2014 FIFA World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be the 20th FIFA World Cup, an international men's football tournament that is scheduled to take place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014.^[1] It will be the second time that Brazil has hosted the competition, the previous being in1950. Brazil was elected unchallenged as host nation in 2007 after the international football federation, FIFA, decreed that the tournament would be staged in South America for the first time since 1978 in Argentina, and the fifth time overall.

The national teams of 31 countries advanced through qualification competitions that began in June 2011 to participate with the host nation Brazil in the final tournament. A total of 64 matches are to be played in twelve cities across Brazil in either new or redeveloped stadiums, with the tournament beginning with a group stage. For the first time at a World Cup Finals, the matches will use goal-line technology.^[2]

With the host country, all world champion teams since the first World Cup in 1930 (Uruguay, Italy, Germany, England, Argentina,France and Spain) have qualified for this competition. Spain is the defending champion, having defeated the Netherlands 1–0 in the2010 World Cup final to win its first World title. The previous four World Cups staged in South America were all won by South American teams.^[3]

On 7 March 2003, FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in South America for the first time since 1978, in line with its then-active policy of rotating the right to host the World Cup among different confederations.^[4][5] The decision meant that it would be the first time that two consecutive World Cups will be staged outside Europe.

On 3 June 2003, the South American Football Confederation CONMEBOL initially announced that Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia wanted to host the finals,^[6] but by March 2004, the CONMEBOL associations had unanimously voted to adopt Brazil as their sole candidate.^[7]

During the intervening months, Colombia decided that it would enter its own bid,^[8] and formally declared its candidacy in December 2006.^[9] A week earlier Brazil had also formally announced its interest.^[10]

However, Colombia officially withdrew its bid in April 2007, leaving Brazil as the only host candidate.^[11] On 30 October 2007 FIFA officially confirmed that Brazil would host the event.^[12]

The allocation of places for the final tournament was decided on 3 March 2011, with the distribution of the 31 places determined through the qualification process unchanged from that of the previous tournament.^[13] The qualification draw for the 2014 World Cup was held at the Marina da Glória in Rio de Janeiro on 30 July 2011.^[14][15] As the host nation,Brazil automatically qualified for the tournament.

203 of the 208 FIFA national teams at the time participated in the qualification stages, which began on 15 June 2011 and concluded on 20 November 2013. 24 of the 32 eventual qualifiers were present at the previous tournament, with the only debutant being Bosnia and Herzegovina, which qualified for the first time as an independent nation.^[16] The highest-ranked absentee in the FIFA World Rankings at the time of the draw for the tournament was Ukraine,^[17] while the OFC region will have no representation at a World Cup Finals for the first time since 2002.