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Fifa Ends Automatic World Cup Qualification for Winner

The FIFA Executive Committee, meeting in Busan (Korea) on the eve of the Final draw of the 2002 FIFA World Cup(tm), agreed with a proposal by the FIFA President, Joseph S. Blatter (who chaired the meeting), to discontinue the champions’ privilege after next year’s competition.

The Committee also agreed to the system defined two days ago by the FIFA World Cup Organising Committee for the draw at the BEXCO exhibition centre in Busan on Saturday (19.00 local time, 11.00 CET, 10.00 GMT).

Each of the 32 finalist teams will receive from FIFA a contribution of one million Swiss Francs towards its costs of preparation for the FIFA World Cup(tm).

The participation fee that each team will receive per match next year will be determined at a special meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee in Zurich on Tuesday 18 December, which will deal exclusively with World Cup finances and other financial matters.

Each finalist team will also be dope-tested on the occasion of at least one friendly match before the finals in Korea and Japan next year. Tests may also be carried out in training camps. It was furthermore agreed that in future the FIFA Disciplinary Committee should be responsible for doping cases and not the respective FIFA Organising Committee of the various competitions.

The Executive also was in favour of an agreement to be signed with WADA, the international anti-doping agency, but with FIFA still retaining its independence in doping matters.

The FIFA Executive was of the opinion that there is a need to introduce harmonised sanctions for doping offences, falsifying passports, age infringements and match fixing as well as violence against match officials.

A draft for new disciplinary regulations is to be submitted to the Executive Committee by March 2002.

The Committee heard that preparations for the 2006 FIFA World Cup(tm) inGermany were progressing ahead of schedule, especially in the commercial sector, and approved a request by the German Organising Committee to nominate the host cities earlier than normal, in spring next year.

Looking ahead to 2010 and beyond, the Presidents of the six continental confederations will meet next March to discuss the concept of rotating the FIFA World Cup(tm) among the continents, to come to a conclusion about the manner in which this agreed principle should be applied and to present their conclusions afterwards to the FIFA Executive Committee.

Other items:

* With the coordinated international calendar taking effect as of 1 January 2002 and already four world championships scheduled for 2003 (U-17 in Finland, World Youth Championship in UAE, Women´s World Cup in China and the Confederations Cup), the Executive Committee was of the opinion that holding the FIFA Club World Championship in the same year would be impossible in terms of timing.

It was suggested that a working groupconduct an in-depth study of the situation with a view to possibly replacing the Confederations Cup until 2006 by the Club World Championship.

* The list of members of the Dispute Resolution Chamber – which is to deal with disputes between players and clubs – were approved as were also the regulations governing the function of the Football Arbitration Tribunal (TAF) pending the clarification of certain points. The Dispute Resolution Chamber and the TAF are two new bodies foreseen under the revised international transfer regulations which took effect on 1 September 2001.

* In view of the revision of the FIFA Statutes, which is scheduled to be completed in time for the FIFA centenary in 2004, the basic outline of the proposed adaptations were determined and will be submitted to the 2002 FIFA Congress on 28 and 29 May 2002 in Seoul.

* Regarding the Olympic Games, the Committee supported FIFA’s insistence to the International Olympic Committee that there should be 12 teams in the Women’s Tournament in Greece in 2004, the IOC having so far offered to increase the current eight teams only to ten.

* An experiment with publicity on referees’ shirts in Spain was reported to have been a success. The Committee agreed to the principleof restricted publicity on referee’s shirts in club competition matches, with the explicit consent of the competition organisers. Such publicity must be restricted to no more than 200 square cm. on each sleeve, with alcohol and tobacco products banned as well as casinos and certain other sectors.

* Regarding artificial turf, the FIFA Executive felt that while the current standards need to be protected, licenses for approved surfaces should be made less expensive.

For further information please contact:

FIFA Media Office
Tel: +41-1/254 9800
Fax: +41-1/384 9696