Soccer: No surprises in Fifa's World Cup seeds

Hosts Germany and champions Brazil were named in the top eight seeded teams for the World Cup draw on Tuesday along with England, Spain, Mexico, France, Argentina and Italy.

Fifa have split the remaining 24 teams according to their confederations rather than their current world rankings or past World Cup performances.

However, there is no place at the top table for the Czech Republic, currently second in the Fifa world rankings, or the Netherlands, who are third, or even the United States, ranked eighth, who edged Mexico to win the Concacaf qualifying competition for the first time in 71 years.

The Dutch won their tough qualifying group in which they were unbeaten in 12 matches. They miss out along with Portugal, ranked 10th in the world, who also came through their 12-game qualifying campaign unbeaten.

In Saturday morning's draw (NZ time), the first pot will contain the top eight teams with the second pot containing the five African finalists: Ghana, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Angola and Togo, plus the two lower ranked South American teams Ecuador and Paraguay along with Australia, the winners of the Oceania qualifying competition.

The third pot will comprise eight European teams: Croatia, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.

The fourth pot will have four Asian teams: Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the three remaining CONCACAF countries, Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago and the United States.

A special pot will contain only Serbia & Montenegro, the lowest ranked European team, to be placed in a group including either Brazil, Argentina or Mexico.

Fifa created the special pot so they could avoid having any groups with more than two European teams.

Jim Brown, Fifa's Director of Competitions explained: "The seedings were based on Fifa rankings for the last three years and the last two World Cup finals.

"Germany will be seeded in slot A1 in the draw and Brazil in F1, and there were economic factors involved in this decision as those teams are guaranteed to play in larger stadiums." One team from each pot will be drawn into the eight groups in the first stage of the finals in Germany which run from June 9 to July 9 next summer.

Germany will open the World Cup in Munich on June 9 and will then play in Dortmund on June 14 and Berlin on June 20. Brazil will start their campaign for a sixth title in Berlin on June 13 then play in Munich on June 18 and Dortmund on June 22.

In a break with the past, Fifa have also ruled that any player selected to play in the finals will not be allowed to play any other competitive match after May 15, the deadline for the announcement of the finalists' 23-man squads.

The only exception will be for those players involved in the Champions League final which will now be held in Paris on May 17 rather than May 24. The UEFA Cup final in Eindhoven has been brought forward from May 17 to May 10.

Fifa were unhappy with the lethargic peformances of some leading players in the 2002 finals and have now introduced the cut-off date to give players a three-week break before the start of the competition.

"The 23 players on the list (for each of the 32 participating nations) will not be available for any other competition (after this date)," FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi said on Tuesday.

"We don't want burned out players. They will be free from any other engagement. The Champions League final is a special exception."

Fifa also ruled on Tuesday that if the draw produced any match likely to pose a security threat it would not be moved from one location to another as happened in Euro 2004 when UEFA moved two games from smaller towns to larger ones.

Fifa spokesman Markus Siegler said: "No matches will be moved from one stadium to another, the ony possible change might be in the kickoff time."

The eventual winner of the tournament will earn 24.50 million Swiss francs ($26.40 million) in prize money, with the runners-up receiving 22.5 million Swiss francs.

In another new move, Fifa announced that the World Cup trophy would be taken on a tour of 31 cities in 28 countries beginning in Accra, Ghana on January 7 and ending in Rome on April 10.

- REUTERS