FIFA WORLD CUP - Germany 2006

Overview

World soccer's supreme title - The FIFA WORLD CUP is disputed between nations every four years.

Current holders BRAZIL will defend their title in 2006 in Germany.

Twelve cities - Berlin, Dortmund, Frankfurt/Main, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Hannover, Kaiserslautern, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart - have been named to host the Finals.

The opening match of World Cup 2006 will take place on 9th June in Munich - with the final taking place one month later in Berlin.

Global Soccer Federations will be represented by the following qualifiers:

Europe (UEFA) 14 (inc. hosts):
Asia (AFC) 4.5 (play-offs against CONCACAF):
South America (CONMEBOL) 4.5 (play-offs against OCEANIA):
Oceania (OFC) 0.5 (play-offs against CONMEBOL):
Africa (CAF) 5 :
North, Central America Caribbean (CONCACAF) 3.5 (playoffs against AFC).

Soccer is played on every continent and the soccer World Cup is the most viewed event in the world

In 2002 (staged in Korea/Japan) a cumulative in-home audience of 28.8 billion viewers watched the tournament.

In spite of non-prime time viewing hours in Europe, North and South America, many national audience records were broken - with an average world-wide figure of 314.1 million viewers recorded per match.

It's certain these record figure will be broken in Germany 2006.

Don't you miss it.

Keep checking World Soccer's 2006 World Cup pages for World Cup Soccer news updates, stats and info.