Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Who is the current champion of FIFA?
The FIFA World Cup is an international association football competition established in 1930. It is contested by the men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has taken place every four years, except in 1942 and 1946, when the competition was cancelled due to World War II. The most recent World Cup, hosted by Russia in 2018, was won by France, who beat Croatia 4–2 in regulation time.
Sport forms an integral part of German life. 27,000,000 Germans are members of a sports club and an additional 12,000,000 pursue such an activity individually. Association football is the most popular sport. With more than 6,300,000 official members, the German Football Association ("Deutscher Fußball-Bund") is the largest sports organisation of its kind worldwide. The Bundesliga attracts the second-highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world. The German national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990 and 2014 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996. Germany has hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1974 and 2006 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1988. Amongst the most successful and renowned footballers are: Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Jürgen Klinsmann, Lothar Matthäus, and Oliver Kahn. Other popular spectator sports include handball, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, and tennis.
The Vatican is one of only nine fully recognized sovereign states whose national team is not a FIFA member. The others are the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom (though the UK's four "home countries" (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) have individual FIFA teams each of which is also a member of the IFAB). In May 2014, Domenico Ruggerio, president of the national football association, stated that "I prefer to be amateur...To join FIFA, at that level, will be like a business" after stating "The important message of friendship and love is demonstrated by the sport — the real sport, not the business that is in football these days...It is not just important to win a match; it is how you carry yourself." Therefore, that, he added, meant that "the ethos of the Vatican’s soccer team was, at odds with FIFA membership."
The UEFA European Championship (known informally as the Euros) is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), determining the continental champion of Europe. Held every four years since 1960, in the even-numbered year between World Cup tournaments, it was originally called the UEFA European Nations' Cup, changing to the current name in 1968. Starting with the 1996 tournament, specific championships are often referred to in the form "UEFA Euro [year]"; this format has since been retroactively applied to earlier tournaments.
Brazil are current champions and the most successful nation with six titles. They also won the 2005 joint event.There have been seven editions of the championship as of 2017. For every edition, the top three nations qualified to the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.
The European governing body UEFA was founded in 1954, and created their first competition, the European Cup, the next year. It was expanded and renamed in 1992 as the UEFA Champions League. Liverpool hold the English record, with five wins. Parallel to UEFA, various officials created the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1955, but this competition was disbanded when UEFA created the replacement tournament the UEFA Cup in 1971, renamed the UEFA Europa League in 2009. The English record number of Europa Leagues is three, also held by Liverpool. Another competition absorbed into the UEFA Cup, in 1999, was the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, which was created in 1960 and featured the winners of national knockout competitions. The winners of this competition played the European Cup winners in the UEFA Super Cup, starting in 1972 but was recognised by UEFA in 1973, which now features the winners of the Champions and Europa Leagues. The International Football Cup, also known as the UEFA Intertoto Cup, started in 1961, was a competition for clubs not participating in the European Cup, UEFA Cup, and Cup Winners Cup. UEFA officially recognised it in 1995, and discontinued it in 2008, with the Europa League expanded to accommodate Intertoto clubs. UEFA and CONMEBOL also created an intercontinental competition in 1960 with the Intercontinental Cup, featuring representatives from both associations. In 2000, the international governing body FIFA created the FIFA Club World Cup and in 2004 the Intercontinental Cup was merged with it. Manchester United are the only English club to win either intercontinental competition, winning each once.
There are currently 211 FIFA members, each one with its unique country code.
The following codes refer to countries or dependent areas that are currently not affiliated with FIFA, but whose codes either appear in the FIFA results database, or are used regularly by confederation websites.
Twenty-seven million Germans are members of a sports club and an additional twelve million pursue sports individually. Association football is the most popular sport. With more than 6.3 million official members, the German Football Association ("Deutscher Fußball-Bund") is the largest sports organisation of its kind worldwide, and the German top league, the Bundesliga, attracts the second highest average attendance of all professional sports leagues in the world. The German men's national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990, and 2014, the UEFA European Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996, and the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017. Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1974 and 2006 and the UEFA European Championship in 1988.
In total, FIFA recognises 211 national associations and their associated men's national teams as well as 129 women's national teams; see the list of national football teams and their respective country codes. FIFA has more member states than the UN as FIFA recognises 23 non-sovereign entities as distinct nations, such as the four Home Nations within the United Kingdom and politically disputed territories such as Palestine.
In 2005, FIFA paired up with BSWW to co-organise the World Cup, although FIFA seem to have the most control. They kept the tradition of holding the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro and continued to allow 12 teams to participate, following on from the 2004 competition. It was Eric Cantona's France that won the competition, after beating Portugal on penalties in the final.
The tournament was deemed a major success and therefore FIFA took advantage. For the 2006 competition and beyond, FIFA decided to standardise the participants to 16 countries. It was then that the "FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Qualifiers" were also established, that would take place throughout the year. Again this decision was a successful one and more countries became interested in a now standard FIFA competition.
By the end of the 2007 World Cup, the tournament had become very popular throughout the world, with the FIFA board taking over the competition, driving more countries to recognize beach soccer as a major sport. Since the World Cup had become a success worldwide, FIFA decided to have a change of venue. It was voted, to extend the sport's popularity, the 2008 World Cup would take place in Marseille, France, and the 2009 World Cup would take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. These tournaments would be the first to take place outside Brazil.
The 2008 competition was once again a major success, despite being held in a different country. This was the first time that Brazil would have to qualify for the tournament, since they weren't the hosts. However Brazil won the qualifiers and the World Cup in July.
The 2009 World Cup in Dubai was an even bigger success, as the second competition outside Brazil and the Beach Soccer World Cup's 15th birthday, Brazil continued their dominance.
