1998 FIFA World Cup
16th FIFA football World Cup finals, held in France
The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the second time in the history of the tournament (the first was in 1938), defeating Morocco in the bidding process. It was the ninth time that it was held in Europe. Spanning 32 days, it was the longest World Cup tournament ever held and with the most teams (32 teams in the competition finals) until 2026, when the World Cup was expanded to 48 teams.
Qualification for the finals began in March 1996 and concluded in November 1997. For the first time in the competition, the group stage was expanded from 24 teams to 32, with eight groups of four. 64 matches were played in 10 stadiums in 10 host cities, with the opening match and final staged at the newly built Stade de France in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis.
The tournament was won by host country France, who beat defending champions Brazil 3–0 in the final to win their first title. In doing so France became the seventh nation to win the World Cup, and the sixth (after Uruguay, Italy, England, West Germany and Argentina) to win the World Cup on home soil.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1998 FIFA World Cup” is 16th FIFA football World Cup finals, held in France. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through FIFA, World and 16th, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “16th FIFA football World Cup finals, held in France” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q101730. VIAF identifies the subject as 128706510. The Library of Congress control number is no2013035179. Authority coordinates are 48.924, 2.360. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 1938, 2026 and 1996.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1998 FIFA World Cup”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1998 FIFA World Cup primary sources, 1998 FIFA World Cup archive and FIFA research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1998 FIFA World Cup”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1998 FIFA World Cup” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.