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 and with the most teams (32 teams in the competition finals) until 2026, when the World Cup was expanded to 48 teams.
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 suburb of Saint-Denis.
The tournament was won by host country France, who beat defending champions Brazil 3–0 in the final to win their first title. In doing so France became the seventh nation to win the World Cup, and the sixth (after Uruguay, Italy, England, West Germany and Argentina) to win the World Cup on home soil. Through 2026, France remains the most recent team to win the tournament on home soil. Croatia, Jamaica, Japan and South Africa made their first appearances in the tournament.
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. 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, were among the original applicants, but later withdrew their application in favour of an ultimately successful bid to host UEFA Euro 1996.
Voting resultsCountryRound 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.Vicki Hodges, Giles Mole, JJ Bull, Luke Brown and Rob Crilly, "Fifa whistleblower Chuck Blazer – bribes accepted for 1998 and 2010 World Cups: as it happened", The Telegraph, 3 June 2015 . Retrieved 4 June 2015Owen Gibson, Paul Lewis, "Fifa informant Chuck Blazer: I took bribes over 1998 and 2010 World Cups", The Guardian, 3 June 2015 . Retrieved 4 June 2015Tarik El Barakah, "U.S. judge claims that Morocco bribed FIFA to host 1998 World Cup", Moroccow World News, 28 May 2015 . Retrieved 31 January 2017
Qualification
The qualification draw for the 1998 World Cup finals took place in the Musée du Louvre, Paris on 12 December 1995. 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. 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. It marked their first appearance in the finals since 1978, 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.
The highest-ranked team that failed to qualify was the Czech Republic (ranked 3rd, mainly thanks to their runner-up campaign on UEFA Euro 1996), while the lowest-ranked team that did qualify was Nigeria (ranked 74th).
, this was the last time Romania and Bulgaria qualified for the World Cup finals, the only time Jamaica have qualified and the last time Portugal failed to qualify.
List of qualified teams
The following 32 teams, shown with final pre-tournament rankings, qualified for the final tournament.
AFC (4) (42) (debut) (12) (34) (20) CAF (5) (49) (13) (74) (debut) (24) (21) OFC (0) None qualified
CONCACAF (3) (debut) (30) (4) (11) CONMEBOL (5) (6) (holders) (1) (9) (10) (29)
UEFA (15) (31) (36) (35) (debut) (19) (27) (5) (18) (hosts) (2) (14) (25) (7) (22) (41) (15) FR Yugoslavia (8)
Teams listed by FIFA ranking as of May 1998 Country Confederation Rank 1 (1994 winner) CONMEBOL 1 2 UEFA 2 3 CONCACAF 4 4 UEFA 5 5 CONMEBOL 6 6 UEFA 7 7 UEFA 8 8 CONMEBOL 9 9 CONMEBOL 10 10 CONCACAF 11 11 AFC 12 12 CAF 13 13 UEFA 14 14 UEFA 15 15 (host) UEFA 18 16 UEFA 19 17 AFC 20 18 CAF 21 19 UEFA 22 20 CAF 24 21 UEFA 25 22 UEFA 27 23 CONMEBOL 29 24 CONCACAF 30 25 UEFA 31 26 AFC 34 27 UEFA 35 28 UEFA 36 29 UEFA 41 30 AFC 42 31 CAF 49 32 CAF 74
Venues France's bid to host the World Cup centered on the construction of a new national stadium with 80,000 seats and nine other stadiums located across the country. When the finals were originally awarded in July 1992, none of the regional club grounds were of a capacity meeting FIFA's requirements – namely being able to safely seat 40,000. The proposed national stadium, colloquially referred to as the 'Grand stade', met with controversy at every stage of planning; the stadium's location was determined by politics, finance and national symbolism, as Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac successfully negotiated a deal with Prime Minister Édouard Balladur to bring the Stade de France, as it was now called, to the commune of Saint-Denis just north of the capital city. Construction on the stadium started in December 1995 and was completed after 26 months of work in November 1997 at a cost of ₣2.67 billion.