The 2019 UEFA Champions League Final will be the final match of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League, the 64th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 27th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. It will be played at the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid, Spain on 1 June 2019.
The most popular sport in the UK became association football; Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest football club still in existence to the present day. The home nations all have separate national teams and domestic competitions, most notably England's Premier League and FA Cup, and the Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup. Referred to as the "home of football" by the international governing body FIFA, England hosted and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup. The English Premier League (formed in 1992 by member clubs of the old Football League First Division) is the most-watched football league in the world. Its biggest clubs include: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur. Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers also have a wide global fanbase.
The current president is José Manuel Constantino, who was elected in 2013. Former president Fernando Lima Bello is the current Portuguese delegate at the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
FIFA had considered the prospect of increasing the number of teams from 16 to 24, to reflect the growing global popularity of women's football and the Women's World Cup. However, on 14 March 2008, the FIFA Executive Committee decided to keep the number of participants at 16, concerned that more teams would dilute the quality of play. The idea of having 20 teams taking part, which had been discussed briefly, was ruled impossible to implement in terms of fixture planning and logistics. During the 2007 Women's World Cup, FIFA president Sepp Blatter had campaigned for the idea to increase the number of teams, although this proposal was not unquestioned. In particular the 11–0 victory of over in the opening game of the 2007 tournament had caused a debate over whether there were 24 national teams on a comparable level.
The final will be played at the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid, Spain. The winners of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League will earn the right to play against the winners of the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League in the 2019 UEFA Super Cup. They will also automatically qualify for the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League group stage, and if they have already qualified through their league performance, the berth reserved will be given to the champions of the 2018–19 Austrian Bundesliga, the 11th-ranked association according to next season's access list.
The World Chess Championship was a match between the reigning world champion since 2013, Magnus Carlsen, and the challenger Fabiano Caruana to determine the World Chess Champion. The 12-game match, organised by FIDE and its commercial partner Agon, was played at The College in Holborn, London, between 9 and 28 November 2018.
The 1995 Copa América on home soil under Uruguay's new head coach, Héctor Núñez, was a breath of fresh air for Francescoli. After not featuring in the previous two editions of the tournament (although he was named to the squad in 1993, he did not play a single match), Francescoli carried his team to the Copa América final against Brazil, at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo. Uruguay won a hard-fought final 5–3 on penalties, after a 1–1 draw, with Francescoli converting his team's first penalty, as he lifted the title for the last time. As a result, Uruguay equalled Argentina as the South American national team with the most Copa América titles (14). Uruguay later broke the record in 2011, with the victory of their 15th Copa América title. Francescoli was once again named player of the tournament, and was also elected the best player in South America, at age 34, 11 years after first receiving the honour. In the tournament, he also scored his final goal for the national team, which came in the group stage in a 1–0 win against Paraguay. In total, Francescoli made 16 appearances over four editions of the Copa América, scoring five goals, and reaching the final on all four occasions in which he played.
The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA's Council. This is done under an exhaustive ballot system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a "Hosting Agreement" from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. However, there have been occasions where the hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as was the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which were awarded to Russia and Qatar, with Qatar becoming the first Middle Eastern country to host the tournament.
The 2018–19 UEFA Champions League is the 64th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 27th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.
In 1950 Argentina won its first and only World Championship to date, with a squad formed entirely by amateur players, after defeating France (twice), Brazil, Chile, Egypt and the United States in the decisive match.
The World Chess Championship (sometimes abbreviated as WCC) is played to determine the world champion in chess. Since 2014, the schedule has settled on a two-year cycle with a championship held in every even year. Magnus Carlsen has been world champion since he dethroned Viswanathan Anand in 2013. He then went on to successfully defend his title against Anand in 2014, against Sergey Karjakin in 2016 and against Fabiano Caruana in 2018.
In 2002, FIFA inaugurated a women's youth championship, officially called the FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship. The first event was hosted by Canada. The final was an all-CONCACAF affair, with the USA defeating the host Canadians 1-0 with an extra-time golden goal. The second event was held in Thailand in 2004 and won by Germany. The age limit was raised to 20, starting with the 2006 event held in Russia. Demonstrating the increasing global reach of the women's game, the winners of this event were North Korea. The tournament was renamed the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, effective with the 2008 edition won by the US in Chile. The current champions are Japan, who won in France in 2018.
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the "" (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not held because of the Second World War. The current champion is France, which won its second title at the 2018 tournament in Russia.
The FeWC 2018 champion received $250,000 in prize money and a ticket to the Best FIFA Awards where he has the chance to meet the greatest of the real football world. FIWC 2015 Champion Abdulaziz Alshehri from Saudi Arabia was able to meet Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi among many others, while 2016 champion Mohammad Al-Bacha talked it up with Marcelo Vieira and Manuel Neuer.
The current, reigning, CMLL World Light Heavyweight Champion is Niebla Roja who won the championship on June 10, 2017. The first champion to be recognized by CMLL was Jerry Estrada, who defeated Pierroth Jr. in the finals of a 16-man tournament that took place between September 15 and September 26, 1991. There is currently no CMLL World Light Heavyweight Champion as then-champion La Máscara was fired by CMLL on May 20, 2017. Overall, there have been fifteen reigns shared among fourteen wrestlers. Dr. Wagner Jr. and Atlantis are the only two wrestlers to have held the title twice; Dr. Wagner Jr. is listed as an unofficial three-time champion, but he is not recognized as such by CMLL. Jerry Estrada's 175 da reign is currently the shortest reign in history, while Último Guerrero has held it for the longest period, at 1,309 days. Aquarius' unofficial title reign is the shortest on record, 8 days, but is not acknowledged by CMLL.[G] -