2010 FIFA World Cup qualification

Qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation – the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania), and UEFA (Europe) – was allocated a certain number of the 32 places at the tournament. A total of 205 teams entered the qualification competition, with South Africa, as the host, qualifying for the World Cup automatically. The first qualification matches were played on 25 August 2007 and qualification concluded on 18 November 2009. Overall, 2,338 goals were scored over 852 matches, scoring on average 2.74 per match.

At the close of entries on 15 March 2007, 204 football associations had entered the preliminary competition: 203 out of the 207 FIFA members at that time (including the host nation, South Africa, as the qualification procedure in Africa also acted as the qualification for the 2010 African Cup of Nations) and the Montenegro team, which later became FIFA's 208th member. The final number of teams entered breaks the previous record of 199 entrants set during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Four FIFA members (all from the AFC) failed to register for the tournament by 15 March 2007: Bhutan, Brunei, Laos, and the Philippines. After the close of entries, Bhutan were allowed to enter and were included in the Asian preliminary draw, while Brunei and the Philippines had their late entries rejected. However, five teams withdrew during qualifying without playing a match: Bhutan, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Guam, and São Tomé and Príncipe. In addition, Papua New Guinea failed to meet the registration deadline for the South Pacific Games (which was also the initial stage of the Oceania qualification) and took no part in qualification.

Honduras advanced on goal difference tiebreaker. Costa Rica moved to the CONCACAF/CONMEBOL intercontinental play off.

(10 teams competing for 0 or 1 berth; a play off against AFC determines which confederation gets the extra berth. Tuvalu also played in the qualifying tournament, but was not an entrant to the World Cup qualification)

The qualification process began with a tournament at the 2007 South Pacific Games in August 2007. The top three (New Caledonia, Fiji, and Vanuatu, respectively) joined New Zealand in a 4 team group, which was also the 2008 OFC Nations Cup, playing home and away. The winners would play a home and away play off with the fifth placed Asian nation for a World Cup berth. Eight groups of six teams and one group of five contested the European qualifying competition. As a result, the nine group winners qualified directly, while the best eight of the nine second placed teams contested home and away play off matches for the remaining four places. In determining the best eight second placed teams, the results against teams finishing last in the six team groups were not counted for consistency between the five and six team groups. The First Round was completed on 14 October 2009. A draw for the Second Round was held in Zürich on 19 October, with the matches played on 14 and 18 November.

There were two scheduled inter confederation play offs to determine the final two qualification spots to the finals. The matches were played in October and November 2009. The draw for the order in which the matches were to be played was held on 2 June 2009 during the FIFA Congress in Nassau, The Bahamas.

Controversy surrounded several of the final qualification matches in November 2009. In the second leg of the play off between France and the Republic of Ireland, French captain Thierry Henry, unseen by the referee, twice illegally handled the ball in the lead up to the decisive goal, which saw France make the final 32 teams ahead of Ireland. The incident caused widespread debate on FIFA Fair Play, and how matches should be refereed at the highest level. The Football Association of Ireland requested a replay on grounds of fairness, but this was denied by FIFA under the Laws of the Game. A widely reported later request by Ireland to be included as an unprecedented 33rd World Cup entrant was later withdrawn by the FAI, and dismissed by the FAI as peripheral to their other more substantial petitions for change in world football made to FIFA. Costa Rica also complained over Uruguay's winning goal in the CONMEBOL–CONCACAF play off. There was crowd trouble around two matches between Egypt and Algeria, with the Algerian team bus stoned before the first in Cairo, and reports of Egyptian fans ambushed after the second in Khartoum, Sudan. Local media made lurid reports, and diplomatic relations between the countries nosedived. In response to the incidents during qualification, and to a match fixing controversy, on 2 December 2009 FIFA called for an extraordinary general meeting of their executive committee. After the meeting, FIFA announced that they would be setting up an inquiry into technology and extra officials in the game, but they did not announce the widely expected move of fast tracking the introduction of goal line referee's assistants, already being trialled in the Europa League, and instead restated that the competition in South Africa would be officiated as before, with just one referee, two assistants, and a fourth official. On the subject of fair play, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said: