England unseeded for World Cup draw

03 December 2013 22:16

England will be among an unseeded pot of European countries for Friday's draw for the 2014 World Cup finals, organisers have confirmed.

FIFA has announced the procedure of the draw and as expected the eight seeded teams, who will be kept apart for the group stage, have been chosen according to October's world rankings.

The draw will be organised so that there will be no more than two European teams in any group of four countries, and all the South American teams will be kept apart.

It means England will have to face one of the top seeds - Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland - who are in Pot 1.

The countries in Pot 2 are the unseeded South American countries and the qualifiers from Africa: Algeria, Cameroon, Chile, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Ghana and Nigeria.

Pot 3 is made up of the teams from Asia and and north and central America: Australia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Iran, Japan, Korea Republic, Mexico and USA.

In Pot 4 there are nine unseeded European teams: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, England, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Russia.

In order to make the number in each pot equal, at the start of the draw one of the nine European teams will be drawn into Pot 2, and will definitely face one of the seeded South American sides.

Source: PA