ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The qualification for the 1966 World Cup was used to determine the participants in the finals in England.

Summary

For the 1966 World Cup in England had reported a total of 71 teams, including

31 teams from Europe,
16 teams from Africa,
4 teams from Asia (2 from the Near and 2 from the Far East),
1 teams from Oceania,
10 teams from South America and
9 teams from North and Central America.

In addition to the 71 reported teams, three other teams had expressed interest. However, the Philippines were not allowed to participate because they had not paid the registration fee, Guatemala exceeded the notification deadline and the Democratic Republic of Congo did not submit its announced written notification. The number of 71 teams again meant a record number of participants. Since defenders Brazil and organisers England were directly qualified and the World Cup final was held with 16 teams, 14 free final places were available for the remaining 69 teams.

These were distributed to the various continental associations as follows:

Due to the fact that FIFA allowed only one final place for 19 African, Asian and Oceanic countries, 15 African teams and one from Asia withdrew their reports in protest in the run-up to the qualifiers. In addition, another Asian team withdrew for other reasons. In addition, South Africa was suspended because of its apartheid policy by FIFA under pressure from the other African nations. In the end, a total of 53 teams took part in the qualifying games. Cross-Confederation qualifiers, as in the last World Cup qualifiers, did not exist this time. However, for geographical reasons, Syria and Israel were included in the European qualification.

Europe

Since England was already qualified as host, 30 European national teams remained. Together with two Asian teams who had been assigned to the European qualification, they played for nine free World Cup places. The 32 teams were divided into nine groups. Five groups played with four and four groups with three teams each. The respective group winners were directly qualified for the World Cup. In a point tie on the first place, the goals did not decide, but there was a decision game on neutral ground.

With Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia again the two best European teams of the last World Cup could not qualify for the final round.

Group 1
In Europe Group 1, the last of the 16 finalists was determined. Only on 29 December 1965 was the sixteenth World Cup participant with Bulgaria determined. The dramaturgy of the qualifiers in this group was strongly reminiscent of that of Europa Group 3 of the qualifiers in 1962. Because already d