Template:Future sportTemplate:Infobox Football World Cup
The 2006FIFA World Cup (officially titled 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, sometimes referred to as the Football World Cup or just the World Cup) finals are scheduled to take place in Germany between 9 June and 9 July2006. Qualification for the tournament is now complete, with all 32 competing teams confirmed. The 2006 finals are the eighteenth to be contested. In June 2000, Germany won the right to host the event, beating the bids of South Africa (who will be the hosts of the 2010 FIFA World Cup), England, Brazil, and Morocco.
Venues
A total of twelve German cities have been selected to host the World Cup final tournament. The stadium capacities shown are all seated capacities. Many of the stadiums have higher capacities for German domestic football matches as some of the seats are replaced with terraces.
Starting with the 2006 Cup, FIFA has changed the qualification rules so that the winner of the previous World Cup had to qualify for the Finals; only the host nation is given an automatic berth. This arrangement is expected to continue into future Cups.
The following teams, shown by region, have qualified for the Finals. The number in brackets is the country's seeding for the tournament. This value was decided via two factors:
The side's performances at the two most recent World Cups (in 1998 and 2002)
These seedings were only relevant for the selection of the top eight sides, and their allocation of one to each group. Other nations were drawn according to geographical factors. That Serbia and Montenegro were regarded as the fourteenth UEFA qualifier and thus placed in a separate pot in the draw was determined purely on positions in the FIFA rankings in November 2005.
Despite representing Oceania in qualifying, Australia, from January 12006 onward, is part of the Asian Confederation, and will represent Asia in following World Cups.
Also, on June 3, 2006, Montenegro declared independence from Serbia. This World Cup will be the last international competition in which Serbia & Montenegro are represented by a single team.
National associations had until 15 May2006 to confirm their squad of twenty-three players. Of these twenty-three, three players must be goalkeepers. In the event of injury, a player may be replaced up until twenty-four hours before the team's first game [3].
Groups
The seeded teams for the 2006 cup were announced on December 5, 2005. These comprised Pot A in the draw.
Pot B contained the unseeded qualifiers from South America, Africa and Oceania; Pot C contained eight of the nine remaining European sides, excluding Serbia and Montenegro. Pot D contained unseeded sides from the CONCACAF region and Asia.
A special pot contained Serbia and Montenegro, and the three non-European seeded teams: this was done to ensure that no group contained three European teams. In the special pot, Serbia and Montenegro (white ball) was drawn first, then their group was drawn (black ball) from the three seeded non-European nations, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
It had been predetermined that as hosts, Germany would be placed in Group A, thus being assured of the venues of their group matches in advance of the draw. FIFA had also announced in advance that Brazil would be allocated to group F.
On December 9, 2005 the draw was held and the group assignments and order of fixtures were determined. After the draw was completed, many football commentators remarked that Group E and, to a lesser extent, Group C appeared to be the groups of death in the Cup [4][5].
2006 will have the most first time nations since the first one in 1930, with seven playing in their first World Cup.
The vocal group, Il Divo, and R&B singer, Toni Braxton, will sing the official song "A Time of Our Lives" [7]. The official album will be released in May 2006 which will also include an special version of Shakira's newest hit "Hips Don't Lie".
Under FIFA's initial plans, fans without a German bank account could only purchase tickets through an international bank transfer (costing around 50 Euros) or with a MasterCard. This was changed as it was found to breach European Union competition laws [8].
Crime and the World Cup
Some international human rights groups (like the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Nordic Council and Amnesty International) have expressed concern that there will be an increase in the trafficking of women up to and during the World Cup in Germany. According to PACE and Amnesty, 30,000 women and girls might be the object of trafficking for the purposes of forced prostitution during the World Cup. They have called upon the German authorities to monitor sex venues during the World Cup and provide support for the victims of trafficking. [1][2][3][4]
It has been claimed that "foreign-looking" people should not visit some areas in former East Germany [5], after one newspaper reported that some neo-Naziskinheads are planning violence against foreigners. Germany, in common with some other countries, contains a small minority of neo-Nazis who have engaged in violent attacks against the country's immigrants in the last few years. [6][7] It has been revealed that neo-Nazis will be attending Iran's matches, in support of their President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rejection of Israel.
Israel: Most matches only on pay-per-view. The opening match, and matches from the quarter-final and onwards, will be broadcast by Channel 2 and Channel 10, with the latter broadcasting the final.
Standard-definition: English - ABC, ESPN, ESPN2; Spanish - Univision, TeleFutura; German - Setanta Sports USA; Korean - KBS World (digital free-to-air in some areas, such as San Francisco via KMTP-DT 32.2); French - TV5Monde Etats-Unis; Brazilian Portuguese - RBTI; Farsi - T3 Time
^During the World Cup, many of the stadiums will be officially known by different names, as FIFA prohibits sponsorship of stadium names unless the stadium sponsors are also official FIFA sponsors. For example, Allianz Arena will be known during the competition as "FIFA World Cup Stadium, Munich" (or in German: "FIFA WM-Stadion München"). These new names are reflected in the table. Of the twelve hosting stadia, all but one (Leipzig) are in the former West Germany.
^For the first time ever, the state broadcaster RAI lost the bid for full TV broadcasting. However, Rai TV will broadcast and a full match for every group game, plus 4 out of 8 Ro16 games and all remaining games - including, by law, the Azzurri's matches -. Radio Rai will air all of the 64 matches - for free - as every time.
^HD will be available for free both in the terrestrial network and by Canal Digital satellite.
