Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.
Gary Lineker, 1990
Despite having 211 national associations in world’s football organization Fifa, this map reveals the domination of Europe and South America in the tournament (in participation, as well as in the world cup winners), those regions with football being among the most popular sports. This inequality in the football worldcup can be explained by having a look at how the qualification process is organised: “For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations’ teams” (see here). The football may be of global significance, but it is far from being a global game. The world map of football looks different than the map of the world.
At the end of 2014, Brazil is leading the ranking of all-time World Cup with five wins (in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002), ahead of Germany (in 1954, 1974, 1990, 2014) and Italy (in 1934, 1938, 1982, 2006) both with four wins and Argentina (in 1978, 1986) and Uruguay (in 1930, 1950) with two wins each. England, France, and Spain have all won the trophy once.
