Move over, Heidi. Johnny Clegg coming.
The FIFA Organising Committee came correct today. The decision to base the procedure for the Final Draw of the 2010 World Cup on the October 2009 World Ranking is a good one. The ranking system was raw at first, but now it is more refined and provides a rather useful way to measure the relative successes and failures of the world’s footballing nations.
South Africa will be joined by Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England as the seeded teams in Pot 1.
The other 24 teams will be divided into the 3 pots, each with 8 teams.
Pot 2 will consist of teams from Asia (Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic), North, Central America and the Caribbean (Honduras, Mexico, USA) and Oceania (New Zealand)
Pot 3 will include teams from Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria) and South America (Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay)
Pot 4 will contain the remaining European teams (Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland)
South Africa will be automatically positioned in Group A; the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H.
Geographical criteria will also accounted for, ensuring no two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group).
Bring it on. We’ll be exploring all the possible permutations in our next post.
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