Ireland set for World Cup seeding boost in qualifiers

HAVING laboured as fourth seeds in the current Euro 2008 campaign, the Republic of Ireland are set to move up a rung in the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The World Cup qualifiers will be based on FIFA’s world rankings, but, somewhat confusingly, the Euro 2008 finals seedings will be based on UEFA’s coefficients which provide significantly different standings to FIFA’s.

UEFA’s executive committee, meeting in Istanbul yesterday, announced that the four top seeds for Euro 2008 will include hosts Austria and Switzerland and reigning European champions Greece, should, as seems certain, they qualify.

The other top seed is set to be Spain, the team with the highest UEFA co-efficient, which is worked out from results in the qualification tournaments for Euro 2008 and the last World Cup.

In the highly-unlikely event of a Czech Republic collapse which might allow Ireland, still with three games to play, to progress to next summer’s finals from Group D, Steve Staunton’s men would find themselves among the bottom four seeds.

Based on current standings England, who have the second-highest UEFA coefficient, would be in a group of four second seeds along with the likes of Italy, France and Germany (or, if any of those fail to qualify, Luiz Felipe Scolari’s Portugal side).

If Scotland qualify for the finals they are set to be in the group of four third seeds — their UEFA co-efficient places them 10th — while, like the Republic, Northern Ireland would be in the bottom four.

However, for the World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign, both the Republic (currently ranked 32nd) and the North (ranked 36th) would be among the third seeds. The competition will see the nine group winners qualify for the finals in South Africa automatically, with the eight best runners-up playing off for the four remaining European spots.

The draw for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers takes place in Durban, South Africa, November 25, and the Euro 2008 final draw on December 2.