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Friday, June 17, 2016

CAF seeding: FIFA's special ranking Pandora box

They did it again! Because Egypt rightly complained, FIFA will issue a new special ranking on 21 June.

Egypt fans rejoice, but there's more to this story, as the new ranking will impact more teams than Egypt and Tunisia.

Assuming the calculation date is 20 June

  • Egypt climb to Pot 1, replacing Tunisia
  • Morocco and Cameroon replace Cape Verde Islands and Mali in Pot 2
Assuming the calculation date is 21 June

  • Egypt climb to Pot 1, replacing Tunisia
  • Morocco and Cameroon replace Mali and Nigeria in Pot 2

Pot 1: Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Egypt
Pot 2: Tunisia, Congo DR, Morocco, Cameroon, Nigeria/Cape Verde Islands
Pot 3: Cape Verde Islands/Nigeria, South Africa, Mali, Guinea, Congo
Pot 4: Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Gabon, Libya

Since this new ranking thing is a first ever, what's to stop Tunisia, Mali, Cape Verde Islands or Nigeria to complain to CAS about it? Even Guinea (pot 2 using the 2 June ranking) could complain about the special ranking. It might prove a pretty hot potato.

As I've said before FIFA have handled this badly. They should have announced long time ago that the June ranking will be postponed by one week to 9 June, with all Copa América Centenario games being included in the July ranking calculation.

If FIFA want to promote fairness and transparency, should really make it clear from the beginning, not leaving room for interpretation.

And looking forward, how about announcing the final draw seeding criteria before knowing all qualified teams?

About me:

Christian, husband, father x 3, programmer, Romanian. Started the blog in March 2007. Quit in April 2018. You can find me on LinkedIn.

33 comments:

  1. They can't give up their historical power to put their thumb on the scale.

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  2. DR Congo has a match against Mozambique in COSAFA Cup at june 19 .. would this affect the ranking ?

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    Replies
    1. Hi kamal ,
      If Congo won it will decrease it average points gained in the fourth year and this match result will never affect egypt's seeding in pot 1

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  3. Egypt should be seeded as pot 1, i wonder who made up this first special ranking in the first place :@

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  4. ED
    I have (Nigeria 500) (Uganda 502)
    (Libya 380) (Gabon 355)(S Africa 538)
    please write the numbers all teams (21 June)
    thanks

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  5. because of the calendar it's better to be in pot 3 than pot 2, bullshit. i am for morrocco and really unhappy with that new ranking.

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    Replies
    1. What? Why would you rather be in Pot 3? That doesn't make sense.

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    2. Because of the calendar, decisive match on last day against pot 1 team and away.
      Day 1 : 1-4 et 3-2
      Day 2 : 4-3 et 2-1
      Day 3 : 4-2 et 1-3
      Day 4 : 2-4 et 3 -1
      Day 5 : 4-1et 2-3
      Day 6 : 1-2 et 3-4

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    3. The positions are being drawn as well as the groups- Pot 1 teams can be in any position

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  6. This is bullshit Tunisia shall stay in pot 1, Tunisia deserves to be in pot 1, and Egypt will be in Pot 2

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  7. africa should have more than 5 seats in world cup.Africa WC qualification groups are stronger than Euro 2016

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    Replies
    1. Good one =D Only Algeria are a regular threat to the rest of the world, and Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, eventually Cameroon, are the only ones who would stand any chance at the Euros. The rest is ridiculously weak from the tactical point of view.

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    2. Egypt , Morocco, Nigeria, exct.. are also better than greece, slovenia, bosnia, austria, sweden an many mores europeans countries often qualified for world cup, Europe have too many places, they should organize play off with africa.

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    3. That's a good idea. All of the other confederations have a play-off entrant, so why not Europe and Africa? Europe's 13th v Africa's 6th would be interesting and if the African team are good enough they would win it.

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. Dont forget also that Nigeria & Ghana are world champions in youth competitions...Africa rises by talent and without money as others...they definitely deserve to compete with europe in 5 seats and sorry: dont link Africa to Asia

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    6. you may be world youth champions but you may be nothing in world senior competitions. you should not compare youth with adult.

