Far Out / FIFA
Every four years, the World Cup comes around, and it becomes a football summer, with World Cup fever spreading quicker than Hantavirus. This year’s outing, spread across North America, with Canada, the United States and Mexico all hosting, is set to be the biggest and most expensive yet. It’s the biggest, quite literally, as the three countries combine to make this the largest World Cup ever in terms of square miles covered, but with an increase from 32 to 48 teams, it’s grown in size too…….Continue reading…
By: Sam Farley
Source: Far Out Magazine
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Critics:
The event most associated with the name is the FIFA World Cup for association football, which dates back to 1930. Since then there have been a number of sporting events labeled “world cup”, such as the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, the Rugby World Cup, Rugby League World Cup, Basketball World Cup, and the Hockey World Cup.
A world cup is generally, though not always, considered the premier competition in its sport, with the victor attaining the highest honour in that sport and being able to lay claim to the title of their sport’s best. In some sports, however, the Olympic title carries at least as much prestige, while other sports such as diving and artistic gymnastics differentiate between their premier competitions, such as World Championships and Olympic Games, and their “World Cup”, which is organized as a smaller scale but high-level showcase event with small elite fields.
Some sports governing bodies prefer the title “world championship” or a related term; some even organize both a world cup and a world championship with different rules. Usually, such competitions take one of two forms: a short periodic competition or a year-long series of meetings, but more frequently many sports have both a World Cup (usually consisting of multiple events in a season), and a world championship (usually a single event).
A periodic world cup or world championship usually takes the form of a knockout tournament (possibly with an initial group stage). This is held over a number of days or weeks, with the entrants eventually being whittled down to two, and the tournament culminating in a world cup final. The winner(s) take the title of World Champion(s) and hold it until the next time the event is held (usually one, two, or four years later).
This format is most common in team sports. In individual sports however, holding the title can vary in terms of duration, as it is dependent on the timing of the next scheduled individual contest between the defending champion and a challenger. A contrasting concept, popular in individual sports, is a year-long competition with several meetings over its course. In this format, victory at an individual meeting earns a number of points, and, usually, a number of positions below also score points inversely related to their position.
Contestants accumulate a number of points over the course of the year (often “season”) and their cumulative total after all meetings have been concluded determines the World Champion or, simply, World Cup winner. The winner is then considered the champion until the next World Cup.
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