All this has been possible thanks to the efforts from the ex-president Nelson Mandela and the current president Thabo Mbeki and many other South Africans as to the economic support from FIFA and other local private companies.

Besides these arrangements, FIFA has sent to the 207 associations, applications to participate in the classification rounds and these need to be answered before March 1st of this year in order to be included as part of the tournament. The classification for the next World Cup will start in Oceania from August 25th until September 8th, 2007.

South Africa as the host country will enter in the final phase automatically, so the rest of countries will have to compete for the remaining 31 spots. It is very feasible the majority of teams will be from Europe, which usually take around 13 spaces.