South American Football Confederation
With Italy's victory in 2006, Europe and South America are tied at 9 Cup victories each. South American sides have not only won every one of the four tournaments played in South America, but also all of those played on non-European continents - 3 in North America and 1 in Asia, aside from Brazil’s triumph in Sweden.
Controversial qualifying system
In December 2006 Fifa decided to allow the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) to use a system for the qualifiers whereby all 10 countries play each other home and away in a single group. This system was used for the 2006, 2002 and 1998 Soccer World Cups and has come in for some criticism from European clubs, as they are forced to release their South American players for the games and complain that they are worn out by the constant transatlantic travel (it takes more than 2 years to complete the South American qualifiers).
The South American qualifiers are scheduled to get under way in September and October of 2007. Conmebol said the dates would follow the international calender and would be in pairs so that players would effectively have to make only 9 transatlantic journeys over a period of 2 years.
Number of qualifying slots
South American nations are playing for a total of 4.5 qualifying spots in Soccer World Cup 2010 (5th-placed South American team plays 4th-placed North American team for a qualifying spot)
Nations
Bolivia |
Chile |
Colombia |
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Paraguay |
Peru |
Venezuela |