FIFA World Cup Qualifiers: ‘Fair Play’ and Predictions – Return Leg

A Heartfelt Embrace

Mr. Blatter, your results are served. How do you think your little scheme has fared? Quite well if you ask me, after all, the top two reasons (Portugal and France) this abominable seeding system was adopted in such a hasty last minute fashion have secured their tickets to the big dance in South Africa, while bumping their (equally) deserving ‘minnow’ nation counterparts from proving just how advanced the beautiful game has become in the oft neglected corners of the European football universe. Everybody at FIFA headquarters in Zurich surely winced when it became obvious the tournament would loose star Russian forward Andrei Arshavin, but were quickly relieved when Portugal and France qualified ensuring appearances from top draw players like Christiano Ronaldo, Raul Miereles, Deco, Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka and Franck Ribery. Read on for a breakdown of today’s results.

FIFA World Cup Qualifiers: ‘Fair Play’ and Predictions

The Draw

FIFA should be ashamed. Period. For the first time in the history of World Cup Qualification, teams relegated to a playoff situation to ensure qualification have been seeded in order to avoid traditionally ‘top’ squads from eliminating each other, prospectively avoiding revenue losses in the tens of millions of Euros. FIFA’s reasoning?  Well, to be honest, we haven’t been given any official reasoning regarding this decision, other than it was deemed to be for the good of the sport and that it was agreed to (hastily) nearly unanimously by the football’s governing body. So much for FIFA’s FAIR PLAY programme I suppose.

Ireland’s response was perhaps the most irate with Manager Giovanni Trapattoni claiming that a decision such as this strikes at the pureness that lies at the heart of the beautiful game. Keeper Shay Given offered a more succinct, yet equally eloquent description of his feelings regarding the seeding system: “Disgusting”. It begs the question that had teams like Portugal, France and even Russia been more successful in their qualification attempt, and smaller nations such as Serbia, Denmark or Switzerland been swapped into their position, would FIFA have adopted a similar stance?