FIFA World Rankings: What It Means for the European Play-Offs

(Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

Controversy reigned in Europe last week when FIFA announced that the draw for the play-offs in the European section of World Cup Qualifying would be seeded.

World football’s governing body confirmed that the eight best second-placed teams from Europe’s nine qualifying groups would be seeded into two pots of four according to their FIFA World Rankings.

The latest rankings were released this morning, taking into account all results from the recent qualifiers, and leaves the two groups of seeds and non-seeds looking as follows:

Seeded teams (including FIFA World Ranking)

9.  France

10. Portugal

12. Russia

16. Greece

Non-seeded teams

22. Ukraine

34. Republic of Ireland

42. Bosnia-Herzegovina

49. Slovenia

The decision was met by outrage from various members of the Republic of Ireland camp in the British press when the story broke, as it soon became apparent that they would not be amongst the seeded teams.

Overall, FIFA’s decision has been widely criticised for creating an unlevel playing field in order to give the likes of France, Russia and Portugal a better chance of qualification by ensuring that they couldn’t be drawn against each other.

The draw for the play-offs will be made on Monday 19^th October at FIFA headquarters in Zurich.

The draw will pair the teams into four ties and then a separate draw will decide which team will host the first leg. Therefore, the seeded team will not necessarily enjoy home advantage in the crucial second leg.

The first legs will be played on Saturday 14^th November with the second legs four days later on Wednesday 18^th November. The four winners will progress to the World Cup finals in South Africa next summer.

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