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Big payday for World Cupo finalists
MARSEILLE, France (AP) -- Each of the 32 World Cup finalists will receive one million Swiss francs ($1.03 million Cdn) for each game it plays, FIFA announced Tuesday.And each of the 32 soccer associations will receive 750,000 Swiss francs ($770,000 Cdn) as a contribution towards its preparation costs.
Blatter says 32 teams is maximum for World Cup
NO MORE TEAMS: Now that it's reached a record 32 teams, the World Cup won't get any bigger, according to FIFA secretary-general Sepp Blatter.
Interviewed prior to Thursday's draw for next summer's finals in France, Blatter said he did not envisage it growing any larger.
"Thirty-two teams is not the optimum number, but the maximum," Blatter told Swiss weekly Sport. "The optimum number, in my opinion, would be 24 teams.
"And 33 days for a World Cup finals is a very long time. But that is the logical consequence of this expansion of the soccer movement, with over 200 federations now members of FIFA."
Yellow cards wiped out, red ones remain
ALL CLEAR FOR YELLOWS: Players won't carry yellow cards from the qualifying round into the World Cup finals. But FIFA decided Tuesday that red card offenders will still miss their first game of the competition.
FIFA's organizing committee for the June 10-July 12 finals said that any players will yellow cards lingering from qualification will start with a clean record.
But FIFA said that amnesty won't apply to players who have been shown red cards, even if it's for two yellows.
Fence arguement continues
FIFA'S FENCES PLEA: FIFA is still trying to persuade the local municipal authorities at Nantes and St. Etienne to tear down the fences that surround their soccer fields in time for the World Cup finals.
Soccer's world body has had a policy, since the 1989 tragedy at Hillsborough that killed 96 fans trapped inside a fence, that perimeter fencing should be removed so that fans can run onto the field in an emergency.
FIFA strengthened that policy after another disaster at Guatemala in October 1996 when 78 fans were crushed to death in a stadium stampede.
Of the 10 venues in use for the World Cup, only Nantes' Le Beaujoire and St Etienne's Geoffroy Guichard stadium still have fences and that's because the local authorities want them to remain.
"Well before the catastrophe of Guatemala, we wanted the suppression of fences in the soccer stadiums because they became death-traps," FIFA secretary-general Sepp Blatter said Tuesday.
"We have insisted to France to take down these fences on the occasion of the World Cup, that to maintain them will not be a good image neither for soccer nor for that of this country," Blatter said.
"When we confine people behind fences like animals, we make them aggressive."
NEXT ROUNDS: Round of 16 || Quarter-finals || Semi-finals
GROUP A: Brazil, Morocco, Norway, Scotland
GROUP B: Austria, Cameroon, Chile, Italy
GROUP C: Denmark, France, Saudi Arabia, South Africa
GROUP D: Bulgaria, Nigeria, Paraguay, Spain
GROUP E: Belgium, Holland, Mexico, South Korea
GROUP F: Germany, Iran, United States, Yugoslavia
GROUP G: Colombia, England, Romania, Tunisia
GROUP H: Argentina, Croatia, Jamaica, Japan
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