The top four seeded countries will not be able to meet each other until the semi-finals of next year’s World Cup for the first time in the tournament’s history.
FIFA has announced that Spain (1st seed) and Argentina (2) will be ‘paired’ and placed into groups in opposite halves of the draw.
France (3) and England (4) will also be paired, which means England will not be able to come up against Spain or Argentina until the semi-finals, and France until the final.
This only applies if the four countries win their groups.
When two teams are paired, they are placed in opposite halves of the knockout bracket and cannot meet each other until the final. This happens at Wimbledon, and in the new Champions League format, where seeds are kept apart in pairs.
Fifa wants to ensure the top-ranked countries do not meet earlier in the knockout rounds, thus potentially creating blockbuster games later in the tournament. The same ranking system was used for the Club World Cup in the summer.
France knocked England out of the 2022 World Cup with a 2-1 victory in the quarter-finals, while Spain beat the Three Lions in the Euro 2024 final.
The four pots for the final draw, which takes place on Friday, 5 December (17:00 GMT), have also been confirmed.
Scotland will be in pot three, while the six play-off winners – which could include Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland – will all be in pot four.
Debutants Uzbekistan are in pot three, with fellow first-timers Jordan, Cape Verde and Curacao in pot four.
How will the draw work?
The 12 groups at the World Cup will include one team from each of the four pots.
Fifa will start by drawing the teams from pot one.
Co-hosts Mexico (A1), Canada (B1) and the United States (D1) will have coloured balls with their flags on to denote their special status. Their group positions are pre-determined so they play all their games in their own countries.
Once a team has been drawn they will go into the first available group in alphabetical order. The draw computer will ensure Spain, Argentina, France and England are placed in groups in the correct section of the bracket.
The draw then continues with pot two, pot three and finally pot four.
In a change to previous draw procedures, and to speed up the process, countries will not be drawn into their group position.
Seeded countries will all go into position one, with a pre-determined random grid determining how all other countries will slot into the group to create the fixtures.
No group can have more than one country from the same confederation. So for instance when Colombia are drawn from pot two, they cannot go into a group with Argentina or Brazil.
This applies to all pots, with the caveat that four groups will have two European nations, as there are 16 European qualifiers to be drawn into 12 groups.
The inter-confederation play-offs will have few potential group options. Pathway 1 (New Caledonia, Jamaica, DR Congo) cannot be drawn into a group with Concacaf or African teams. Pathway 2 (Bolivia, Suriname, Iraq) must avoid South America, Concacaf and Asia.
While the date and order of games will be known when the draw is made, the venues and kick-off times will not be confirmed until Saturday, 6 December.
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