Ireland will be second seeds for draw

SOCCER: FIFA confirmed yesterday that the Republic of Ireland will be amongst the second group of seeded nations when the draw for the qualifying stages of the next World Cup is made in Frankfurt tomorrow.

The confirmation was widely expected but there was some surprise at the announcement that, because of the fixture congestion that will accompany a qualification system which involves groups of six and seven teams, players will be available to national associations for much less time ahead of some potentially crucial games.

After a meeting of the 2006 World Cup Organising Committee yesterday it was confirmed by the world body that it has adopted the recommendation by UEFA that the seedings be based on the number of points won during the group stages of the two most recent qualifying tournaments. Under the system Ireland, a top seed two years ago when the draw for the European Championship was made, drops to the second tier of nations while England returns to the pool of leading countries.

FIFA has also adopted the qualifying structure put forward by the European federation with the 51 competing countries divided into five groups of six and three groups of seven with the eight group winners and two best runners-up progressing automatically and the six other runners competing in play-offs for three further places at the 2006 finals. Germany qualifies automatically as the host nation.

The drop from the first to the second pool of nations means that Brian Kerr's side faces the prospect of battling it out with one of Europe's big guns in the next qualifying series, something that was avoided last time around when the Republic was seeded alongside the likes of France, Italy and Germany.

A meeting with England is also a possibility, one that Franz Beckenbauer said would not be prevented and FAI chief executive Fran Rooney insisted he would welcome. "Now that the seedings have been decided it is impossible to avoid certain clashes between rivals," remarked Beckenbauer when asked about the possibility of potentially explosive combinations of countries being thrown together in Friday's draw. But Rooney maintained that, "England would be a good draw for us. Financially they are a great option and I think that it's desirable that we are drawn with one of the major powers even if from a fan's point of view you would want us to get one of the weaker teams so that our chances of qualification would be improved."

An FAI spokesman said that specific plans have been made in relation to the staging of an England game in Dublin. The two associations have reviewed these provisions, which include playing the game in the afternoon and locating the visiting fans on the north terrace, prior to every qualifying draw since the game that was abandoned due to crowd trouble back in February, 1995 and both, it is said, are happy with the proposed security arrangements for any meeting that might now have to be scheduled.

Kerr, meanwhile, may have to cope with assembling his squad just 48 hours before some games during the forthcoming campaign as FIFA tries to balance the requirements of a more crowded competitive fixture list with pressure from clubs in relation to the release of players.

German Football Federation president Herhard Mayer-Vorfelder said that because of the number of games to be played, particularly in the groups involving seven nations, some games would effectively be treated like friendlies with clubs only obliged to make the players available to the national associations two days in advance of the fixture.

"We considered the issue at some length and we've chosen what we consider to be the lesser evil, the most acceptable solution." An alternative approach would have been to introduce pre-qualifying for the weakest nations but this, Mayer-Vorfelder said, had been ruled out on the basis of "solidarity considerations."