1998 FIFA World Cup

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 12th of July 1998, inside the Stade de France in the Parisian commune of Saint-Denis, a French team walked off the pitch as world champions for the first time in the nation's history. The score was 3-0 against Brazil, the defending champions. Two goals came from Zinedine Zidane, both headers from corners. The third arrived in stoppage time, a low shot from Emmanuel Petit set up by Patrick Vieira in a counterattack. French president Jacques Chirac was in the stands. Winning manager Aimé Jacquet announced his resignation from the national team just days later.

  But the final result, stunning as it was, barely scratched the surface of what made the 1998 FIFA World Cup extraordinary. This was the largest World Cup ever staged at that point: 32 national teams, 64 matches, 32 days, 10 cities across France. Four nations played in the tournament for the very first time. A draw ceremony attracted an estimated one billion television viewers. A FIFA official later admitted the draw had been quietly arranged to keep France and Brazil apart until the final. And beneath all of it ran a bribery scandal that would not fully surface for another 17 years.

  How did France end up hosting the tournament twice in 60 years? Who fixed the draw, and why? And what actually happened to the Brazilian striker Ronaldo in the hours before that final kicked off?

• 2. France Wins the Bid

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  On the 2nd of July 1992, the executive committee of FIFA gathered in Zürich, Switzerland, and awarded France the right to host the 1998 World Cup. The vote was not especially close: France received 12 votes, Morocco received 7. Switzerland had entered the bidding process but withdrew after being unable to meet FIFA's requirements. England, which had hosted the competition in 1966, was also among the original applicants but pulled out to pursue a bid for UEFA Euro 1996, which it eventually won.

  France had hosted the tournament once before, in 1938, making it the third country after Mexico and Italy to host the World Cup twice. That 1938 edition was just the third in the competition's history. Now, with the 1998 hosting rights confirmed, France had 28 months before even the qualification draw would take place.

  The country's bid centered on a signature venue: a new national stadium with 80,000 seats, referred to during planning as the "Grand stade". Nothing about building it was straightforward. The location became a question of politics, finance, and national symbolism. Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac negotiated a deal with Prime Minister Édouard Balladur to site the stadium in Saint-Denis, a commune just north of the capital. Construction began in December 1995 and was completed after 26 months of work in November 1997, at a cost of 2.67 billion francs.

  The selection of the other nine host cities came from a longer list of 14 candidates. Montpellier was the surprise inclusion, chosen ahead of Strasbourg despite the latter's stronger urban standing and more successful local football club. The organising panel judged Montpellier's local investment in football infrastructure over the previous two decades as genuinely impressive. Four of the nine other stadiums used in 1998 had also hosted matches in 1938: the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, the Stade Municipal in Toulouse, the Parc Lescure in Bordeaux, and the Parc des Princes in Paris.

• 3. The Rigged Draw

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  On the 4th of December 1997, the draw for the 1998 World Cup group stage was held at Marseille's Stade Vélodrome, broadcast live to an audience estimated at one billion viewers. It was the first time in history a World Cup draw had taken place in a football stadium, and 38,000 spectators were present in the ground. Former players including Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto Parreira, George Weah, and Raymond Kopa assisted with the draw. FIFA secretary general Sepp Blatter officiated the proceedings.

  Organising committee head Michel Platini, who later became president of UEFA, admitted in 2018 that the draw had been manipulated. Speaking to France Bleu Sport, Platini described what happened: "We did a bit of trickery. When we were organising the schedule. We did not spend six years organising the World Cup to not do some little shenanigans."

  The mechanics were straightforward. Before the draw took place, the FIFA Organising Committee had agreed to assign France to group position C1 and Brazil to group position A1. The tournament bracket was then structured so that the winner of Group A could not meet the winner of Group C until the final. As long as both teams finished top of their respective groups, they would be kept apart all the way through the knockout rounds.

  There was also a separate, graver allegation. On the 4th of June 2015, FIFA official Chuck Blazer confirmed to the FBI and Swiss authorities that he and other members of FIFA's executive committee had accepted bribes during the host selection processes for both the 1998 and 2010 World Cups. Blazer stated: "we facilitated bribes in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup". Because France won the selection vote, suspicion initially fell on the French bid committee. Investigators eventually determined that the bribe money had come from Morocco's losing bid.

• 4. Thirty-Two Nations Arrive

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  The qualification draw had taken place two years earlier, on the 12th of December 1995, at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. A total of 174 national teams entered the qualifying competition across six confederations, 24 more than had participated in the previous qualifying cycle. As hosts and defending champions respectively, France and Brazil were exempt.

  Four nations reached the finals for the very first time: Croatia, Jamaica, Japan, and South Africa. Iran qualified for the first time since 1978, doing so by beating Australia in a two-legged tie that concluded on the 29th of November 1997. Chile returned for the first time since 1982, having served a ban that caused them to miss the two preceding tournaments. The Czech Republic, ranked third in the world largely on the strength of their runner-up finish at UEFA Euro 1996, was the highest-ranked team to fail to qualify. Nigeria qualified despite holding a FIFA ranking of only 74th.