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  8. in WC 2014: CMR 0 - 4 CRO; GRE 2 - 1 CIV; NGA 1 - 0 BIH; GHA 2 - 2 GER; POR 2 - 1 GHA; ALG 1 - 1 RUS; BEL 2 - 1 ALG; GER 2 - 1 ALG; FRA 2 - 0 NGA.
    in 9 matches African team had just won only 1 match against team in Europe.
    African team's performance in WC was quite bad. so 5 spots are enough for them

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  9. this is not fair...Ghana and algeria were those who embarrassed Germany the champion...Give africa 6th-10th chance to play Euro 9th to 13th and you will see

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  10. First of all Tunisia shall stay in pot 1 because they are a better team than Egypt and Senegal. Second of all yes Africa deserves more than 5 spots in the world cup maybe 7-8. Europe should keep only 10 spots. Thirdly, I do not understand how in the Fifa ranking how Asia get more points than African nations, African countries are better than Asians. In my opinion Europe 10 spots, Africa 8 spots, South America 5 Spots, North AMerica 4 spots, Asia 4 spots , and oceana 1 spot and New Zealand are not allowed to participate in it.

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    Replies
    1. How about being objective? What I remember from the last World Cup is a shameful behaviour of numerous Cameroonian players, Ghanaian refusal to REPRESENT THEIR COUNTRY if they won't get a plane full of money, and rather a tragical Ivorian showing against Greece. 17 games - only three wins of African teams, while they lost eleven. It is getting worse and worse with every international tournament and you demand extra places at the World Cup? Africans should stop whining and ask themselves whether they behave like professionals with regard to their national teams, both associations and players on the pitch. Scandals that regularly occur at the time of the World Cup, either it is Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria or Togo, are surely not the signals that African football deserves wider representation.

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  11. FIFA is a joke in credibility.
    Now they cancelled this new ranking.

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  12. "Randomly" put Egypt and Tunisa in the same group, and then none of this matters (at least for the 1st pot).

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    Replies
    1. Egypt will end up loosing that group which has Tunisia lol so it wont help them, we as Egyptians should forget about this world cup because I see no way of us qualifying we have a terrible team. Salah and El nenny cant save us every time we play a good team, that is why we lost To Tunisia home and away

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    2. That's a terrible way how to hide that you're a Tunusian. Please stop spamming the comment section with your pathetic screams.

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    3. As an Egyptian I think the best pot a team to have is Ivory coast or Senegal

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  13. What's this rumour about FIFA reversing its decision?

    Apparently we're back to the 7th of June rankings:
    Pot 1: Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia
    Pot 2: Cape Verde Islands, Egypt, Congo DR, Nigeria, Mali
    Pot 3: Cameroon, Morocco, Guinea, South Africa, Congo
    Pot 4: Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Gabon, Libya

    Wow... FIFA and CAF messed this up spectcularly.

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  14. Unbelievable! This is an absolute sham and a mockery. How can FIFA even live with itself after claiming that it would reform? There is more corruption and lack of transparency at FIFA than ever before.

    I can't take international football seriously with FIFA hand-picking seeds/pots. Who's to say they don't hand-pick groups too? Even Sepp Blatter recently said as much.

    I'd want my team to withdraw from the World Cup. Isn't CAF in Cairo too? What a slap in the face.

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  15. Ed, i recieved this email from FIFA 4 days ago:

    Good morning,

    Following a thorough analysis which gave particular consideration to the FIFA/Coca Cola Men’s World Rankings’ constant fluctuations and with a view to including the most accurate ranking, it was decided that a special edition of the African Rankings will be made available on June 21st, (in lieu of the African Rankings of June 7th) which will be used for the upcoming draw of the African Zone qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup taking place on 24th of June in Cairo, Egypt. This special edition of the African Rankings will take into account the recent AFCON qualifying matches, as well as various international friendlies.


    And FIFA cancelled our complaint and return to 7th June rankind, did you ever see something like that??? Shamful.

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  16. What an absolute farce this whole seedings issue has become. I bet FIFA wished they'd just used the "standard" rankings from June 2nd to avoid all this fuss. I feel a bit sorry for the Egyptians and I hope they and Tunisia are drawn together so the matter can be resolved on the football pitch rather than by incompetent administrators.

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  17. Tunisia will beat Egypt if they are in the same group. Tunisia has a really good team and many Tunisians are going to good teams in Europe, they are going to have a complete team by the world cup. Tahia le Tounes. If Fifa did not use the special ranking Tunisia will still be in pot 1

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  18. I've read it now on multiple occassions and you Tunisian fans can repeat it all you want, but that last sentence is simply NOT true. Get your facts straight, please: in the June ranking Tunisia is CAF-6th, so pot 2.
    And then you can debate about strength of teams etc.

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  19. Well, the CAF-draw has passed yesterday. We can conclude now that FIFA is not to be trusted anymore for one bit regarding the establishment of seeding procedures.
    Edgar, careful what you wish for: Infantino or Blatter or who's next. The corruption is structural and evidently not dependent on persons. I hope Michael van Praag could be the exception (running for UEFA president), but I have serious doubts already.
    FIFA: for the game, for the world. It's sickening.

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