Early in the 20th century, FIFA tried to arrange an international tournament, but it wasn't until 1930 that the first World Cup was held. The tournament was designed as an alternative to the Olympic games where professional footballers where not allowed to compete. Held in South America, the first World Cup was ignored by many European nations due to the inconvenience of travel. England, where professional football was first to develop completely dismissed the tournament and refused to participate until 1950.
The modern soccer world cup championships trace their origins to 1904, when representatives of seven soccer playing nations of Europe got together to form a governing body for soccer, abbreviated to FIFA. But the first FIFA championship could only be held in 1930 due to constraints caused by the war. But by this time the game had become extremely popular and by 1938 there were 36 nations wanting to compete in the tournament.

After WWII, the first world cup was played in Brazil. Uruguay won this edition of the world cup, but the best was yet to come. In 1958 Brazil won the world cup for the first time. It followed it up with another victory in 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. With five world cup victories in all, Brazil has the most number of victories in soccer world cups.

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