Quidditch World Cup

The **Quidditch World Cup** (also called the **World Cup** or **World Championship**) was held every four years since 1473. The competition saw Quidditch teams representing countries around the world to compete for the World Cup, while the International Quidditch Tournament was between regional teams.

## History

*The Official Guide to the Quidditch World Cup* was the official guidebook to the Quidditch World Cup, written and published by the International Confederation of Wizards' Quidditch Committee, providing information on the rules and history of the Quidditch World Cup. Sold in most reputable bookstores, this tome cost thirty-nine Galleons, leading most wizards and witches to call it overpriced.

The tournament was held every four years since 1473. As with so much else about the wizarding world’s most important sporting competition, many queried the accuracy of this statement. As only European teams competed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, purists preferred to date the Quidditch World Cup’s inception from the seventeenth century when it became open to all continents.

There was also heated debate about the accuracy of some historical accounts of tournaments. A substantial amount of all post-game analysis centred on whether magical interference took place and whether it made, or ought to have made, the final result moot.

## Regulations

"*The ICWQC has the unlucky job of regulating this contentious and anarchic competition.*"
— Description of the ICWQC [src]

The ICWQC was an international regulatory body, subject to the International Confederation of Wizards, that oversaw international Quidditch competitions, such as the World Cup. Namely, it located suitable venues, arranged transportation for spectators, and provided policing for the games themselves. It was also the ICWQC that chose the referees for World Cup matches.<

The rulebook concerning both on-and-off pitch magic was alleged to stretch to nineteen volumes and to include such rules as ‘*no dragon is to be introduced into the stadium for any purpose including, but not limited to, team mascot, coach or cup warmer*’ and ‘*modification of any part of the referee’s body, whether or not he or she has requested such modification, will lead to a lifetime ban from the tournament and possibly imprisonment*.'

Mentor Metaxas, a Greek wizard, was the chairman of the International Confederation of Wizards Quidditch Committee in 2014.

## Statute of Secrecy

A watershed moment for the Quidditch World Cup was the implementation of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1692, which was intended to conceal the existence of magic and wizards. The International Confederation of Wizards (ICW) saw the Quidditch World Cup as a security risk of the highest magnitude because of the mass movement and congregation of so many members of the international wizarding community.

However, following mass protests and threats to the ICW, it was agreed that the tournament could continue and a regulatory body — the ICWQC — was set up to locate suitable venues — usually remote moors, deserts and deserted islands — arrange transportation for spectators (as many as a hundred thousand routinely attend finals) and police the games themselves, a task generally agreed to be among the most thankless and difficult in the wizarding world.

## Format and Qualifying

The number of participating countries varied from tournament to tournament. Any country could enter a team within twelve months of the previous final.

### Quidditch World Cup Qualifying

Sixteen separate groups of teams were formed. Each team played all of the other teams in their group over a two year period. During the group phase, there was a cap of four hours on every game to avoid player exhaustion. On the occasion that the game ended after four hours of play and the Golden Snitch wasn't caught, the result was decided by the amount of goals scored. A win earned two points.

In addition to these two points, a win by 150 points earned five points, by 100 points an extra three points and by 50 points an extra one point. If two teams were level on points, they were separated by whichever team captured the Snitch most often, or most quickly during their matches. The sixteen teams who finished top of the sixteen groups qualified for the World Cup.

### The Quidditch World Cup

The tournament proper was straight knockout. The sixteen qualified countries were ranked according to how many points they obtained in the qualifying groups. The team who won the most points played the team who earned the least, the team who earned the second most played the team who earned the second least, and so on. This theoretically allowed the two best teams from the qualifying phase to meet in the final. For the 2014 Quidditch World Cup though, Nigeria and Norway were the top seeded teams and could face each other as early as the semi-finals.