2010 FIFA World Cup qualification the finals, with CONCACAF's fourth-place team facing CONMEBOL's fifth-placed team, and AFC's fifth-placed team facing the winner of the OFC. As the host nation, South Africa qualified automatically. As in 2006, the current cup holders – Italy – did not qualify automatically. For FIFA World Cup qualifying stages the method used for separating teams level on points is the same for all Confederations, as decided by FIFA itself. If teams were even on points at the end of group play, the tied teams would be ranked by: This is a change from 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification, where results between
2010 FIFA World Cup officials (France), Massimo Busacca (Switzerland), Martin Hansson (Sweden), Koman Coulibaly (Mali), Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh (Malaysia), Peter O'Leary (New Zealand), Martín Vázquez (Uruguay) and Joel Aguilar (El Salvador). 2010 FIFA World Cup officials Officials for the 2010 FIFA World Cup are selected from a pool of 30 trios of referees and assistant referees announced by the association football governing body, FIFA, on 5 February 2010. The final cut was selected from a group of 38 referees revealed in October 2008, themselves whittled down from an initial group of 54 selected for the Refereeing Assistance Programme in 2007. From the quarter-finals onwards, the