Soccer: Spain wins recognition in World Cup seedings

By GLENN MOORE

Twelve years ago, England's hooligans "earned" the national team a World Cup seeding at the expense of Spain.

Yesterday, even the memory of further violence in Marseilles during the last World Cup, and Charleroi during the European Championship last year, could not deny the Spanish their just deserts.

It is not because the world has moved on. At Italia 90, England's seeding ensured their fans were initially confined to the island of Sardinia.

With seeds no longer given the privilege of playing all their group matches at the same venue there is no security advantage in seeding England. Thus Spain's footballing credentials were given due respect.

As expected, Germany have also been seeded ahead of England despite finishing second in their qualifying group, having been beaten 5-1 by England at home, and trailing England in the Fifa rankings.

Fifa, soccer's world body, said Germany were seeded because of their superior World Cup record.

At yesterday's meeting of the World Cup organising committee in Pusan, South Korea, three other seeds - Argentina, Brazil and Italy - were similarly rewarded.

Co-hosts Japan and South Korea, and the holders France were automatically seeded.

The rest of the draw will be made on geographical lines. England and Ireland will be in pot two, which comprises the non-seeded European nations. Pot three contains the remaining South American and Asian nations, and pot four the African and Central and North American sides.

With 11 teams in the European pot, England and Ireland could be drawn together, as they were at Italia 90. If that happened, the seeded team in their group would not be a European team - there is a limit of two a group - but would be one of the hosts, or Brazil or Argentina.

The seeding of the hosts, while necessary for political and economic reasons, could produce two weaker groups, especially as one could head the group that will feature a single European team.

A group containing Japan, Slovenia, Ecuador and Senegal could be produced. Japan have yet to win a World Cup point, and the other three teams are making their debut in the finals.

At the other extreme would be a grouping of Argentina, England, Portugal and Mexico, all of whom are in Fifa's top 10.

Fifa general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen said the organising committee based the seeding decision on performances in the last three World Cups - France 98, USA 94 and Italia 90 - with a weighting of 3:2:1.

The positions of teams in the Fifa world rankings at the end of 1999, last year and now were added to the equation in a 1:1:1 weighting.

"According to those calculations Brazil have 62 points, Argentina 56, Italy 56, Germany 54 and Spain 45. Mexico followed with 42 points, then England on 41 and Croatia on 37," Zen-Ruffinen said.

China will play their first-round matches in South Korea for economic and geographic reasons.

That was the organising committee's reasoning, although the historical enmity between China and Japan was probably more a factor.

Similar friction between the co-hosts continues to cast a shadow over the tournament.

Emperor Akihito of Japan is unlikely to attend the draw tomorrow night (NZ time) after a diplomatic flare-up in April.

This was over the Japanese Government's decision to approve a history textbook criticised for whitewashing Japanese pre-Second World War aggression in Asia.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin has accepted an invitation.

The decades-old conflict between North and South Korea looks unlikely to be alleviated by the World Cup.

South Korea offered the North the chance to stage some matches but the North has not responded.

Fifa is giving each competing country one million Swiss francs ($1.46 million) towards the cost of preparations.

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