Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given has complained about the seeding of countries for the European World Cup play-offs, and he is right to do so.
Seeding for the play-offs was not part of the original qualifications rules, and was only announced on 29 September.
It seems that with some big countries - who were seeded in the original group draw - about to fall into a play-off lottery, Fifa decided to give them the best possible chance of qualifying for South Africa next year. Examples are France and Portugal, and, until Saturday, even Germany were looking at the possibility of a play-off spot.
Thus, in the current Fifa rankings (with an update this Friday), the likely seeded group runners-up will be Russia (6th in the rankings), France (10), Greece (12) and Portugal (17), leaving Ukraine (25), Republic or Ireland (38), Bosnia-Herzegovina (46) and Slovakia (45) or Slovenia (54) (one of these two will win group three) unseeded. It leaves the unseeded teams looking at very tough play-off games, which could leave eighteen months' hard work all wasted.
Even these late changes cannot rescue the countries that were seeded to finish in at least the top two places, but have failed: Sweden, Czech Republic, Turkey, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria - all of whom will not be going to South Africa in 2010 - barring some very odd results tonight!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment