IFK World Cup 2460

2460 IFK World Cup
Tournament details
Host country	Empherias and Grensalbourg
Dates	16 November 2460 – 21 December 2460
Teams	24 (from 5 confederations)
Venue(s)	15 (in 12 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Empherias (1st title)
Runners-up	Fazar
Third place	Ahitereira
Fourth place	Karkuss
Tournament statistics
Matches played	58
Goals scored	187 (3.22 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Striker A – 14
	← 2456 2464 →

The 2460 IFK World Cup was the 4th IFK World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for open league national katabola teams organised by the IFK. It took place in Empherias and Grensalbourg, the first dual-host, from November to 21 December 2460, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in 2453. It was the third time the championships had been held in Alaxia, and the second time they were held in the High Kingdoms of Alaxia.

The tournament phase involved 24 teams, of which 22 came through qualifying competitions held in different continents between 2457 and 2459, while Empherias and Grensalbourg qualified automatically as host nations.

Origins and organisation Edit

Host and venues Edit

Locations in Empherias		Locations in Wynnoa		Locations in Grensalbourg
Wynnoa Esthullen Roviny Gateshaven Nieuwbourg Rommes Grensalbourg Vreimer Ryken Zerwynn Mertens		Rosetta Georgina Winswepp Alexandria		Sistyn Grewynnes
Esthullen	White Rose Stadium	Rosetta	Rosetta Stadium	Sistyn	Sistyn Saint Stadium
Gateshaven	Arrows Stadium	Georgina	Georgina Stadium	Grewynnes	Grewynnes Mountain Arena
Nieuwbourg	Nieuwbourg Sports Centre and Stadium	Winswepp	Winswepp Stadium
Vreimer	Vreimes Emporium	Alexandria	Alexandria Stadium
Zerwynn	Zerwynn Western Sports Centre
Ryken	Ryken–Latterheim Stadium
Roviny	Roviny LXA Stadium
Rommes	Rommes National Centre
Mertens	Mertens Merigold Stadium

Qualification Edit

This world cup would be the second to not be invite-only, and include a qualification round. It would also be the first cup to include a proper process for qualification for Qatesh nations, although still limited. Empherias and Grensalbourg, the hosts, automatically qualified. Usually, just one country hosts and so only one slot is reserved for them. Therefore, East Alaxia would lose one of its available slots. Qateshi and Alaxian qualifications would be consolidated into a joint tournament between both confederations in their continents. The 12th place in Alaxia, and 3rd place in Acoria, would play an intercontinental playoff to decide the final space.

Confederation		Qualification	Slots in final
Host	n/a	Host selection	2
East Alaxia	EAF	Alaxian Qualification for 2460 World Cup	11 (or 12)^[a]
West Alaxia	WAF	Alaxian Qualification for 2460 World Cup	11 (or 12)^[a]
East Qatesh	EQF	Qateshi Qualification for 2460 World Cup	8
North Qatesh	NORQAF	Qateshi Qualification for 2460 World Cup	8
Acoria	ACF	Acorian Qualification for 2460 World Cup	2 (or 3)^[a]
Total			24

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 They have a potential to gain an extra slot, pending on the results of the Intercontinental playoff.

Alaxian qualification Edit

Qualification in the West and East Alaxian confederations were merged to have a much larger tournament. The combined Alaxia had 12 slots in the World Cup, with an extra potential one pending intercontinental results. The tournament would be held in two parts. The first round would see five groups drawn consisting of six teams each, excluding Group A and Group B which had five due to only a total of 28 countries involved. Groups were drawn using pots that approximated similar team strength. The first and second placing countries in each group would qualify for the World Cup, while third placing countries would go to the second round. The second round was a sixth group consisting of all five third-placers. The first and second placing countries here qualified for the World Cup, with the third placing country going to an intercontinental playoff with an East Qateshi nation.

