Even if there were no doubts on the final choice by FIFA (read our previous news: click here), yesterday was officially announced Brazil as World Cup 2008 (new competition name instead of World Championship) hosting country. According to a press relase by CBFS Brazil defeated other candidates like England, Germany, France, Romania, Egypt, Iran and Costa Rica, even though, as far as we could know, all candidates (including other countries not mentioned in the brazilian release) retired their proposal after knowing the brazilian presence in that list.

Below you can read the FIFA Communication on different matters (Futsal World Cup note in bold)

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At a meeting chaired by President Joseph S. Blatter in Leipzig today, the FIFA Executive Committee resolved to press ahead with professional refereeing and noted that a working group of the Referees Committee had started work on this project. Furthermore, the committee approved the new regulations regarding nominations for the FIFA List of International Referees, Assistant Referees and Futsal Referees. The 2006 edition will comprise 884 match officials. The allocations per confederation are as follows: AFC 191, CAF 233, CONCACAF 93, CONMEBOL 74, OFC 25 and UEFA 268.
Further to written information that had already been distributed to the members, President Blatter reported on the Task Force “For the Good of the Game” which the Ordinary FIFA Congress in Marrakech/Morocco had approved on 12 September 2005 at his proposal. Of the three working groups, politics, financial matters and competitions, the latter two had already started work (see previous media releases). By March 2006, the current problems in these three areas will have been identified and the executive body will discuss them at its next meeting with a view to making specific proposals to the next Ordinary FIFA Congress in Munich on 6 June 2006.

The executive body also expressed its outright appreciation of the dialogue between football and politics but was of the opinion that the principles of such a dialogue should first be defined. The meeting planned for tomorrow, 8 December 2005, with British Sports Minister Richard Caborn, whose country currently presides over the European Union, and other EU sports ministers, will be rescheduled.

The Executive Committee also discussed the following points:

Proposals will be made to the 2006 FIFA Congress for modifications to be made to the provision regarding age in the Men's Olympic Football Tournament. Hitherto, three players over the age of 23 have been able to compete. This rule will be abolished for the 2008 Olympic Football Tournament. The IOC’s decision to admit twelve teams (hitherto ten) to the women’s competition was welcomed.

The proposal was approved for the number of teams in the new U-17 women’s competition starting in 2008 to be increased from 12 to 16.

The organisation of the next FIFA Futsal World Championship in 2008 was awarded to Brazil.

The dates for the next African Cup of Nations in Egypt from 20 January to 10 February 2006 were officially approved in accordance with the International Match Calendar.

The FIFA Emergency Committee’s decision on 1 November 2005 to award the USA television rights for the period 2007-2014 to ABC/ESPN and Univision for the sum of USD 425m (see separate media release) was ratified.

Furthermore, the executive body agreed that the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking should be revised. The new system will come into effect after the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ and will include data from the previous four instead of eight years for evaluation purposes.

On the question of member associations, the executive body passed the following decisions:

1. Officially to ratify the Emergency Committee’s provisional revocation of the Yemen Football Association’s suspension

2. to grant the Kenya Football Federation another deadline of two months in which to bring its structure into line with the FIFA Statutes, or else be suspended

3. to suspend the Algeria football association as from 23 December 2005 unless the elections planned for 22 December are carried out in accordance with the association’s applicable statutes.

4. to suspend payments from the Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) to the Football Association of Brunei Darussalam for as long as the association fails to submit its statutes to FIFA; these statutes should have been received by 15 April 2004.


Finally, the executive took note of reports on the following topics:

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™
1. FIFA U-17 World Championship, staged with 16 teams in five venues in Peru from 16 September to 2 October 2005
2. FIFA Club World Championship TOYOTA Cup in Japan, to be staged from 11 to 18 December 2005; the Executive Committee approved the dates for the 2006 competition (10-17 December)
3. FIFA U-20 Women’s World Championship in Russia from 16 August to 2 September 2006
4. FIFA Women’s World Cup 2007 in China; the committee approved the new dates from 10 to 30 September
5. Meeting of the FIFA Club Task Force on 17 November 2005 (see separate media release)
6. Goal Programme status: 223 projects have been granted in 176 associations; 94 have already been completed.


Finally, FIFA General Secretary Urs Linsi informed the Executive Committee that Michael Schallhart, the Director of the Executive Office of the President, had been appointed Deputy General Secretary.



Further information from:
FIFA Media Department – tel.: +41-43 222 7272, fax: +41-43/222 7373, e-mail : media@fifa.org
FIFA COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION / Zurich, 7 December 2005 / 2005-0134-PostExcoLeipzig-D.doc



Further information from:
FIFA Media Department
media@fifa.org

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Previous Editions (run by FIFA)

5th -> Chinese Taipei - 2004 -> Winner: Spain
4th -> Guatemala - 2000 -> Winner: Spain
3rd -> Spain - 1996 -> Winner: Brazil
2nd -> Hong Kong - 1992 -> Winner: Brazil
1st -> Netherlands - 1989 -> Winner: Brazil

Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com