It seems that no other sporting event captures the world’s imagination like the FIFA World Cup. Its popularity has grown since FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) started the first competition in Uruguay in 1930.

The original idea came from a group of visionary French football administrators, led in the 1920s by the innovative Jules Rimet. Their concept was to bring the world’s strongest national football teams together to compete for the title of World Champions. The original gold trophy bore Jules Rimet’s name and was contested three times in the 1930s, before the Second World War put a 12-year stop to the competition.

After the war, the FIFA World Cup rapidly advanced to its undisputed status as the greatest single sporting event of the modern world. Held since 1958 alternately in Europe and the Americas, the World Cup committee changed this ruling in May 1996 and selected Korea and Japan as co-hosts for the 2002 edition.

Since 1930, the 16 tournaments have seen only seven different winners. However, the FIFA World Cup has also been punctuated by dramatic upsets that have helped create footballing history - the United States defeating England in 1950, North Korea’s defeat of Italy in 1966, Cameroon’s emergence in the 1980s and their opening match defeat of the Argentinean cup-holders in 1990.

Today, the FIFA World Cup has a global audience. Figures from France in 1998 showed that 37 billion people watched tournament, including approximately 1.3 billion for the final alone, while over 2.7 million people flocked to watch the 64 matches.

After all these years the glistening golden trophy that is the FIFA World Cup, remains the embodiment of every footballer’s ambition.

Check out the official site on http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/index.html