Henry may miss out on opening games

FRANCE MAY need a little more sleight of hand to survive the group stages of next summer’s World Cup tournament after being controversially passed over for a top seeding and potentially losing their captain, Thierry Henry, for their opening group games.

Fifa insisted there was nothing untoward in the organisation failing to hand the French a place amongst the eight top seeds ahead of tomorrow’s draw while French Federation (FFF) officials played down their disappointment at being grouped with the weaker European nations.

Back in France, however, the mood was rather less benign and it was not helped by the news that Henry’s handball in the Stade de France a couple of weeks back is to be reviewed by a Fifa disciplinary committee, prompting major doubts about the Barcelona striker’s availability early on in the tournament.

French anger is focused on the fact that when seeding teams ahead of previous tournaments, Fifa has used a combination of the country’s world ranking and its performance at other recent finals tournaments. Under this system the French would have been seeded while the Dutch would not.

This time, the organisers decided to rely solely on the rankings, which is not in itself an enormous surprise given how keen the game’s governing body has been to promote them since changing the method of calculation and then relaunching them a couple of years ago.

The problem is that Fifa has not used the current ranking list to seed the countries but rather fallen back on the one for October. Had November’s been used then the French would have been amongst the top rated nations but England would not.

On hearing the news, former France national coach Michel Hidalgo immediately suggested that it was payback for the controversy arising out of the St Denis match against Ireland. “It is an injustice,” he said. “I wonder if we do not pay for the hand of Thierry Henry.”

Fifa dismissed the notion with its general secretary, Jerome Valcke, observing, somewhat surprisingly, that the precise method of determination had been settled upon because: “This time the feeling was the October rankings most closely represented the best teams in the tournament.”

The clear impression was that the organisers had settled on a view of who should be seeded and then looked around for a system that would deliver the desired line-up. Valcke added, however, that he believed using the October rankings was fairer. “Countries who had been involved in the play-offs would have had an unfair advantage,” he said, “because they would have played more games and that affects their ranking.

“This is not a case of wanting Holland to be seeded instead of France,” he continued, “just that the feeling was the October seedings represented the best teams.”

French Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes insisted the news was “no surprise” but claimed it need not be regarded as a major setback either. “I did my calculations,” he said, “and we had very little chance of being in the first pot. But there is no good or bad draw. In 2006 many believed that the draw for the first round was favourable to us and qualification was still difficult on that occasion.”

It might be a little bit harder this time should Henry be sidelined for the first game or two which looks to be a distinct possibility after Fifa president Sepp Blatter said his handball would be referred to a disciplinary committee. “I have not said that Thierry Henry will be punished,” he told a press conference in Cape Town. “I have said that Thierry Henry will be examined by the disciplinary committee of Fifa.”

Asked if it was fair to make a special case of Henry, Blatter said the matter was one for the committee to consider: “It was blatantly unfair play and was shown all around the world but I don’t know what the outcome will be.”

There were no other real surprises in the seedings announced yesterday with the hosts being joined by the likes of Brazil, Spain and Italy in pot one. The three other pots are essentially based on geographical regions.