2021 FANA World Cup

The 2021 FANA World Cup was the seventh FANA World Cup, the annual international men's football championship contested by the national football teams of the member associations of FANA. The tournament was jointly hosted by 15 host cities across 2 different countries – Namimori and Qasentria, also known as "Namisentria". This is also the first time for COSSAF member states and the second time for ASS member states to organize the event, after Wedse in 2019

The 2020 World Cup saw the tournament expand from 32 to 48 teams.

Host selection
Contrary to previous years, FANA decided to select the host among the qualified nations from the regional qualification rounds, which concluded in April. The host was selected among the interested nations that qualified to the World Cup.

The bidding for the 2020 FANA World Cup started in March 2021 with the national associations having until 18 April 2021 to register their interest in hosting the event. A total of three biddings were submitted to FANA for the hosting of the event.

The members of FANA started voting on the hosts of the event on 13 June 2021. The results were unveiled on 23 June 2021, with the Namisentrian bid securing the hosting rights for the event, while the Ximbalan/Ulikanan bid came in second.

The voting results were:

Qualification
The allocation of slots for each confederation was discussed by the FANA Executive Committee in September 2020 after the FANA Congress. The committee decided that the allocation used in 2020 would be slightly modified for this year's tournament. The slot allocation was the following:
 * UWFA (South and Central Wulfor): 9.5
 * FCS (South and Central Sakoda): 8.5
 * NFC (North Sakoda and Wulfor): 8.5
 * KFASS (North Serica): 6
 * COSSAF (South Serica): 6
 * CLF (Latinica): 6
 * LTFC (Lakadasia and Tritonia): 3.5

Teams
For the first time in the history of the FANA World Cup, all eligible nations—the 114 FANA member associations applied to enter the qualifying process. Wiltence was later disqualified during the qualification tournament. Places in the tournament were allocated to continental confederations. Several confederations saw either a reduction or increase in their number of allocated places in the tournament. The first qualification game, between Aquia and Angostura, began in Rio de Fevereiro on 30 November 2020 as part of the CLF's qualification,

Of the 48 nations qualified to play at the 2021 FIFA World Cup, 40 countries competed at the previous tournament in 2020. Achróa, Taslana and Foxtavia all qualified for the first time. Other teams returning after absences of at least three tournaments included: Angostura, who last competed in 1998; and Katsyria, competing for the second time after reaching the Round of 16 in 2017.


 * CLF (6)


 * COSSAF (6)


 * FCS (8)


 * KFASS (6)


 * LTFC (4)


 * NFC (9)


 * UWFA (9)

Draw
The draw took place on 2 July 2021, in Marianne, Qasentria. All 48 participating teams were drawn into the 12 groups for the group stage based on the 4 pots that they were divided into. The hosts countries were allocated in Group A and Group G. The FANA Ranking of April 2021 was used to allocate every qualifiers into their respective pot.

HarmonizeTheMusic: Official Album
HarmonizeTheMusic: The Official 2021 FIFA World Cup Album is a collaboration by various artists, both local Namisentrian and international. The album was released on 25 September 2021.

Background
The album consists of collaborations between Namimorish and Qasentrian musicians and artists.

Proceeds from the album will benefit ASS' campaign "Harmonize to Peace", whose aim is to achieve positive social change through football by building twenty Football for Hope centres for public health, education and football across South Serica and also provides hospitality to South Serican residents, including the Takimorujinese refugees.

Venues
The event was hosted in 16 venues across 15 different cities of the two hosting nations. Each country has selected eight stadiums for the event. All the hosting countries selected their capital cities as one of their cities of choice (Chikara City for Namimori and Marianne for Qasentria).

Group stage
All times listed are local, TBA.

Tiebreakers
The ranking of teams in the group stage was determined as follows:


 * 1) Points obtained in all group matches;
 * 2) Goal difference in all group matches;
 * 3) Number of goals scored in all group matches;
 * 4) Points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
 * 5) Goal difference in the matches played between the teams in question;
 * 6) Number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question;
 * 7) Fair play points in all group matches (only one deduction could be applied to a player in a single match):
 * 8) Drawing of lots.

Knockout stage
The knockout stage consisted of four stages: the Round of 32, the Round of 16, the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final stages. 32 countries were part of the knockout stage: the winners and runner-ups of the 12 groups, as well as the 8 best 3rd-placed teams.

In the knockout stages, if a match was level at the end of normal playing time, extra time was played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners. Below is the bracket for the knockout round of the tournament, teams in bold denote match winners.

Mascot
The tournament's official mascot was unveiled on 17 July 2021, and selected through an online voting. A public vote was used to select the mascot from three famous Namimorish anime—Detective Conan, Hamtaro and. The winner, with 67% or approximately two million votes, was Detective Conan, also known as Meitantei Conan (名探偵コナン) in Namimori and Qasentria, focusing on the diverse mysterious cases which is originally created by Gosho Aoyama.

The recent movie Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet (名探偵コナン 緋色の弾丸) was also mainly set in Namimori and Qasentria during the World Cup organization.

Ticketing
The first phase of ticket sales started on 12 June 2021, 12:00 Westeastern Serican Time, and lasted until 11 July 2021.

The general visa policy of Namimori and Qasentria did not apply to participants and spectators, who were able to visit the countries without a visa right before and during the competition regardless of their citizenship. Spectators were nonetheless required to register for a "Fan-ID", a special photo identification pass. A Fan-ID was required to enter the country visa-free, while a ticket, Fan-ID and a valid passport were required to enter stadiums for matches. Fan-IDs also granted World Cup attendees free access to public transport services, including buses, express boats and train services between host cities. Under the agreement between ASS member states, the Fan-ID could also use to facilitate the entry to other Southern Serica during the tournament time as well.

Merchandise
On 27 September 2021, Namimorish branch of famous snack merchandise brand Kit Kat released the special set of Namisentria 2021 Kit Kat containing flavors inspired by local traditional sweets from 15 host cities such as Four Seasonal Ttoek from Maehwa, Mango and Sticky Rice from Asuka, Tarte des fruits qasentrianne from Marianne and Anmitsu from Seishin. The products could be purchased at stores throughout Namisentria region and also available to order on the official website as well.

Mobile games by Namimorish and Qasentrian entertainment and multimedia companies also signed their partnership with the organizing team by promoting the competition. Several famous life simulation games such as A3! and Ensemble Stars released the special events based on the World Cup competition.

Official song
The official song of the tournament was "Asobu no riyuu", with vocals by Hirate Yurina, released on 26 September 2021. It was adapted and rewritten from Hirate’s debuting track Dance no riyuu, a runner-up entry in Singing Man Namisentria 2. However, the song is boycotted by Katsyrian audiences for unknown reasons.