European teams will play fewer matches to qualify for the 2010 soccer World Cup finals in South Africa than they did to reach the 2006 tournament, UEFA has decided.
The competition will consist of eight groups of six teams, and one group of five.
The nine group winnerswill qualify directly and the best eight runners-up will play home and away playoff matches for the remaining four places.
One group runner-up will fail to make the playoffs with the top eight runners-up chosen following a recalculation after the results of the bottom-placed team in each of the eight larger groups are erased.
"It's a good compromise solution, because I wasn't really happy with the format for the last qualifying competition with groups of seven and eight teams," said UEFA President Michel Platini, who is in favour of smaller groups.
All 53 UEFA members will compete for the 13 places open to European teams.
The executive committee of European soccer's governing body also discussed the future format of the Champions League and UEFA Cup from 2009 to 2012.
"In the Champions League there will be no changes to the core format of eight groups of four teams each," Platini said.
He added that further discussions will take place at September's executive committee meeting in Istanbul to determine which teams will qualify for the competition proper.
Platini is proposing reducing the number of clubs eligible for the Champions League from the big nations such as Italy, Spain and England to allow more places for teams from smaller countries.
He is also looking at giving national cup winners in each country a place in Europe's premier club competition.
