If you hear the words ‘American Football World Cup’, then you might imagine that someone is talking about 1994, when the United States of America hosted the FIFA World Cup, or 2026, when the USA worked with Mexico and Canada to host the same event. T
hat is not the case, however. Instead, the American Football World Cup, also known as the IFAF World Championship of American Football, is a gridiron football competition that takes place every four years in order to determine which is the best team at the sport on the international stage.
A Brief History of the IFAF World Championship
In 1896, the first American football federation outside of the United States of America was formed in Canada. It took until 1936 before another one was formed, coming, interestingly enough, in Japan. Another 40 years later and the first federation was founded in Europe, then in 1998, the International Federation of American Football was created. Almost immediately, those responsible for IFAF worked to create a World Championship, which would determine which was the best American football team on the planet, seeing all of the various international federations go up against one another.
The first ever IFAF World Championship took place in Italy in 1999. The United States of America didn’t compete in it until 2007, with Japan winning the inaugural tournament. The Japanese team also won it in 2003, which is when it was held in Germany. The 2007 tournament was won by the US team in its debut season, in spite of the fact that it was played in Kawasaki in Japan. In 2011, the competition was hosted in Austria, then in 2015 it was hosted by Ohio in the United States after the planned tournament in Sweden was cancelled due to a lack of sponsorships.
The Competition’s Format
In 1999, there were six nations that took part in the event. Four years later and there were four teams, then it went back to six teams for 2007 before seven took part in 2011. In 2015, there were seven teams that played in the competition, with the irregular number of participating tournaments meaning that it is difficult to explain the exact format of the competition. It was supposed to take place in 2019 but it was delayed until 2023 because of the world health crisis at the time, then delayed again until 2025, by which point it had been expanded to see 12 teams playing in it.
The host nation and the defending champions get automatic berths in the competition, as do the two finalists from the European Championship of American Football. Two teams from the Pan American Federation of American Football get places, as do one member from each of the Asian Federation of American Football and from the Oceania Federation of American Football. The 12 teams are broken up into four groups of three, with the teams playing one another once. Teams advance to the second round, then the placement round and finally the medal games.