First Things First
Basically, this competition will be hosted by South Africa. It will be this summer, running from June 11 to July 11. The qualification games had the largest number of teams yet, at 204. Only 32 national teams will be allowed to play in the actual World Cup.
Diversity
This year’s World Cup is a triumph for steps to diversify the world of soccer, in which ability and prestige are too often associated with only a few countries. It will be the first World Cup in which an African country plays host. As host, South Africa automatically gets a spot among the roster of countries. Some skeptics may argue that this robs a truly qualified team of a spot on the roster, but it may also be argued that South Africa has a good team anyway and has done well in competitions against other African countries. Of course, this may not guarantee dominance of emerging countries, but it is still a big step to make places other than the “traditional” football nations (mostly in Europe and Latin America) more involved at high levels of the sport.
Zakumi
Zakumi is the official mascot of this year’s games. Zakumi is a leopard, but not just any ordinary leopard. He is yellow with green spots, stands on two legs, and wears a soccer uniform. He has even been given a windswept green hairdo. The “Za” comes from the fact that South Africa’s abbreviation is ZA. The “kumi” part means “ten” in multiple languages around Africa. So, even if the sound of the name (and, frankly, the drawing style used to depict Zakumi) leads you to assume that Zakumi is a Japanese import, he is not. He is very African. He also wears the colors of South Africa’s team. The motto associated with him is, “Zakumi’s game is fair play.” This is rather ironic, given that the run-up to the World Cup has been plagued with unusually high numbers of accusations of unfairness.
Beset with Problems
As was just stated in the section above, this particular run of games was plagued with numerous problems. One of the most high-profile ones came out of a game between France and Ireland. The captain of the French team made the winning goal illegally, but this was not seen by the referee. As a result, France was placed on the list of qualified teams ahead of Ireland. The Football Association of Ireland wanted a replay, but was denied. There was even an application to include Ireland as a 33rd team, but this was denied also. Costa Rica also made complaints about Uruguay’s win.
Besides the controversies about fair or unfair outcomes, it seems that the qualification games have not been free of violence. Much of it stemmed from the match-up between Algeria and Egypt. Both sides were attacked. First, hooligans stoned the bus of the Algerian team. Later, some Egyptian fans were violently attacked.