World cup competition

A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries - compete for the title of world champion. A world cup is generally considered the premier competition in its sport, with the victor attaining the highest honour in that sport and able to lay claim to the title of their sport's best. However, in some sports the Olympic title carries at least as much prestige.

There are a number of notable world cups in popular sports, but it is the FIFA World Cup (an association football tournament, first held in 1930) that is widely known as simply "the World Cup".

Some sports governing bodies prefer the title world championship or a related term; some even organize both a world cup and a world championship with different rules. Usually, such competitions take one of two forms, a short periodic competition or a year-long series of meetings.

A periodic world cup or world championship usually takes the form of a knockout tournament (possibly with an initial group stage). This is held over a number of days or weeks, with the entrants eventually being whittled down to two, and the tournament culminating in a world cup final. The winner(s) take the title of World Champion(s) and hold it until the next time the event is held (usually one, two, or four years later). This format is most common in team sports, as with the FIFA World Cup or the ICC Cricket World Cup.

A contrasting concept, popular in individual sports, is a year-long competition with several meetings over its course. In this format, victory at an individual meeting earns a number of points, and, usually, a number of positions below also score points inversely related to their position. Contestants accumulate a number of points over the course of the year (often "season") and their cumulative total after all meetings have been concluded determines the World Champion or, simply, World Cup winner. The winner is then considered the champion until the next World Cup.

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