2014 World Cup Draw Pots Revealed, Updates on Prize Money

FIFA officially announced the pots for this week's World Cup draw as well as the prize money on the line in next summer's international football showcase. The draw itself, which will place the 32 teams into eight groups, is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 6.   

Pot 1 is headlined by the top four contenders: Brazil, Spain, Germany and Argentina. Pot 2 has only seven teams for the time being, but a European team for Pot 4 will eventually fill the void. The United States and Mexico headline Pot 3.

Following are the results of Tuesday's meeting of the World Cup organizing committee. Click here to watch the live press conference that follows the meeting.

Pots for 2014 World Cup Draw

National Team	FIFA Ranking
Brazil	10
Spain	1
Germany	2
Argentina	3
Colombia	4
Uruguay	6
Switzerland	8
Belgium	11

Pot 1 is comprised of host nation Brazil and the seven top-ranked teams from FIFA's October rankings. These will be the headline squads for each group, and those outside it will likely be rooting for a spot alongside Switzerland, or at least to avoid Brazil, Spain, Germany or Argentina.

National Team	FIFA Ranking
Algeria	26
Cameroon	51
Ivory Coast	17
Ghana	24
Nigeria	36
Chile	15
Ecuador	23

At the outset, Pot 2 only has seven teams, made up of national teams from Africa and the South American squads not in Pot 1. Eventually, another European team will be drawn into this pot, but there will be a separate “Pot X” created to avoid three teams from UEFA ending up in the same group.

The Telegraph tries to sort out the complicated process:

Jeremy Wilson of The Telegraph provides this quote from Sepp Blatter, who explains why France wasn't placed into Pot 2 automatically:

"

The decision was taken by Fifa’s executive committee, all the confederation presidents. We are at a draw and we should have a draw. It’s easy to say it. Let us draw all the teams, and not pick one out.

"

National Team	FIFA Ranking
Australia	59
Iran	45
Japan	48
Korea Republic	54
Costa Rica	31
Honduras	41
Mexico	20
United States	14

Pot 3 is straightforward. It's comprised of teams that qualified from the Asian and North American regions, which includes the United States and Mexico. Teams from this pot will need luck in order to avoid a very difficult draw.

National Team	FIFA Ranking
Bosnia and Herzegovina	21
Croatia	16
England	13
France	19
Greece	12
Italy	7
Netherlands	9
Portugal	5
Russia	22

Finally, the fourth pot is all of the remaining European teams. Since there are nine sides, it creates an imbalance that will get sorted out when one is drawn into Pot 2. But again, FIFA is going to immediately draw a South American team from "Pot X" and European team together to avoid three UEFA teams ending up together, as explained during the press conference.

Paul Carr of ESPN provides a graphical look at the breakdown:

Updates on Prize Money for 2014 World Cup

Mark Bisson of World Football Insider provides the confirmed prize money:

Bisson previously reported on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at least a 33 percent increase on the amount of prize money available in 2014 over the totals from 2010, when $420 million was up for grabs.