FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Jeff Mallett, president and COO of Yahoo!, signed the deal in Zurich.
"Football and the internet are two of the most global terms in today's world. By signing this agreement with Yahoo!, FIFA has gained the industry leader as an official partner for the new internet product category," said Blatter.
"In the short space of the three months since we restructured our marketing activities by setting up FIFA Marketing AG, we have been able to achieve our aim of completing our group of official partners for the first ever FIFA World Cup in Asia."
The agreement centres on the official website of the FIFA World Cup - FIFAWorldCup.com, which Yahoo! will now complement with a number of important resources, including a web-based messaging service, technical support, and portal services.
Yahoo! is the fifth official partner to sign up under the new FIFA marketing program for the 2002 event following in the footsteps of Avaya, Toshiba, NTT and Philips.
FIFA is currently holding a workshop in Zurich for all 15 official partners of the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan, the full line-up of which is now: adidas, Avaya, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Fuji Xerox, Fujifilm, Gillette, Hyundai, JVC, Korea Telecom/Nippon Telecom, MasterCard, McDonald's, Philips, Toshiba and Yahoo!.
Internet giant Yahoo! has signed a deal with soccer's world governing body FIFA to manage and run the official websites of the 2002 and 2006 World Cups - in doing so becoming the 15th and final official partner for next year's tournament.
