204 Teams Enter Preliminary Rounds - A Record

FIFA have announced that a record 204 national teams have entered the preliminary competition to take part in the 19th FIFA World Cup™ to be held in South Africa in 2010.

One of the new countries to be submitted is Montenegro which is probably going to become the 208th association next may - which may cause some complications for the Euro 2008 tournament.

There were four nations that didn't register for the tournament the Philippines, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam and Laos.

The first qualifying matches will take place this August. The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) will use the South Pacific Games to be held from 25 August to 8 September of this year as a preliminary qualifying tournament for the Oceania region.

Obviously South Africa qualify automatically as hosts, whilst the other 31 places to take part in the 2010 World Cup from 11th June to 11 July will be allocated as follows:

- AFC (Asia): 4.5*
- CAF (Africa): 5
- CONCACAF (North, Central America and the Caribbean): 3.5**
- CONMEBOL (South America): 4.5**
- OFC (Oceania): 0.5*
- UEFA (Europe): 13

*AFC and OFC to compete for one berth
**CONCACAF and CONMEBOL to compete for one berth