History of the FIFA World Cup by FIFA to the regions of Asia, Oceania and Africa. The eventual qualifiers from the zone, North Korea, became the first Asian team to reach the quarter-finals, eliminating Italy in the process. England won the tournament, although João Havelange (former FIFA president from 1974 to 1998) claimed that the 1966 and 1974 World Cups were fixed so that England and Germany would win respectively. Geoff Hurst became the first and to this day the only player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup Final and Eusébio, whose team Portugal were taking part in their first World Cup, was the
England at the FIFA World Cup elite group of referees who has been called up for three consecutive World Cups (1950–1958). <noinclude> England at the FIFA World Cup The England national football team has competed at the FIFA World Cup since 1950. The FIFA World Cup is the premier competitive international football tournament, first played in 1930, whose finals stage has been held every four years since, except 1942 and 1946, due to the Second World War. The tournament consists of two parts, the qualification phase and the final phase (officially called the "World Cup Finals"). The qualification phase, which currently take place over the three