In the first round, 2 games would be played per fixture, while in the second round it was just 1 game per fixture. 110 matches were played across all six groups. To read the table, the score on the left was achieved by the team named on the row, while the score on the right was achieved by the team's flag shown in the column header. Concerning the first round: the matches played on the top-right were played first, across matchdays in 2453; the matches played on the bottom-left were played second, across matchdays in 2455. Concerning the second round, All matches were played in the matchdays in late 2455 and early 2456. The intercontinental playoff between East Qatesh would be played in March 2456.

Group A Edit

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Ginsukyo	8	4	4	0	11	4	+7	16	Qualification to the World Cup	—	2–1	1–1	0–0	1–0	—	24 May	8 Mar	18 Mar	30 Mar
2	Koresa	8	4	1	3	11	4	+7	13	Qualification to the World Cup	0–1	—	2–0	2–0	4–0	1 Mar	—	15 Mar	29 Mar	12 Apr
3	Peryzium	8	3	3	2	12	7	+5	12	Advance to Second Round	0–0	0–0	—	3–0	5–2	22 Jun	7 Jun	—	4 Mar	5 Apr
4	Bordo	8	3	2	4	6	10	-4	11	Eliminated	2–2	0–2	1–0	—	1–0	8 Jun	21 Jun	25 May	—	11 Mar
5	Yuvani	8	1	0	7	4	19	-15	3	Eliminated	0–4	1–0	1–3	0–2	—	3 Aug	5 Jul	17 Aug	20 Jul	—

Group B Edit

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Ahitereira	8	7	1	0	23	4	+17	22	Qualification to the World Cup	—	2–0	1–0	3–0	5–0	—	15 Mar	1 Mar	29 Mar	12 Apr
2	Palakkinen	8	4	1	3	17	9	+8	13	Qualification to the World Cup	1–2	—	2–1	3–0	7–0	7 Jun	—	22 Jun	4 Mar	5 Apr
3	Jimaria	8	3	2	3	29	9	+20	11	Advance to Second Round	3–3	4–2	—	0–0	11–0	24 May	8 Mar	—	18 Mar	30 Mar
4	Atlantia	8	3	1	4	10	11	-1	10	Eliminated	0–3	0–2	1–0	—	5–0	21 Jun	25 May	8 Jun	—	11 Mar
5	International City	8	0	1	7	0	46	-46	1	Eliminated	0–4	0–0	0–10	0–4	—	5 Jul	17 Aug	3 Aug	20 Jul	—

Group C Edit

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Hveden Federation	8	5	2	1	23	7	+16	17	Qualification to the World Cup	—	0–2	4–4	1–0	6–0	—	2 Sep	28 Sep	15 Sep	6 May
2	Kiavalar	8	5	1	2	12	6	+6	16	Qualification to the World Cup	1–1	—	0–1	3–0	3–0	2 May	—	14 Sep	5 Sep	21 May
3	Livyirin	8	4	1	3	13	9	+4	13	Advance to Second Round	2–0	0–1	—	0–2	5–1	28 May	14 May	—	1 May	4 Jun
4	Lothyran	8	4	0	4	11	8	+3	12	Eliminated	0–1	2–3	1–0	—	3–0	15 May	5 May	1 Sep	—	29 May
5	Etherevar	8	0	0	8	1	30	-29	0	Eliminated	0–8	0–1	0–1	0–3	—	6 Sep	21 Sep	4 Oct	29 Sep	—

Group D Edit

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Karkuss	8	6	2	0	13	2	+11	20	Qualification to the World Cup	—	1–0	1–0	0–0	3–0	—	1 Sep	5 May	15 May	29 May
2	Fazar	8	6	1	1	29	4	+25	19	Qualification to the World Cup	0–0	—	7–0	2–0	4–0	1 May	—	14 May	28 May	4 Jun
3	Thraxia	8	3	0	5	7	21	-14	9	Advance to Second Round	2–3	0–9	—	0–1	2–0	5 Sep	14 Sep	—	2 May	21 May
4	Vamu	8	2	2	4	3	8	-5	8	Eliminated	0–2	1–2	0–2	—	1–0	15 Sep	28 Sep	2 Sep	—	6 May
5	Zhar	8	0	1	7	2	19	-17	1	Eliminated	0–3	2–5	0–1	0–0	—	29 Sep	4 Oct	21 Sep	6 Sep	—

