A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| Coupe du Monde – France 98 (French) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Tournament details | |
| Host country | France |
| Dates | 10 June – 12 July |
| Teams | 32 (from 5 confederations) |
| Venue(s) | 10 (in 10 host cities) |
| Final positions | |
| Champions |  France (1st title) |
| Runners-up |  Brazil |
| Third place |  Croatia |
| Fourth place |  Netherlands |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 64 |
| Goals scored | 171 (2.67 per match) |
| Attendance | 2,785,100 (43,517 per match) |
| Top scorer(s) | Davor Šuker (6 goals) |
| Best player(s) | Ronaldo |
| Best young player |  Michael Owen |
| Best goalkeeper | Fabien Barthez |
| Fair play award | England France |
The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the second time in the history of the tournament (the first was in 1938), defeating Morocco in the bidding process. It was the ninth time that it was held in Europe. Spanning 32 days, it was the longest World Cup tournament ever held.
Qualification for the finals began in March 1996 and concluded in November 1997. For the first time in the competition, the group stage was expanded from 24 teams to 32, with eight groups of four. 64 matches were played in 10 stadiums in 10 host cities, with the opening match and final staged at the newly built Stade de France in the Parisian commune of Saint-Denis.
The tournament was won by host country France, who beat defending champions Brazil 3–0 in the final. France won their first title, becoming the seventh nation to win a World Cup, and the sixth (after Uruguay, Italy, England, West Germany and Argentina) to win the World Cup on home soil. As of 2022, they are the most recent team to win the tournament on home soil. Croatia, Jamaica, Japan and South Africa made their first appearances in the finals.
Host selection
France was awarded the 1998 World Cup on 2 July 1992 by the executive committee of FIFA during a general meeting in Zürich, Switzerland. They defeated Morocco by 12 votes to 7.[1][2] Switzerland withdrew, due to being unable to meet FIFA's requirements. This made France the third country to host two World Cups, after Mexico and Italy in 1986 and 1990 respectively. France previously hosted the third edition of the World Cup in 1938. England, who hosted the competition in 1966 and won it, were among the original applicants, but later withdrew their application in favour of an ultimately successful bid to host UEFA Euro 1996.
| Voting results[3] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Round 1 | ||
| France | 12 | ||
| Morocco | 7 | ||
Bribery and corruption investigations
On 4 June 2015, while co-operating with the FBI and the Swiss authorities, Chuck Blazer confirmed that he and other members of FIFA's executive committee were bribed during the 1998 and 2010 World Cups host selection process. Blazer stated that "we facilitated bribes in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup". Since France won the selection process it was initially thought the bribery came from its bid committee. It eventually transpired that the bribe payment was from the failed Moroccan bid.[4][5][6]
Qualification
The qualification draw for the 1998 World Cup finals took place in the Musée du Louvre, Paris on 12 December 1995.[7] As tournament hosts, France was exempt from the draw as was defending champion Brazil, but it was also France's first World Cup since 1986. 174 teams from six confederations participated, 24 more than in the previous round. Fourteen countries qualified from the European zone (in addition to hosts France). Ten were determined after group play – nine group winners and the best second-placed team; the other eight group runners-up were drawn into pairs of four play-off matches with the winners qualifying for the finals as well.[8] CONMEBOL (South America) and CAF (Africa) were each given five spots in the final tournament, while three spots were contested between 30 CONCACAF members in the North and Central America and the Caribbean zone. The winner of the Oceanian zone advanced to an intercontinental play-off against the runner-up of the Asian play-off, determined by the two best second-placed teams.
Four nations qualified for the first time: Croatia, Jamaica, Japan and South Africa. The last team to qualify was Iran by virtue of beating Australia in a two-legged tie on 29 November 1997.[9] It marked their first appearance in the finals since 1978, the last time Tunisia also qualified for the tournament. Chile qualified for the first time since 1982, after serving a ban that saw them miss out on the two previous tournaments. Paraguay and Denmark returned for the first time since 1986. Austria, England, Scotland and Yugoslavia returned after missing out on the 1994 tournament, with the Balkan team now appearing under the name of FR Yugoslavia. Among the teams who failed to qualify were two-time winners Uruguay (for the second successive tournament); Portugal (their last absence as of 2022); Sweden, who finished third in 1994; Russia (who failed to qualify for the first time since 1978 after losing to Italy in the play-off round); and the Republic of Ireland, who had qualified for the previous two tournaments.[10] The highest-ranked team not to qualify was the UEFA Euro 1996 runners-up the Czech Republic (ranked 3rd), while the lowest-ranked team that did qualify was Nigeria (ranked 74th).
As of 2022, this was the last time Austria, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania and Scotland qualified for a FIFA World Cup finals, and the only time Jamaica have qualified.
List of qualified teams
The following 32 teams, shown with final pre-tournament rankings,[11] qualified for the final tournament.