The 2018 FIFA World Cup (Russian: Чемпионат мира по футболу 2018 года) was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in late 2010. It was the eleventh time the championships had been held in Europe and the first time they were held in Russia, also featuring one or two venues, depending on definition, located across the boundary with Asia. At an estimated cost of over $14.2 billion, it was the most expensive World Cup ever held until it was surpassed by the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The tournament phase involved 32 teams, of which 31 came through qualifying competitions, while the host nation Russia qualified automatically. Of the 32, 20 had also appeared in the 2014 event, while Iceland and Panama each made their debut at the World Cup. 64 matches were played in 12 venues across 11 cities. Germany, the defending champions, were eliminated in the group stage for the first time since 1938. Host nation Russia was eliminated in the quarter-finals. In the final, France played Croatia on 15 July at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. France won the match 4–2, claiming their second World Cup and becoming the fourth consecutive European winners after Italy in 2006, Spain in 2010, and Germany in 2014—a new record for teams representing the same continent.
Croatian player Luka Modrić was voted the tournament's best player and awarded the Golden Ball. England's Harry Kane won the Golden Boot after scoring the most goals during the tournament with six. Belgium's Thibaut Courtois won the Golden Glove, awarded to the goalkeeper with the best performance. Kylian Mbappé was voted the World Cup Best Young Player and became the second teenager, after Pelé, to score in a World Cup final. It has been estimated that more than 3 million people attended games during the tournament.
Host selection
The bidding procedure to host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup tournaments began in January 2009, and national associations had until 2 February 2009 to register their interest. Initially, nine countries placed bids for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but Mexico later withdrew from the proceedings, and Indonesia's bid was rejected by FIFA in February 2010 after the Indonesian government failed to submit a letter to support the bid. During the bidding process, the three remaining non-UEFA nations (Australia, Japan, and the United States) gradually withdrew from the 2018 bids, and thus all UEFA nations were ruled out of the 2022 bid. As such, there were eventually four bids for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, two of which were joint bids: England, Russia, Netherlands/Belgium, and Portugal/Spain.
The 22-member FIFA Executive Committee convened in Zürich on 2 December 2010 to vote to select the hosts of both tournaments. Russia won the right to be the 2018 host in the second round of voting. The Portugal/Spain bid came second, and that from Belgium/Netherlands third. England, which was bidding to host its second tournament, was eliminated in the first round.
The voting results were:
+2018 FIFA bidding (majority 12 votes)BiddersVotesRound 1Round 2Russia9Portugal / Spain77Belgium / Netherlands42England2
Host selection criticism
The choice of Russia as host was controversial. Issues included the high level of racism in Russian football, human rights abuses by Russian authorities, and discrimination against LGBT people in government (including gay propaganda laws) along with wider Russian society. Russia's annexation of Crimea had also prompted calls for the tournament to be moved. In 2014, FIFA president Sepp Blatter stated that "the World Cup has been given and voted to Russia and we are going forward with our work".
Russia was criticised for alleged abuse of migrant labourers in the construction of World Cup venues, with Human Rights Watch reporting cases where workers were left unpaid, made to work in dangerously cold conditions, or suffering reprisals for raising concerns. A few pundits claimed it was slave labour. In May 2017, FIFA president Gianni Infantino admitted there had been human rights abuses of North Korean workers involved in the construction of Saint Petersburg's Zenit Arena. By June 2017, at least 17 workers had died on World Cup construction sites, according to Building and Wood Workers' International. In August, a group of eight US senators called on FIFA to consider dismissing Russia as the World Cup host if an independent investigation verified allegations of North Koreans being subjected to forced labour.
Racism and Neo-nazi symbols displayed in the past by some Russian football fans drew criticism, with documented incidents of racial chants, banners spewing hate-filled messages, and sometimes assaults on people from the Caucasus and Central Asia. In March 2015, FIFA's then Vice-President Jeffrey Webb said that Russia posed a huge challenge from a racism standpoint, and that a World Cup could not be held there under the current conditions. On July, United Nations anti-discrimination official Yuri Boychenko said that Russian soccer authorities had failed to fully grasp what racism was and needed to do more to combat it. To address this as well as concerns of hooliganism in general, Russian intelligence services blacklisted over 400 fans from entering the stadiums by June 2018, with 32 other countries also sending officers to help local police screen attendees for valid ID cards.
