Soccer: Fifa to announce seeds for World Cup finals

LEIPZIG, Germany - Fifa's soccer World Cup organising committee will decide the seedings tonight (NZ time) for the 32 finalists involved in next year's tournament in Germany.

The only thing known for certain is that the hosts will be seeded in slot A1 in the match schedule and play the tournament's opening match in Munich on June 9, Dortmund on June 14 and Berlin on June 20.

Seven other countries will also be placed in the top pool and kept apart in the draw for the first round which takes place in Leipzig's Neue Messe exhibition centre.

Friday's draw will be broadcast live to around 150 countries in the world with an estimated record audience of around 320 million people expected to tune in.

Fifa has not confirmed how the seedings will be decided but hinted that the same method used in 2002 will be used again.

That involved taking the performances from the two previous World Cup finals, combined with an average position based on the FIFA world rankings from the past three years to establish a coefficient for each team.

On that basis, Brazil, Italy, France, Argentina, Spain, Mexico and England could all join Germany in the top group of seeds, with the Netherlands, the United States, Czech Republic, Croatia, South Korea, Japan, Sweden and Paraguay in the second group.

Ecuador, Switzerland, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Iran, Costa Rica and Portugal are contenders for pool three while Ukraine, Serbia & Montenegro, Ivory Coast, Australia, Ghana, Trinidad & Tobago, Togo and Angola -- the lowest ranked side in the competition with a Fifa ranking of 62nd in the world -- making up pool four.

The system, though, is a flawed one because the Fifa rankings unfairly reward countries like Mexico and the United States who win most of their matches against weaker regional opposition.

European nations like the Netherlands and Portugal are penalised because, from a far tougher qualifying zone, they have missed out on recent World Cups.

Lobbying for position has already started with the likes of US coach Bruce Arena and Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who won the World Cup with his native Brazil in 2002, saying their teams deserve to be among the top seeds.

The organising committee will have the final say although Fifa president Sepp Blatter hinted recently that there could be some surprises in the seedings when he said: "I think the national teams of Holland and England have reason to be worried. Even Italy might not get a place."

Friday's draw (8.15am Saturday NZT) will be in stark contrast to the one made for the 1974 finals when the World Cup was held in West Germany.

Then, 200 guests were present in Hessian radio's main broadcast studio in Frankfurt to see 16 teams placed in four groups in a short ceremony that lasted about 15 minutes.

On Friday around 3700 people including 1000 media will be in the auditorium at the huge trade fair hall which is being transformed into a football stadium for the occasion.

Adidas will be unveiling the official World Cup match ball in a ceremony presented by talkshow host and sports journalist Reinhold Beckmann and assisted by German model Heidi Klum.

Next year's finals begin on June 9 and end on July 9 with the final at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.

- REUTERS