The final draw for the
2014 FIFA World Cup
The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...
took place on 6 December 2013 at the
Costa do Sauípe
Sauipe is a district in the municipality of Mata de São João, on the northern coast of the state of Bahia, in Brazil. There are few permanent residents there, due to the very high cost of residences and the fact that almost the entire area is ...
Resort,
Mata de São João
Mata de São João is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the states of Brazil, state of Bahia in the Nordeste, North-East region of Brazil. It covers and a population of 47,126 (2020 est.). Mata de São João has a population density of ...
in
Bahia
Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...
, at 13:00 local time (
UTC−3). The ceremony determined the group in which the 32 participating teams would begin the final tournament. The teams were divided in advance by
FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
into four pots based on seedings and geographic regions.
Seeding
![FinalDrawWC2014](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/FinalDrawWC2014.jpg)
Seeding for the draw was based on the October 2013 version of the
FIFA World Ranking
The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, led by Brazil . The teams of the men's member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the ...
. Although the November 2013 rankings were the most current at the time of the final draw, the usage of those rankings would advantage those teams who had played additional play-off matches in order to qualify. Brazil were not among the top eight seeded teams at the time but, in keeping with usual FIFA World Cup procedure, were seeded by virtue of being the host nation.
The top seven teams in the October 2013 FIFA World Ranking filled the remaining seeded positions.
The draw
In preparation for the final draw, the 32 participating teams were put into four pots based on seedings and geographic regions. It was announced in October 2013 that the eight seeded teams to feature in Pot 1 would consist of the host nation
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
and the seven highest-ranked teams as of that month's FIFA World Rankings (see
above).
Following a meeting of the competition's organising committee on 3 December, the composition of the other three pots was announced:
The draw procedure was as follows:
#One European team was first randomly drawn from Pot 4 and placed into Pot 2, in order to create four even pots of eight teams ''(in the draw Italy was drawn out)''.
#The draw then proceeded with the drawing of the other seven seeded teams from Pot 1 into Groups B–H, with Brazil having been predetermined to be in Group A.
#To maximise geographic separation, an ancillary pot ("Pot X") was created during the draw into which the four seeded South American teams (from Pot 1) were placed. One of these four teams was then drawn out ''(in the draw Uruguay was drawn out)''.
#The sole European team from Pot 2 was then automatically placed into the group of the South American team that was drawn from "Pot X" ''(Italy was therefore placed into Uruguay's group)''; This process prevented three European teams being grouped together.
#All remaining teams were then drawn sequentially from the pots (i.e. Pots 2, 3, then 4) into the groups in alphabetical order (i.e. Group A, then Group B, etc.). During the drawing of Pot 2, groups could be skipped over as the two South American teams in Pot 2 were not permitted to be drawn into the (remaining three) groups headed by South American seeds.
#The positions within the eight groups were then drawn for the non-seeded teams, in order to determine the order of the fixtures within each group. The eight seeded teams were automatically designated the position of Team 1 within their group (e.g. Brazil would be A1).
France seeding controversy
There was some controversy before the draw,
which some called potgate, when FIFA decided that the European team in Pot 2 would be drawn there randomly. Previously, the lowest-ranked European team was sent there. In this case, that would have been France, who would otherwise have got the
draw
Draw, drawing, draws, or drawn may refer to:
Common uses
* Draw (terrain), a terrain feature formed by two parallel ridges or spurs with low ground in between them
* Drawing (manufacturing), a process where metal, glass, or plastic or anything ...
that occurred for Italy.
Many officials, fans and journalists complained, pointing out that a Frenchman, the FIFA secretary-general
Jérôme Valcke
Jérôme Valcke (born 6 October 1960) is a French football administrator, best known as the former Secretary General of FIFA (the international governing body of the sport). He was fired on 13 January 2016 as a result of allegations arising from ...
, suggested the change, and suspecting that another influential Frenchman, UEFA's president,
Michel Platini
Michel François Platini (born 21 June 1955) is a French football administrator and former player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, Platini won the Ballon d'Or three times in a row, in 1983, 1984 and 1985, ...
, helped approve it.
References
{{FIFA World Cup
Seeding
The term seeding and related terms such as seeded are used in several different contexts:
*Sowing, planting seeds in a place or on an object
*Cloud seeding, manipulating cloud formations
*Seeding (computing), a concept in computing and peer-to-pee ...
FIFA World Cup seeding