Allegations of corruption in the bidding processes and concerns over bribery on the part of the Russian team and corruption by FIFA members for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups led to threats from England's FA to boycott the tournament. They claimed that four members of the executive committee had requested bribes to vote for England, and Sepp Blatter had said it had already been arranged before the vote that Russia would win. FIFA appointed Michael J. Garcia, a US attorney, to investigate and produce a report on the corruption allegations. Although the report was never published, FIFA released a 42-page summary of its findings as determined by German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert. Eckert's summary cleared Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing, but was denounced by critics as a whitewash. Because of the controversy, the FA refused to accept Eckert's absolving Russia from blame. Greg Dyke called for a re-examination of the affair and David Bernstein called for a boycott of the World Cup. Garcia criticised the summary as being "materially incomplete" with "erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions", and appealed to FIFA's Appeal Committee. The committee declined to hear his appeal, so Garcia resigned to protest of FIFA's conduct, citing a "lack of leadership" and lack of confidence in Eckert's independence.
On 3 June 2015, the FBI confirmed that federal authorities were investigating the bidding and awarding processes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. In an interview published on 7 June 2015, Domenico Scala, the head of FIFA's Audit And Compliance Committee, stated that "should there be evidence that the awards to Qatar and Russia came only because of bought votes, then the awards could be cancelled". Prince William of Wales and former British Prime Minister David Cameron attended a meeting with FIFA vice-president Chung Mong-joon in which a vote-trading deal for the right to host the 2018 World Cup in England was discussed.
Teams Qualification
For the first time in the history of the FIFA World Cup, all eligible nations—the 209 FIFA member associations except automatically qualified hosts Russia—applied to enter the qualifying process. Zimbabwe and Indonesia were later disqualified before playing their first matches, while Gibraltar and Kosovo, who joined FIFA on 13 May 2016 after the qualifying draw but before European qualifying had begun, also entered the competition. Places in the tournament were allocated to continental confederations, with the allocation unchanged from the 2014 World Cup. The first qualification game, between Timor-Leste and Mongolia, began in Dili on 12 March 2015 as part of the AFC's qualification, and the main qualifying draw took place at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, Saint Petersburg, on 25 July 2015.
Of the 32 nations qualified to play at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, 20 countries competed at the previous tournament in 2014. Both Iceland and Panama qualified for the first time, with the former becoming the smallest country in terms of population to reach the World Cup.
Qualified teams
AFC (5) (36) (37) (61) (67) (57)
CAF (5) (45) (41) (48) (27) (21)
CONCACAF (3) (23) (15) (55) (debut)
CONMEBOL (5) (5) (2) (16) (11) (14)
OFC (0) None qualified
UEFA (14) (3) (20) (joint 12) (joint 12) (7) (1) (22) (debut) (8) (4) (70) (hosts) (34) (10) (24) (6)
Draw
The draw was held on 1 December 2017 at 18:00 MSK at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow. The draw was conducted by former footballer Gary Lineker alongside Russian sports journalist , with several well-known football personalities assisting, including Diego Maradona, Fabio Cannavaro, Cafu, Diego Forlán, Gordon Banks, Carles Puyol, Laurent Blanc, and former Russian player Nikita Simonyan. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four, by selecting one team from each of the four ranked pots.
For the draw, the teams were allocated to four pots based entirely on the FIFA World Rankings of October 2017. Pot one contained the hosts Russia (who were automatically assigned to position A1) and the best seven teams. Pot two contained the next best eight teams, and so on for pots three and four. This was different from previous draws, when only pot one was based on FIFA rankings while the remaining pots were based on geographical considerations. However, teams from the same confederation still were not drawn against each other for the group stage, except that two UEFA teams could be in each group. The pots for the draw are shown below.
Pot 1 Pot 2 Pot 3 Pot 4 (65) (hosts) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (10) (11) (12) (13) (16) (17) (18) (19) (21) (22) (25) (28) (30) (32) (34) (38) (41) (43) (44) (48) (49) (62) (63)
Group AGroup BGroup CGroup DGroup EGroup FGroup GGroup H
Squads
Initially, each team had to name a preliminary squad of 30 players, but in February 2018 this was increased to 35. From the preliminary squad, the team had to name a final squad of 23 players (three of whom had to be goalkeepers) by 4 June. Players in the final squad could be replaced for serious injury up to 24 hours prior to kickoff of the team's first match. These replacements did not need to have been named in the preliminary squad.
For players named in the 35-player preliminary squad, there was a mandatory rest period between 21 and 27 May 2018, except for those involved in the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final played on 26 May.
Officiating
On 29 March 2018, FIFA released the list of 36 referees and 63 assistant referees selected to oversee matches. On 30 April 2018, FIFA released the list of 13 video assistant referees, who acted solely in this capacity in the tournament.
Referee Fahad Al-Mirdasi of Saudi Arabia was removed on 30 May 2018 over a match-fixing attempt, along with his two assistant referees, compatriots Mohammed Al-Abakry and Abdulah Al-Shalwai. A new referee was not appointed, but two assistant referees, Hasan Al Mahri of the United Arab Emirates and Hiroshi Yamauchi of Japan, were added to the list. Assistant referee Marwa Range of Kenya also withdrew after the BBC released an investigation conducted by a Ghanaian journalist which implicated him in a bribery scandal.