2022 FIFA World Cup November 21 December 18, 2022

Zidane scored twice and won Man of the Match it what looked like his most memorable moment on the global stage. Crucially, Italy’s two best players, Franco Baresi and Roberto Baggio, both missed their penalties during the shootout and with Romario, Branco and Dunga scoring, the Brazilians had won their fourth World Cup. The final was a pretty tense affair for 60 minutes, until Paolo Rossi opened the scoring.

The 2022 World Cup will be hosted in Qatar and will be played from November 21, 2022, to December 18, 2022. The final, to be played on December 18, 2022, coincides with a national holiday in Qatar, namely Qatar National Day. The notion of staging the tournament in November is controversial since it would interfere with the regular season schedules of some domestic leagues around the world. Commentators have noted the clash with the Western Christmas season is likely to cause disruption, whilst there is concern about how short the tournament is intended to be. FIFA executive committee member Theo Zwanziger said that awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar's desert state was a "blatant mistake". Frank Lowy, chairman of Football Federation Australia, said that if the 2022 World Cup were moved to November and thus upset the schedule of the A-League, they would seek compensation from FIFA.

South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup was hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since Argentina 1978, and was the first occasion where consecutive World Cups were held outside Europe. Since 2006, winners of the competition are also awarded the right to wear the FIFA Champions Badge, up until the time at which the winner of the next competition is decided. An equivalent tournament for women's football, the FIFA Women's World Cup, was first held in 1991 in China. The women's tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men's, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.

Brazil were also the first team to win the World Cup for the third , fourth and fifth time. West Germany (1982–1990) and Brazil (1994–2002) are the only nations to appear in three consecutive World Cup finals. Germany has made the most top-four finishes , medals , as well as the most finals . Of these, eight national teams have won the World Cup, and they have added stars to their badges, with each star representing a World Cup victory.

All FIFA member associations, of which there are currently 211, were eligible to enter qualification. However, the AFC obliged Qatar to participate in the Asian qualifying stage as the first two rounds also act as qualification for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. Since Qatar reached the final stage as winners in their group, Lebanon, the fifth-best second place team, advanced instead.

Owing to the climate in Qatar, concerns were expressed over holding the World Cup in its traditional timeframe of June and July. In October 2013, a task force was commissioned to consider alternative dates and report after the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. In February 2019, Amnesty International questioned whether Qatar would complete the promised labour reforms before the start of the World Cup, a sentiment that FIFA backed. Amnesty International found that abuses were still occurring despite the nation taking some steps to improve labour rights.

The accusations of corruption have been made relating to how Qatar won the right to host the event. On 6 August 2018, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter claimed that Qatar had used "black ops", suggesting that the bid committee had cheated to win the hosting rights. For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament is rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation to bid to host the tournament.