  Of the 704 players who took part in the tournament, 447 were signed with European clubs. Barcelona contributed more players than any other single club, with 13. The average age across all squads was 27 years and 8 months, five months older than at the previous tournament. Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon was the youngest player at 17 years and 3 months. The oldest was Jim Leighton of Scotland at 39 years and 11 months.

  With 32 teams instead of the previous 24, the group stage expanded to eight groups of four. Every nation played three group-stage matches. The format meant 64 games in total across the whole tournament, including the final and a third-place match. That expansion also meant referees were in shorter supply: 34 officials and 33 assistants were needed, an increase of 10 referees and 11 assistants compared to 1994.

• 5. Goals, Records, Upsets

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  Croatia reached the semi-finals in their very first World Cup appearance and finished third, with Davor Šuker earning the Golden Boot after scoring six goals. His winner against the Netherlands in the third-place match came in the 36th minute. Gabriel Batistuta of Argentina scored five goals. Both Christian Vieri of Italy and Ronaldo of Brazil scored four. In total, 171 goals were scored across 64 matches, by 112 different players.

  Norway delivered one of the tournament's most memorable group-stage performances. Trailing Brazil 1-0 with seven minutes remaining, they turned the match around to win 2-1. Kjetil Rekdal scored the winning penalty. The victory knocked Morocco out of the round of 16 despite Morocco beating Scotland 3-0 in the same matchday. That Moroccan win was only the country's second ever victory at a World Cup. Their first had come exactly 12 years earlier, on the 11th of June 1986.

  Scotland, who drew 1-1 with Norway and finished bottom of Group A with one point, failed to advance from the first round for the eighth time in their World Cup history, a record that still stands. Nigeria's Group D exit was notable in its own way: top-seeded Spain was eliminated in a surprise result, while Nigeria and Paraguay advanced. Bulgaria, who had reached the semi-finals four years earlier, could not repeat that run.

  The tournament introduced golden goals: a goal scored in extra time would end the match immediately. It also marked the first time electronic boards were used by fourth officials, replacing cardboard, and was the first World Cup at which tackles from behind that endangered an opponent were banned. Three substitutions per game were permitted for the first time.

• 6. The Final's Hidden Drama

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  Ninety minutes before kick-off in the final, Ronaldo was left off the starting lineup Brazil had submitted to FIFA. Then, roughly 45 minutes before kick-off, he was reinstated. The reason for his original omission was not publicly clarified at the time, and the pre-match build-up was almost entirely consumed by speculation about his condition. He did play, and in the 22nd minute he created Brazil's first clear chance, dribbling past Thuram and crossing from the left, a ball that goalkeeper Fabien Barthez struggled to gather cleanly.

  Zidane scored his first goal from a corner header before half-time, then added a second from another corner header three minutes before the break. France went to ten men in the 68th minute when Marcel Desailly was sent off for a second bookable offence. Brazil made an attacking substitution in response and pressed for a way back, but France held. Patrick Vieira came on as a substitute and set up Petit for the third goal in stoppage time, a low finish past goalkeeper Cláudio Taffarel to make it 3-0.

  For France, it was a first World Cup title. They became the sixth nation after Uruguay, Italy, England, West Germany, and Argentina to win the tournament on home soil. The defeat was the second-heaviest World Cup loss in Brazil's history at that point. Croatia's third-place run was its debut appearance. Ronaldo, despite the uncertainty surrounding his final, took the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player. Fabien Barthez won the Yashin Award as best goalkeeper. The official song, "The Cup of Life" by Ricky Martin, had accompanied a tournament watched in 200 countries, with 1,750 reporters and 110 television commentators present in the final alone.

• 7. Mascot, Ball, and Music

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  Footix, the official mascot, first appeared in public in May 1996. A rooster designed by graphic designer Fabrice Pialot, it was chosen from a shortlist of five candidates. Research conducted during the selection found that 91 percent of respondents immediately associated the cockerel image with France, given that it is a traditional national symbol. The name Footix was chosen by French television viewers and combines "football" with the suffix "-ix" taken from the popular Astérix comic series. Its colours matched France's flag and kit: a blue jumpsuit, a red crest, and the words "France 98" written in white.

  The official match ball, manufactured by Adidas and named the Tricolore, was the eighth World Cup ball the German company had produced. It was the first in the series to use multiple colours, drawing its design from the tricolour flag and the cockerel symbol.

  Ricky Martin recorded the official song, "The Cup of Life", also released under its Spanish title "La Copa de la Vida". The official anthem was "La Cour des Grands (Do You Mind If I Play)" by Youssou N'Dour and Axelle Red.

  The official video game was World Cup 98, released by EA Sports on the 13th of March 1998 for Windows, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy. It was EA Sports' first international football game after the company acquired rights from FIFA in 1997. In Japan, separate licensing arrangements meant Konami and Sega produced their own World Cup games, released elsewhere under different titles without official branding or real player names. FIFA's quasi-judicial financial oversight body, the Cour des Comptes, published its report on the organisation of the entire tournament in 2000, two years after the final whistle.