By Mark Baber
October 17 – After failing in a forlorn attempt to get FIFA to make a last minute change to the seeding system, this morning’s FIFA Ranking confirms that France have missed out on being seeded for the decisive World Cup qualifiers, after being ranked 21st in the world on 870 points, just a single place and a single ranking point below Ukraine, who are in 20th place on 871 points and who will be seeded.
The teams to play in UEFA’s World Cup playoffs, which will see eight-teams contending for Europe’s final World Cup places next month, were decided by the records of the nine second placed teams against the top teams in their group – with France easily making it through as their record was only bettered by Greece, whilst Denmark lost out.
However, the four teams to be seeded before Monday’s draw have been decided by today’s FIFA ranking – which means Portugal (FIFA Ranking 14th), Greece (15th), Croatia (18th), and Ukraine (20th) will be seeded – with France (21st), Sweden (22nd), Romania (29th) and Iceland (46th) missing out.
FFF president Noel Le Graet had complained the seeding system was unjust as France had had to play in a qualifying group of five (along with Spain) rather than six which gave them less opportunity to pick up FIFA ranking points saying; “We’re going to contact them on Monday. There is a little injustice between the groups of five and those of six. Our rivals in the other groups have been able to score more points in official matches. That’s a fact. But the rules have existed for a while. It’ll certainly be complicated. It’ll be changed for the future, I imagine. In my opinion, it’s difficult, but it would be fairer.”
Unsurprisingly, FIFA rejected France’s appeal yesterday, according to L’Equipe, saying: “FIFA has been contacted by the French Football Federation about the rules of the competition on the terms of appointment of seeded for the draw of the European play-offs.
“However, no formal request was transmitted to us from the FFF.
“FIFA wishes to confirm that the [rules of the] preliminary stages at the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 cannot be changed during the competition.”
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