The choice of stadium locations was drafted from an original list of 14 cities. FIFA and CFO monitored the progress and quality of preparations, culminating in the former providing final checks of the grounds weeks before the tournament commenced. Montpellier was the surprise inclusion from the final list of cities because of its low urban hierarchy in comparison to Strasbourg, who boasted a better hierarchy and success from its local football team, having been taken over by a consortium. Montpellier however was considered ambitious by the selecting panel to host World Cup matches. The local city and regional authorities in particular had invested heavily into football the previous two decades and were able to measure economic effects, in terms of jobs as early as in 1997. Some of the venues used for this tournament were also used for the previous World Cup in France in 1938. The Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, the Stade Municipal in Toulouse, the Parc Lescure in Bordeaux and the Parc des Princes in Paris received the honour of hosting World Cup matches once again in 1998 as they had all done in 1938; on the other hand, in addition to Strasbourg, four other cities which hosted games in 1938 were not selected: Le Havre, Lille, Reims and Antibes.
Ten stadiums were used for the tournament. In addition to nine matches being played at the Stade de France (the most used stadium in the tournament), a further six matches took place in Paris Saint-Germain's Parc des Princes, bringing the total number of matches in the Paris region to 15. France played four of their seven matches in the national stadium; they also played in the country's second and third largest cities, Marseille (hosting seven total matches) and Lyon (hosting six total matches), as well as a Round of 16 knockout match in the northern city of Lens (also hosting six total matches). Nantes, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Saint-Etienne also hosted six matches in total; all of the stadiums used also hosted knockout round matches.
Paris Marseille Paris Lyon Stade de France Stade Vélodrome Parc des Princes Stade de Gerland Capacity: 80,000 Capacity: 60,000 Capacity: 48,875 Capacity: 44,000 Lens Stade Félix-Bollaert Capacity: 41,300 Nantes Stade de la Beaujoire Capacity: 39,500 Toulouse Saint-Étienne Bordeaux Montpellier Stadium de Toulouse Stade Geoffroy-Guichard Parc Lescure Stade de la Mosson Capacity: 37,000 Capacity: 36,000 Capacity: 35,200 Capacity: 34,000
Innovations Technologies This was the first FIFA World Cup where fourth officials used electronic boards, instead of cardboard.
Rule changes This was the first World Cup since the introduction of golden goals,France 1998. Sport24, 5 May 2010 12:12. banning of tackles from behind that endanger the safety of an opponent and allowance of three substitutions per game.Substitute the subs rule? By Mitch Phillips, 5 November 2007 Reuters Soccer Blog.
Match officials 34 referees and 33 assistants officiated in the 1998 World Cup. As a result of the extension to 32 teams in the finals, there was an increase of 10 referees and 11 officials from the 1994 World Cup.
CAF (5)
Said Belqola Gamal Al-Ghandour Lucien Bouchardeau Lim Kee Chong Ian McLeod
AFC (4)
Abdul Rahman Al-Zaid Ali Bujsaim Masayoshi Okada Pirom Un-Prasert
UEFA (15)
Marc Batta Günter Benkö Pierluigi Collina Hugh Dallas Paul Durkin José María García-Aranda Bernd Heynemann Nikolai Levnikov Urs Meier Vítor Melo Pereira Kim Milton Nielsen Rune Pedersen László Vágner Mario van der Ende Ryszard Wójcik
CONCACAF (3)
Esfandiar Baharmast Arturo Brizio Carter Ramesh Ramdhan
OFC (1) Eddie Lennie
CONMEBOL (6)
Javier Castrilli Epifanio González Márcio Rezende de Freitas Mario Sánchez Yanten Alberto Tejada Noriega John Toro Rendón
Draw
The FIFA Organising Committee announced the eight seeded teams on 3 December 1997 at Marseille's Stade Vélodrome. The draw was conducted by at the time FIFA general secretary Joseph Blatter. Many players, both current and former, helped with the draw, such as Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto Parreira, George Weah, Julie Foudy, Raymond Kopa, Jean-Pierre Papin, Georges Carnus, and Marius Trésor.
The historic tradition to seed the hosts (France) and holders (Brazil) was upheld; while the remaining six seeds were granted for the other top 7-ranked teams, based on their results obtained in the last three FIFA World Cups (ratio 3:2:1, counting in total 60%) and their FIFA World Ranking position in the last month of the past three years (equal ratio, counting in total 40%).