The FIFA World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. Some of the interesting facts related to FIFA are as follows.

India qualified In 1950 for World Cup Football to be held at Uruguay. However, India withdrew later following a FIFA ruling that players were not allowed to play barefoot. India had never been able to qualify for the World Cup before and have never been able to do since then, which means they are the only team to have qualified for the World Cup and that never played a World Cup match.

The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II.

During the 18 tournaments that have been held, seven national teams have won the title.

Uruguay was the First country to win the World Cup title in 1930.

Until 1962 Brazil haven’t won a single world cup. But in last 12 world cups they have bagged 5 titles.

Brazil is the only non- European country to win World Cup when European country was the host.

Germany and Brazil each have appeared 7 times in the finals of the World cup.

Scotland have qualified 8 times for World Cup but never cleared the first round.

Hungary holds the best margin win over El Salvador in 1982 with 10-1 win.

Pele is the only player to win 3 gold medals in the World cup.

Lothar Matthaus (ger) and Antonio Carbajal (mex) holds max appearances in 5 world cup.

Just Fontaine of france holds max goal scoring record of 13 goals in 1958. Whereas, Ronaldo of Brazil holds max goal scorer of 15 goals in 3 world cups.

Mario Zagallo (bra) and Franz Beckenbauer (ger) have won World Cup as players and as head coach.

Hakan Sukur (tur) scored the fastest goal from kick off in 11sec against S.Korea in 2002

Until 1970's the world cup was known as Jules Rimet Cup which went to Brazil permanently after 3rd win. However it was stolen in 1983 and was never recovered. Present trophy is known as FIFA world cup trophy.

According to the present rule,the winning country will retain the trophy till the next world cup and on its return they will be given a similar gold plated replica of the World Cup trophy.

The youngest player in World Cup history to have scored a goal is Pelé of Brazil when he scored against Wales in 1958. He was then only 17 years and 239 days old.

The only players to have scored in every match including the final are Jairzinho of Brazil, who did this in the 1970 World Cup and Alcide Ghiggia of Uruguay in 1950. The latter only played four games where as Jairzinho played six.

The only player to have scored for two countries is Robert Prosinecki who represented Yugoslavia in 1990 scoring against the United Arab Emirates, and Croatia in 1998 scoring against Jamaica.