The 2010 FIFA World Cup is the 19th FIFA World Cup, the premier international football tournament. It is scheduled to take place between June 11 and July 11th 2010 in South Africa.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be the culmination of a qualification process that began in August 2007 and involved 204 of the 208 FIFA national teams. As such, it matches the 2008 Summer Olympics as the sports event with the most competing nations.

This will be the first time that the tournament has been hosted by an African nation, after South Africa beat Morocco and Egypt in an all-African bidding process. This decision left the Oceania Football Confederation as the only confederation yet to host the FIFA World Cup. Italy is the defending champions. The draw for the finals took place on December 4th 2009 in Cape Town.

List of qualified teams

The following 32 teams qualified for the final tournament.

AFC (4)

* Australia
* Japan
* Korea DPR
* Korea Republic

CAF (6)

* Algeria
* Cameroon
* Côte d’Ivoire
* Ghana
* Nigeria
* South Africa (hosts)

CONCACAF (3)

* Honduras
* Mexico
* United States

Qualified Countries In Green

CONMEBOL (5)

* Argentina
* Brazil
* Chile
* Paraguay
* Uruguay

OFC (1)

* New Zealand

UEFA (13)

* Denmark
* England
* France
* Germany
* Greece
* Italy
* Netherlands
* Portugal
* Serbia
* Slovakia
* Slovenia
* Spain
* Switzerland

2010 World Cup Preparations

Five new stadiums have been built for the tournament, and five of the existing venues are to be upgraded.

In addition to the stadiums being built and upgraded, South Africa is also planning to improve its current public transportation infrastructure within the various cities, with projects such as the Gautrain and the new Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) titled Rea Vaya  Danny Jordaan, the president of the 2010 World Cup organizing committee, expects all stadiums for the tournament to be completed on ime.

Ellis Park Stadium Johannesburg

The country is also going to implement special measures to ensure the safety and security of local and international tourists attending the matches in accordance with standard FIFA requirements including a temporary restriction of flight operation in the airspace surrounding the stadiums.

The readiness of this African nation to host one of the biggest events in a sports that is worshiped by millions has received positive response from FIFA. FIFA has rated the readiness of South Africa at eight on a scale of 10  with the hope that they would be completely ready before the matches actually start.