World Cup Competition ideas

We would like to run a little competition in the office for a little bet on the world cup. Want to do something more than a straight draw of one team (not very fair on who picks Togo and who picks Brazil)
Has anyone any ideas on how to organise a competition like this?

put a slip of paper with each competing persons name into a separate envelope and seal them. So you will have 32 sealed envelopes with a persons name inside. Now shuffle the envelopes and draw one at at time. Write a team name on the outside of each envelope as they are drawn. You will now have 32 sealed envelopes with a team name written on the outside. As each team is knocked out open that envelope and that person is now out of contention for the big prize. If you end up with more that 32 players put multiple names in some or all envelopes. If less then sell multiple entries to some players.. Cruel but tense..

We charge a €5 per entry

(not very fair on who picks Togo and who picks Brazil)

Click to expand...

Ah but someone HAS to get togo and someone HAS to get brazil in an open draw, thats the luck of the open draw

Add in your own small prizes to keep it interesting for all

team with best/worst discipline..most/least goals...most conceded in a match..

Do a correct score competition. Each person predicts the score of all (or selected) first round games. Award 3 points for an exact match, 1 point for the right result. You can then repeat this for the subsequent rounds.

Used to do this for the premiership, and it helps keep interest in the lesser games.

do a total number of corners, or goals, or cards competition.

you can use some of the main betting websites to keep track for you,
or just watch all the games

The bbc seem to have created a world cup stock exchange:
[broken link removed]

Could set up something based on this, but the danger is that it becomes too involved

If it's a 'little' competition and you talking around 16 people maybe consider . . everyone draws for one team from the top half and one from the bottom (based on betting odds), you subtract the goals conceded by your bottom half team from the goals scored by your top half team, then highest total wins. Every match has an impact and the leader board can fluctuate quite a lot.

To avoid the Togolese syndrome how about awarding first prize to the the team that does the worst and second prize to the winners of the WC. It would certaintly change the mindset when the teams are being allocated out.