FIFA: record 204 teams enter 2010 World Cup qualifying
Zurich - A record 204 national teams have entered the qualifying marathon
for the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa, the ruling body FIFA
said on Friday. FIFA said that qualifying for the 32-team finals kicks
off in the summer of 2007 in the Oceania confederation. Preliminary round
matches in the six confederations will run until the autumn of 2009.
According to FIFA, only four members - the Philippines, Bhutan, Brunei
Darussalam and Laos - have not entered the preliminary round.
The 204 federations include automatically qualified hosts South Africa
and Montenegro, who are set to formally become the 208th member federation
at the FIFA Congress in May.
However, it remains open whether all 204 teams will actually play in the
qualifying rounds.
A then record 199 teams entered the race for the 2002 finals in Japan
and South Korea, but only 193 of them eventually took part. The biggest
number of teams playing qualifying matches is 194, for the 2006 edition
in Germany, from an original 198 entries.
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March 30 2007.
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