The FA remains cautiously optimistic that England will be named this morning among the top seeds for the World Cup draw on Friday, despite rumblings from within Fifa about a last-minute change of policy that could leave Fabio Capello’s team in the same group as one of the tournament’s heavyweights.
The expectation remains that the World Cup organising committee, which meets in Cape Town this morning to decide on the seeding process before Friday’s draw, will retain the formula that was used for the 2006 finals, where seedings were worked out with a formula using recent Fifa world rankings and performance in the previous two tournaments.
If the same system is used, England will join Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France, Italy, Germany and South Africa, the hosts, as top seeds, albeit with the danger of being drawn in the same group as Portugal or Holland.
However, there were indications last night that the seeding criteria might be amended — as has been the case before each of the past three World Cups — and calculated purely on the basis of the world rankings, on which Fifa is keen to place greater emphasis and credence.
Although England’s slip from seventh to ninth in the rankings last month, after their 1-0 defeat by Brazil, will not be taken into account, a calculation of their average ranking over the past three years, which was one idea floated by Fifa officials last night, would cause them to be replaced as a top seed by Holland.
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Paranoia at the FA might increase with the news that the 30-strong committee includes two men who have occasionally been accused of Anglophobia — Michel Platini, the Uefa president, and Jack Warner, a Fifa vice-president, even if both appear to be warming to England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup — and representatives of Brazil, Spain, Italy, Germany, Argentina, France and Portugal, but not England, or indeed Holland. Geoff Thompson, the former FA chairman, sits on a number of Fifa committees, but not this one.
One Fifa official said: “There is a view that we need to make the rankings mean more, especially as every match played by every nation, including friendlies, contribute to them. There are members of the organising committee who plan to argue that this is the chance to make the world rankings more important.
“Nobody knows what criteria will be used. It depends on which members of the organising committee make the strongest argument.”
How the process could unfold
Pot one
South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Italy, Germany
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Pot two
Holland, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia, Switzerland
Pot three
United States, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand
Pot four
Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria
*Only Pot one would include seeded nations. Pots two through four would be determined by virtue of the remaining countries’ geographical locations.