FIFA World Cup qualification-2010
As the host nation, South Africa qualifies automatically for the tournament. However, South Africa did participate in World Cup qualifiers because the CAF qualifiers also serve as the qualifying tournament for the 2010 African Cup of Nations. They were the first host since 1934 to participate in preliminary qualifying. As happened in the previous tournament, the defending champions were not given an automatic berth, and Italy had to participate in qualification.
The qualification draw for the 2010 World Cup was held in Durban, South Africa, on 25 November 2007.
List of qualified teams
The following 32 teams qualified for the final tournament.
Qualified countries
- AFC (4)
 Australia Japan Korea DPR Korea Republic
- CAF (5+1)
 Algeria Cameroon Côte d'Ivoire Ghana Nigeria South Africa (hosts)
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- CONCACAF (3)
 Honduras Mexico United States
- CONMEBOL (5)
 Argentina Brazil Chile Paraguay Uruguay
- OFC (1)
 New Zealand
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- UEFA (13)
 Denmark England France Germany Greece Italy Netherlands Portugal Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Switzerland
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This is the first World Cup with no debutant associations, although two of the qualifiers (Slovakia and Serbia) have previously appeared only as parts of former competing nations. In both cases FIFA considers these teams to have retained the earlier nations' records.
Based on the October 2009 rankings used for the main draw, South Africa at 86 were the lowest ranked team in the tournament.
Venues
In 2005, the organisers released a provisional list of thirteen venues to be used for the World Cup: Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg (two venues), Kimberley, Nelspruit, Orkney, Polokwane/Pietersburg, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria (two venues), and Rustenburg. This was narrowed down to ten venues
which were officially announced by FIFA on 17 March 2006:
| Johannesburg | Durban |
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| Soccer City | Moses Mabhida Stadium |
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| Capacity: 94,900 | Capacity: 70,000 |
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| Cape Town | Johannesburg |
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| Cape Town Stadium | Ellis Park Stadium |
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| Capacity: 69,070 | Capacity: 62,567 |
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| Pretoria |
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| Loftus Versfeld Stadium |
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| Capacity: 51,760 |
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| Port Elizabeth | Bloemfontein |
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| Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium | Free State Stadium |
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| Capacity: 48,000 | Capacity: 48,000 |
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| Polokwane | Nelspruit |
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| Peter Mokaba Stadium | Mbombela Stadium |
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| Capacity: 46,000 | Capacity: 43,500 |
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| Rustenburg |
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| Royal Bafokeng Stadium |
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| Capacity: 42,000 |
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Map of the stadiums
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