FIFA announced today the seedings for the 2010 World Cup. In addition to host country South Africa, the seedings are Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England. The seedings are based on FIFA’s rankings for October 2009. While the rankings consider a team’s performance over the past four years, greater weight is given to more recent results in competitive matches.
France was not included in the top eight seeds. FIFA officials were quick to announce this was not a punishment for the controvesial qualifier against Ireland. Rather, this was because FIFA used the October rankings rather than the November rankings. Said FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke , “We made the decision last month that the October rankings would be used because they were fairer – countries who had been involved in the play-offs would have had an unfair advantage because they would have played more games and that affects their rankings.” If the Novmeber rankings had been used, France would have been seeded ahead of England.
The method of choosing the top seeds for the tournament has changed with each final and Valcke said a different method could be used for the next World Cup. “In the past the seedings have been determined by a mixture of world rankings and performances in past World Cups but this time the feeling was the October rankings most closely represented the best teams in the tournament.”
The World Cup draw will take place Friday, December 4th. FSC will show live coverage from Sky Sports News beginning at 11am. The toughest group would feature Spain, France, Cameroon and the United States, four of the top 14 teams in the world. Another possibility for the US is being grouped with England, Ivory Coast, France or Portugal.
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