For the first time in its history, the FIFA World Cup will have a showcase arena for all 32 participating teams, offering a dynamic platform to showcase their national brand identity and to celebrate their respective cultural and commercial assets. In celebration, we here take a look at the teams in the bottom half of the draw.

For the first time in its history, the FIFA World Cup will have a showcase arena for all 32 participating teams, offering a dynamic platform to showcase their national brand identity and to celebrate their respective cultural and commercial assets. In celebration, we here take a look at the teams in the top half of the draw.

With the World Cup, Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games, this year is set to be a record-breaker for sport tourism. Mike Starling gives the lowdown on the legacies created by hosting world-class sporting events.

Nine candidates bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 have begun delivering their proposals to Fifa. David Beckham presented England’s bid to Sepp Blatter, telling the Fifa president of the “passion and emotion” the nation would bring to the tournament and declaring “football runs through our veins”.

Sport tourism powers South Africa through global downturn. As anticipation reaches fever pitch ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the success of three mega sporting events hosted in South Africa over the past twelve months has given the country’s tourism sector a significant boost.

After a week that witnessed 50,000 senior travel industry professionals, ministers and press, gathering in London to celebrate 30 years of World Travel Market, sports tourism emerged as the clear front-runner to guide the industry out of economic downturn. As the industry now looks ahead to next year’s World Sport Destination Expo – the world’s first global sport tourism exhibition dedicated to the travel and tourism’s fastest growing sector – WTM acknowledged its role in manoeuvring sports tourism into the global spotlight.