Football

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the 19th FIFA World Cup, an international tournament for football, the finals for which are scheduled to take place between 11 June and 11 July 2010 in South Africa. It will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by a nation in the Confederation of African Football, leaving the Oceania Football Confederation as the only FIFA Confederation never to have hosted the event.

As the host nation, South Africa qualifies automatically. However, South Africa are the first hosts since 1934 to participate in World Cup qualifiers. This is because the CAF qualifiers will also serve as the qualifying tournament for the 2010 African Cup of Nations, for which South Africa must qualify separately. Since 2002 the defending champions no longer qualify automatically.