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Brazil, England, Spain, Mexico, France, Argentina, Italy and hosts Germany are the eight seeded teams heading the groups for the final draw of the 2006 FIFA World Cup? in Leipzig on Friday, 9 December. The FIFA Organising Committee, chaired by Lennart Johansson (Sweden), reached this decision at its meeting today. The committee also approved the composition of the names in the other pots as well as the procedure for the final draw.

The committee based its criteria for seeding the teams on the 32 finalists' performances at the FIFA World Cup finals in 2002 and 1998 (ratio 2:1) and the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking in the years 2005, 2004 and 2003 (ratio 1:1:1). Brazil consequently attained the maximum of 64 points. Italy with 44 points ? a one-point lead over the USA (43) and six points ahead of the Netherlands (38) ? also heads a group (cf. the complete tables).

The FIFA World Cup regulations stipulate that geographical criteria must also be taken into account in the draw. Each group may not include more than one team per confederation, with the exception of Europe, which has 14 representatives. Consequently, six of the eight groups will comprise two European teams. Serbia and Montenegro were allocated to a special pot to avoid drawing three European teams into one group. The reason for the decision allocating one of the nine remaining European representatives into this bowl was the FIFA/Coca-Cola Ranking in November 2005, in which Serbia and Montenegro occupied 47th place ? the lowest position of the teams in question.

At the draw, Serbia and Montenegro will be allocated to one of the three groups that are headed by a non-European team, in other words, either Brazil, Argentina or Mexico. Click on the PDF link for more information.