nations it faces that the winner of the U.S.-based Super Bowl, a competition limited to the 32 teams in the National Football League, is commonly nicknamed as the world champion by the players, the press and fans alike; the NFL itself explicitly marketed the contest as a world championship in its first iterations. Winners of the Major League Baseball's World Series are also commonly called world champions. On the other hand, association football (soccer) has more parity between national leagues and even continental tournaments has seen the birth of one true "world championship". The first such tournament was the Football World Championship disputed from 1876 to 1904 between the winners of the FA Cup and Scottish Cup. After that, there have been many tournaments between teams from around the world, but it wasn't until 1960 when the Intercontinental Cup was established, competed between the winners two greatest and most important continental championships: the UEFA Champions League from Europe and COMNEBOL Copa Libertadores from South America, the cup was endorsed by both UEFA and CONMEBOL but had no involvement from FIFA, the governing body for world football. As such, FIFA wanted to expand the tournament to include the champion from other continents - from the AFC Champions League (Asia and Australia), CAF Champions League (Africa), CONCACAF Champions League (North America and Caribbean) and OFC Champions League (Oceania) and created the FIFA Club World Cup. The first edition in 2000 ran concurrently with the 2000 Intercontinental Cup, in 2004 the Intercontinental Cup was merged with the CCW, which has been ongoing since 2005 with yearly editions. Finally, certain competitions do not have a world championship or world cup, but rather hold a series of events recognised as the elite level in their field (e.g. tennis and golf have a series of four Grand Slam events recognised as the pinnacle of the game, in addition to key team events, world tour finals and the Olympic Games, though each year ITF (International Tennis Federation) designates a World Champion based on performances throughout the year). History There are a few sports which already had a ‘world championship’ in the 18th or 19th century, although it could vary how ‘world-wide’ these competitions really were. The French player Clergé, is considered the first international champion in real tennis, since 1740. In chess, international matches have been held for centuries, often resulting in certain players considered the best