PUSAN, South Korea -- No more free rides. That was the message from FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Friday when he announced that the winner of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea would not get an automatic qualifying berth for the 2006 finals in Germany.
The decision was taken at a FIFA executive committee meeting earlier in the day and gives FIFA, soccer's world organizing body, one more berth to play with when it allocates how many spots each confederation will get for the finals.
"One of the reasons was that we felt that the world champion should play official matches ahead of the World Cup," Blatter said. "But also the World Cup is the only FIFA competition where the former champion qualifies automatically, and, in addition, it gives us one more slot to allocate to the confederations. I think this is a wise decision."