FIFA's seeding system is a problem that must be addressed

The draw for the World Cup pits England with Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica whilst another group contains Ivory Coast, Japan, Colombia and Greece; thus FIFA's ranking system comes under major scrutinity yet again.

Back in the draw for Spain's 1982 World Cup, the world watched in horror as Sepp Blatter and his army of FIFA cronies worked through one of the most farcicial draws in history. Having worked through 10 teams, the FIFA team realised they had made a mistake and had to re-draw the entire thing again. Whilst yesterday's draw appears to go off without a hitch - by the way, Fernanda Lima, wow! - the seedings and the draws is entirely unfair and FIFA are the only ones who can take the blame.


Let's do a drilldown through each group. As you might expect, Brazil (the hosts) have ended up with a relatively nice group; with Cameroon, Croatia and Mexico on the agenda. Historically, the hosts normally work their way through the group stages without a hitch; you have to expect the same will be said this tournament as well. 


Group B has a touch more excitement, but ridiculous in terms of quality. World Cup champions Spain will take on the Netherlands, Chile and Australia. Australia are arguably one of the best teams in the Asia Pacific region, Chile are one of the tournament's big underdogs, especially having witnessed their 2-0 win over England last month. Finally, Spain and Holland are last tournament's finalists. The result, a group of death. This is where you start to wonder how on earth Belgium and Switzerland ended up as seeded teams for this showpiece tournament.


Group C seems to be the easiest group of the lot. Columbia, Greece, the Ivory Coast and Japan. Where is a top seeded team and where is even a second seeded team? 


Group D is yet another group of death, with England, Uruguay, Italy and Costa Rica. We can see three teams there worthy of a top seeding.


Then Group E; which is battling with Group C for the easiest of the lot, Honduras, Ecuador, France and Switzerland. A truly very favourable draw for France and Switzerland, you have say. How two European teams have ended up with two South American teams beats us!


Group F should be a nice easy way through to the next round for Argentina, as they take on Nigeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iran.


Whilst Group G is arguably one of the most exciting groups I've seen in World Cup history, but wholly unfair - Ghana, Greece, Portugal and the USA. The Americans will be heading home come the end of June, I think we can safely say that the USA will have to wait for another four years before they have a chance to win the World Cup.


Then finally, the heavily backed Belgium take on Algeria, Russia and South Korea. A doozy. 


So how did this happen? It all comes down to FIFA's flawed system when deciding seeds for the World Cup. We've seen this before and we know that FIFA are famous for making huge preparation errors when organising major events. It's shocking to think that Honduras might be a team in the last 16 of the World Cup whilst someone like Portugal or England will be heading home after the first round.


It's not just us who is unhappy though, Italy manager Cesare Prandelli questioned FIFA's drawing and seeding system: "Everybody can see something isn't right with the current system. Are we looking at the FIFA Ranking? Alright, we're seventh again now and have been among the top seven countries for about two-and-a-half years."


This just simply damages the World Cup and is a major problem that FIFA should address in future. Nobody takes the FIFA rankings seriously yet they have a major role to play in the biggest tournament in the World. German coach Joachim Low recently said of the rankings: "In general, I find that the world ranking is difficult to understand, for example, Switzerland in seventh ahead of the Italians."


Something has to change - I'm sure there will be some upset people in Brazil come next summer but if FIFA are to try harder to improve their image, a good place to start might just be as simple as a fairer draw.