Where: Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
When: 4 December 2009, 5pm GMT.
Tournament format: The 32 countries will be split into eight groups of four. The top two in each group will progress to the knock-out stages, with group winners facing runners-up in the last 16.
The draw: The competing nations have been split into four pots, and every group will contain one team from each pot. Pot one comprises the hosts South Africa, plus seven seeded teams. Pot two consists of the remaining European teams; pot three contains teams from Africa and South America; and pot four features teams from Asia, Oceania and North/Central America.
Pot 1 (seeds): South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Spain, England, Holland, Argentina.
Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania and North/Central America): Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Mexico, Honduras.
Pot 3 (Africa and South America): Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay.
Pot 4 (Europe): France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark, Slovakia.
The seeded teams were chosen based on the Fifa world rankings as they stood in October this year. The October rankings were used because teams who had to go through play-offs would otherwise have benefited from having played additional competitive games in the past three months, which are given greater weight in the rankings than friendlies.
The show: The South African Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron has been named as the guest presenter for the draw, and will be joined on stage by a host of sporting celebrities including David Beckham, Haile Gebrselassie and Makhaya Ntini. Theron will assist the Fifa secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, during the draw.
The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, will welcome the audience at the beginning of the draw. Other guests will include Issa Hayatou, the chairman of the World Cup’s organising committee, the Nobel Peace Prize winners FW de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as the former footballers Franz Beckenbauer, Michel Platini, Eusébio and Roger Milla. Nelson Mandela will address the audience by video message.
A series of short films designed to “give a taste” of the upcoming tournament will be shown. There will also be a number of live music acts, including the Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir, the Béninoise singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo and Johnny Clegg. The show will be brought to a close with a performance by the internationally acclaimed musical ensemble Africa Umoja, along with 80 performing artists.
Audience: More than 2,000 invited guests will be present along with more than 1,700 media representatives. Fifa has said it anticipates a TV audience of more than 200m across more than 200 countries and territories, which would represent a significant increase on the 134.5m who watched the draw for the 2006 World Cup.
Famed soccer star Carlos Ruiz is offering World Cup prepaid long distance calling http://www.CarlosRuizMinutes.com
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Only a few months till the world cup. The excitement is building. Bring it on.
Hello to everybody,I like your site and it looks very interesting and easy to read,really!. I am from holland. I love the Soccer and cannot wait till 11th June, can you?.But there is a problem camming from FIFA. It is that doesn´t choose the best teams in this planet for the World Cup which it should otherwise don´t call the World Cup a final, if you want to play soccer for the soul of competition then go to the olympics games. this is exactly what the World Cup is turning to, and it su…, ire needed to beat argentina to be in and is not, jap beat lowly teams as bahrain, qatar, kuwait, to be in, is this justice I dont think so, just because you are in the World Cup it doesn´t mean that you have the quality to be in like jap can attes. Any way, I expect to see a great final on 11th July and my favorite winner team is holland,and my favorite player is Ricardo Kaka.Good blog and keep going.Cu!
Hello to everybody,I like your site and it looks very interesting and easy to read,really!. I am from Argentina. I love the Soccer and cannot wait till 11th June, can you?.But there is a problem camming from FIFA. It is that doesn´t choose the best teams in this planet for the World Cup which it should otherwise don´t call the World Cup a final, if you want to play football for the spirit of competition then go to the olympics games. this is exactly what the World Cup is turning to, and it su…, ire needed to beat germany to be in and is not, jap beat lowly teams as bahrain, qatar, kuwait, to be in, is this justice I dont think so, just because you are in the World Cup it doesn´t mean that you have the quality to be in like jap can attes. Any way, I hope to see a super final on 11th July and my favorite winner team is Ghana,and my favorite player is Iker Casillas.Good blog and keep going.Cu!
I’m going to be glued to my chair watching the World Cup!
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