OOC: no logo yet
Royal Square Garden, St. Petrus, Saintland
King Paulus XVI of Saintland and Prime Minister Samuel Lucchese of the Malifornia Charter Society had invited the press of the entire world to Royal Square Garden in the northern Rushmori nation of Saintland for a major announcement. Numerous publications, tipped off that a major announcement was coming, had sent reporters to cover whatever the announcement was going to be. The press conference began as King Paulus XVI walked onto the stage at Saintland's Most Famous Arena in his full royal regalia.
King Paulus XVI - Welcome to Royal Square Garden. Today is a momentous day in the history of our multiverse as I can now officially announce the long-awaited return of Saintland to the World Cup! While we may not have made it past the Round of 16 in the past, due to the spiritual weakness of many of our ancestors, today we have purified our society with the help of the True Church's Inquisition and we have finally earned God's blessing. Now, I want to bring out captain Alessandro Suedius to introduce the new generation Saintland National Soccer Team to the multiverse!
Suedius came out and the members of the Sanctii National Soccer Team talked for a while, boring the assembled press. Finally, King Paulus XVI walked back up to the podium to speak again.
King Paulus XVI - There you have it. The Saintland National Soccer Team that will win a World Cup for our Kingdom! Now, you may be wondering why I would call the press to Royal Square Garden just to announce my Kingdom's new National Soccer Team will be entering the World Cup. Afterall, it has been many years since Saintland has entered the World Cup and we will be unranked going into qualifying. Well, wait no longer as it is now time to introduce the most famous nun in the multiverse, Sister Maria Polus!
Sister Polus walked out onto the stage and began speaking.
Sister Polus - Hello, I am Sister Maria Polus. I am the Housemistress of Tomlinson House at the Barjavel Academy at Republica, the Instructor in Religious Studies, Deportment and Latin at the Academy and the Headmistress of the Barjavel Junior Academy, Republica Branch. I am joining you today at Royal Square Garden to officially announce that the True Church of Iesus Christus and the Salvation Circle will be financing a bid for the seventieth edition of the Baptism of Fire, entitled Holy BoF! For more details, I turn the floor over to the Prime Minister of the Malifornia Charter Society and a faithful servant of our Lord and Savior Iesus Christus, Mr. Samuel Lucchese!
Mr. Lucchese joined Sister Polus, King Paulus XVI and the Saintland National Soccer Team on the stage.
Samuel Lucchese - Thank you. I'm honored to have the privilege to inform you that we have contracted with the firms Xkoranate and NSFS for scorination services and with Xkoranate alone for its popular "additive" style modification services. We will also be utilizing the popular "roster bonus" and "RP bonus". The bonus, our partners inform us, will be cumulative and will be fair to all styles.
Sister Polus - We will utilize the standard single round robin group stage format followed by the standard knockout format. Currently, we count 31 nations signed up for the BoF. We are willing to work with any number, even if it is not evenly divisible into groups of the same size. For 31 nations, we would utilize 4 groups, three of which would consist of 8 teams and one of which would consist of 7 teams. Should we get to 32, we would use 4 groups of 8. While we would prefer even groups, such as 5 groups of 7 or 6 groups of 6 or 5 groups of 8, we would use uneven groups if necessary to ensure that every eligible nation that wishes to enter the BoF is able to do so. No matter the final group stage format, the knockout rounds would consist of at least 16 teams, with the possibility of play-in matches.
King Paulus XVI - Each group will have the privilege of having a single city's undivided attention to themselves. We envision groups in both St. Petrus and St. Paulus. In the Free Republics, we envision placing at least one group within the Malifornia Charter Society though some groups may unfortunately end up playing in parts of the Free Republics controlled by secular governments that do not operate according to the teachings of Iesus Christus.
Sister Polus - However, all teams will be provided with their own private lodging area free of charge and we will arrange the schedule so that all players will have the opportunity to attend a mass at a local Church of Iesus Christus should they wish to do so. As we do not believe in coercing anybody into embracing God's Truth, teams will also be free to decline the opportunity should they prefer eternal damnation to salvation. (OOC: In other words, it will be up to the RPers whether they choose to have any of their players convert to the True Church. There will be no additional OOC bonuses for doing so and there will be no OOC penalties for not doing so.)
Samuel Lucchese - You may be wondering about the experience of both Saintland and the Free Republics in hosting major events. In the past, the Free Republics have hosted a WBC, 2 World Bowls (one of them with Saintland), a World Cup of Hockey, a Rugby Union World Cup, 2 World Cups (with Legalese and Banija, respectively), a Cup of Harmony (with Falcus) and both the Winter and Summer Olympics plus a number of other smaller tournaments. The Kingdom of Saintland has hosted 2 WBCs, a World Bowl (with the Free Republics), an IBC (with the Royal Kingdom of Quebec), a World Cup of Hockey, Baptism of Fire 59 (with Star United States) and the King Paulus XV Memorial Games, among countless other major events. (OOC: In addition, I also co-hosted another WBC as Ilyseum, with Frenline Delpha as my co-host). The current president of the Olympic Council is from the Free Republics as are former presidents of the World Bowl Assembly and the International Basketball Organization. At one time, there was a Sanctii commissioner of NSCF as well.
King Paulus XVI - At this point, I would like to turn this over to the floor for questions.
Sister Polus - Your majesty, we forgot to mention the tiebreakers. We will be utilizing the standard 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw during the group stage. The tiebreakers will be head to head points, head to head goal difference, overall goal difference, matches won, goals against and finally a coin flip (OOC: A tiebreaker match will be scorinated using the current bonus values as of the end of the group stage to simulate the coin flip).
King Paulus XVI - Then, if we did not forget any other details, I believe we can turn this over to the floor for questions.
