Update 21:15  Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The world football federation Wednesday 2 December approved the Final Draw procedure, publishing the “pots” of teams. The draw takes place in South Africa Friday 4 and will determine who plays whom, when.

The Irish will not play in South Africa in the 2010 World Cup: that is the final answer to their request to Fifa, the world football federation, to reconsider. Ireland lost to France in a headline-making qualifying game after French player Thierry Henry’s illegal handball move that was not spotted by game officials. The Irish had asked to be an extra team for the World Cup but Monday Fifa said no.

CNN points out that France, unseeded, would have been seeded had November rankings been used instead of October’s.

The pots for Friday’s draw:

• Pot 2 will be composed of teams from Asia (Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic), North, Central America and the Caribbean (Honduras, Mexico, USA) and Oceania (New Zealand)
• Pot 3 will include teams from Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria) and South America (Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay)
• Pot 4 will have the remaining European teams (Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland)
• hosts South Africa will be automatically positioned as A1; the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H, but will always be in position “1” of their group
• groups will be drawn from A to H and the positions in the group will be drawn for Pots 2 to 4.

Switzerland is not among the seeded teams, based on Fifa’s October 2009 world rankings.

Links to other sites: CNN, Fifa, swissinfo, Yahoo News

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