in 1958 and Switzerland were hosts in 1954.
Interestingly, Luxembourg, one of the ever-presents, has by far the worst qualifying record in World Cup history. In 104 matches, it has scored only two wins and drawn two matches, while losing exactly 100 times.
Iran's Ali Daei, who was recently in South Africa to take part in the "90 Minutes for Madiba" Fifa-sanctioned tribute match to former SA President Nelson Mandela, holds the record for the most goals scored in World Cup qualifiers, with 30 in 47
matches.
Soccerex
At the same time that the preliminary draw for the World Cup takes place in Durban, the Sandton Convention Centre will play host to Soccerex, the largest business to business exhibition which explores the business side of football.
Representatives from the confederations involved in the World Cup draw in Durban will also attend Soccerex.
Over 5 000 delegates are expected to attend the exhibition, which runs from 26 November to 28 November. It is estimated that business deals to the value of about R7-billion will be concluded.
Previously Soccerex, which is heading into its eleventh year, was hosted by Paris, Los Angeles, and Dubai, which was home to the expo for the past five years.
South Africa will be Soccerex's home from 2007 to 2009.
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