JOHANNESBURG - FIFA, along with Presenting Partners EA SPORTS and PlayStation, kicked off the second half of the season of online qualification for the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2010 at the weekend.
They also confirmed the 10 successful players from the first half who have qualified for the Grand Final in Barcelona, Spain on 1 May 2010. For the first time ever, the online qualification has been split into two halves to provide players with a greater opportunity of qualifying for the Grand Final. The first phase which ran for 11 weeks and determined the first 10 finalists concluded on 18 December, with over 400,000 players taking part. With a similar number of players expected to compete for the remaining 11 online Grand Final spots available in the second half of the season, which runs from today until 31 March, the FIWC10 is on course to attract the highest number of players in the tournaments history, more than the 515,000 players who participated in last years online tournament.
In addition to the online qualification, thousands of players will take to the EA SPORTS FIFA 10 virtual pitch on the PlayStation3 at nine Live Qualifier Events in Poland, Denmark, Japan, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Italy, France and UK during the second half of the qualification season. All players will be hoping to match the success of Emin Museibov, who won the Russian Live Qualifier Event in Moscow back in November. To find out more information on how to compete in either the online qualification or the Live Qualifier Events, go to www.FIFA.com/FIWC, where you will also find the dates and location of the upcoming events.