Group E Edit

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Sinkajja	8	5	2	1	16	6	+10	17	Qualification to the World Cup	—	2–2	2–2	2–1	5–0	—	20 Oct	11 Oct	26 Jun	7 Jun
2	Aether	8	5	2	1	14	6	+8	17	Qualification to the World Cup	1–0	—	0–3	4–0	2–0	19 Jun	—	6 Jun	10 Jul	3 Jul
3	Azyeri	8	4	1	3	13	9	+4	13	Advance to Second Round	0–1	1–2	—	1–0	5–3	10 Jun	7 Oct	—	4 Jul	20 Jun
4	Tushinmero	8	2	2	4	4	8	-4	8	Eliminated	0–1	0–0	1–0	—	0–0	27 Oct	10 Nov	4 Nov	—	12 Oct
5	Mem	8	0	1	7	3	21	-18	1	Eliminated	0–3	0–3	0–1	0–2	—	8 Oct	3 Nov	21 Oct	11 Jun	—

Second Round Edit

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Livyirin	4	2	2	0	7	5	+3	8	Qualification to the World Cup	—	2–2	3–2	1–1	1–0	—	9 Dec	15 Dec	11 Dec	5 Dec
2	Jimaria	4	2	1	1	7	3	+4	7	Advance to Intercontinental Playoff	—	—	0–1	2–0	3–0	—	—	28 Dec	4 Dec	20 Dec
3	Azyeri	4	1	2	1	4	4	0	5	Eliminated	—	—	—	0–0	1–1	—	—	—	7 Dec	10 Dec
4	Peryzium	4	0	3	1	3	5	-2	3		—	—	—	—	2–2	—	—	—	—	14 Dec
5	Thraxia	4	0	2	2	3	7	-4	2		—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

Acorian qualification Edit

Qualification in the Acoria confederation was recommended by IFK due to the standard of economies in the region. It would consist of a single round robin tournament, with 2 games per fixture. Two countries would qualify for the World Cup, while third place would go to an intercontinental playoff against North Qatesh. The top-right matches were in the first half of 2455, while the bottom-left matches were in the second half of 2455.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Ceironia	10	7	2	1	26	9	+17	23	Qualification to the World Cup	—	1–1	7–0	2–2	1–0	4–2	—	8 Aug	13 Jun	7 Mar	31 Jan	22 Aug
2	Tupalei'i	10	6	2	2	16	8	+8	20	Qualification to the World Cup	2–3	—	5–1	1–1	1–0	2–1	21 Feb	—	24 Jan	21 Mar	4 Apr	20 Jun
3	Nordleg	10	4	0	6	5	22	-17	12	Advance to Intercontinental Playoff	0–3	1–0	—	1–0	0–2	1–0	10 Jan	4 Jul	—	11 Apr	28 Feb	25 Jul
4	Erdelicht	10	2	5	3	9	9	0	11	Eliminated	0–1	0–2	3–0	—	0–0	2–2	1 Aug	19 Sep	29 Aug	—	27 Jun	18 Jul
5	Lunidor	10	3	2	5	6	6	0	11		2–0	0–1	0–1	0–1	—	1–0	11 Jul	5 Sep	15 Aug	17 Jan	—	12 Sep
6	Malayang	10	1	3	6	8	16	-8	6		0–4	0–1	2–0	0–0	1–1	—	28 Mar	3 Jan	14 Feb	7 Feb	14 Mar	—

North and East Qatesh qualification Edit

Due to conflicts within IFK management over cost and organisation, no qualification round was held in North or East Qatesh. Therefore, the teams qualifying and those in the intercontinental playoffs were individually invited. The slots to fill were 3 spots in North Qatesh, 4 in East Qatesh, and another one from each for the intercontinental playoffs. Holy Tempest Empire, Cammel, Yasja-Kanusphra were the West Qatesh nations invited; while United Republic, Suton, Skuria, Ladros were the East Qatesh nations invited. Alsara and Blia were picked to fill up the intercontinental spots.