FIFA Congress Stanley Rous as President. The 2016 FIFA Extraordinary Congress in Zürich elected Gianni Infantino as the new president on 26 February 2016. Only five elections have had two or more candidates: the 39th (1974), 51st (1998), 53rd (2002), 65th (2015), and 2016 Extraordinary Congress. A total of eight extraordinary congresses have taken place: 1908 (Brussels), 1953 (Paris), 1961 (London), 1999 (Los Angeles), 2001 (Buenos Aires), 2002 (Seoul), 2003 (Doha), and 2016 (Zürich). In the 2016 Extraordinary Congress, FIFA President Sepp Blatter would have remained in his position until his successor is elected. However, due to the fact he was suspended,
History of the FIFA World Cup History of the FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup was first held in 1930, when FIFA, the world's football governing body, decided to stage an international men’s football tournament under the era of FIFA president Jules Rimet who put this idea into place. The inaugural edition, held in 1930, was contested as a final tournament of only thirteen teams invited by the organization. Since then, the World Cup has experienced successive expansions and format remodeling, with its current 32-team final tournament preceded by a two-year qualifying process, involving over 200 teams from around the world. The first official international