The Winner of the World Cup 1998 and also the finalists in 2006, France team is not among the top eight seeded teams for the draw that was held this Friday. The news was announced by FIFA and Jerome Valcke when its general secretary made it clear at a news conference that it was due to the world rankings that France missed out a place and not because of the controversy that has been surrounding the side since the infamous handball goal against Ireland.
South Africa, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, England, Spain and Netherlands are the top eight seeds. France is on dangerous grounds as they can be drawn in any one of the groups from the top eight seeds. The 32 participating teams would be divided in to four groups of eight and would be placed in such a way that teams of the same continent do not come across each other. They will be placed in four different pots. The first pot will have the top eight seeded teams and South Africa is most likely to open their campaign at Soccer Stadium in Johannesburg on June 11.
Valcke confirmed that there had been an agreement to base the seedings on the FIFA world rankings which was done in agreement with the UEFA president Michel Platini. This system provided far more fairness to all teams as the numbers of qualifying games were same for all the European teams. The speculation that France may be punished by FIFA were put to rest when Valcke confirmed that the decision on how the seedings and pot grouping would work was taken much before Franc’s controversial game against Ireland.
