FIFA World Cup hosts second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the South American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament. The first tournament following World War II, held in Brazil in 1950, had three teams withdraw for either financial problems or disagreements with the organization. To avoid any future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternation between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Asia. The system evolved so that the host
History of the FIFA World Cup would have no hope in a single year of planning and scheduling a 1946 World Cup. In fact, FIFA’s first meeting was on July 1, 1946 – around the time the 1946 World Cup would ordinarily have been played – and when it planned the next World Cup for 1949 no country would host it. The major international tournament in 1946 was the 1946 South American Championship in which Argentina beat Brazil 2–0 on February 10, 1946. Competitions resumed with the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, which was the first to include British participants. British teams withdrew from FIFA in