FIFA changes seeding system based on feeling

Roar Guru

By dasilva, 4 Dec 2009 dasilva is a Roar Guru

Tagged:: FIFA, FIFA World Ranking, football, World Cup football, World Football

Related coverage

For a long time, FIFA determined seeding for the World Cup by calculating seeding tables that used the combination of performances from previous World Cups, as well as FIFA World Rankings.

This was done because there was a belief that FIFA World Ranking is quite imperfect and that performance in the previous World Cups is just as good an indicator of the pedigree of the team as the FIFA World Ranking.

However, the seeding system has changed to now be just the FIFA World Ranking from October.

The result of this is that France misses out a seed position for The Netherlands. It does seem suspicious that this was a political decision as part of the fall out of the handball controversy.

FIFA has denied that, with FIFA secretary Jérôme Valcke saying: “In the past the seedings have been determined by a mixture of world rankings and performances in past World Cups, but this time the feeling was that the October rankings most closely represented the best teams in the tournament. This is not a case of wanting Holland to be seeded instead of France, just that the feeling was that the October seedings represented the best teams.”

So now they are determining what seeding system to use due to what type of “feelings” FIFA have!

Although I prefer the old seeding system, I have no problem with using the FIFA World Ranking to decide seeding for the World Cup as long as they are consistent with it and stick by it.

Now, if FIFA really believes that the World Rankings is the best system to determine the pedigree of the teams, then for future World Cups, they better stick with it no matter what teams make up the Top 7.

If the seedings for the 2006 World Cup had been determined by the FIFA World Ranking, the seeds would have been (using October 2005 ranking) Germany, Brazil, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Argentina, France, Mexico and United States, as opposed to the actual seeds of Germany, England, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy and Argentina.

Would FIFA actually allow teams like the United States to be seeded over countries like England and Spain for the next World Cup if the FIFA ranking shows they deserved it?

Or would FIFA decide that the old system would produce seeds that makes FIFA “feel” better?

The problem is that the seeding system is only decided after all the qualifiers are announced. Therefore, FIFA can choose whatever system they want to pick the teams they want to be seeded for the World Cup. This leads the process to be open to accusations of political bias.

If FIFA really wants a fair and transparent process in determining the seeds for the World Cup, then they should announce the seeding system before the World Cup Qualifiers begin.

Then we won’t have the allegation that FIFA are picking and choosing teams they want to become seeded and there will be a reduction of political influence in the process.

Though perhaps asking FIFA to become more transparent is too much to ask?

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.

The Crowd Says (13) | Page 1 of Comments

Freud of Football said | December 4th 2009 @ 5:56am | Report comment

Transparency is their favourite word, they love saying it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over… – doesn’t mean they give a damn about it.

Reply
Roger Rational said | December 4th 2009 @ 6:21am | Report comment

It’s not based on feeling; it’s based on a dispassionate analysis of where their commercial interest lies.

Why are South Africa seeded? Because they are the home nation and it suits FIFA for the home nation to do well.
Why are England seeded? Because South Africans are crazy about English football and so it suits FIFA for England to do well.
Why have France not been seeded? Because, post-Henry, most people (including the locals) will be quite happy to see France knocked out early and so it suits FIFA if the French get their comeuppance.

It all comes down to money and profit at the end of the day.

Reply
- AndyRoo said | December 4th 2009 @ 11:12am | Report comment
  
  The old system was designed to make sure the USA aren’t seeded because if they used pure ratings in the Past the USA were in and it would have sparked mass mocking of the ratings system.
  
  Reply
Tarquin said | December 4th 2009 @ 9:10am | Report comment

As they say – they felt the rankings were indicative of the best teams, so they used that

Don’t get caught up thinking FIFA are in any way ‘fair’ – they had a view about the best sides (albeit a correct one) and fitted the method around what they had decided – truth is they should of course announce the criteria before qualifying even starts, or stick to one system, but they won’t, just as they changed the system in 2006 to reflect their views – they do it every time, the French of course think the 2006 method was correct because it favours them, but that was altered itself

fact is, the French are rubbish and to seed them over the Netherlands would be an even bigger joke than FIFA’s criteria

Roger – I’ve got to disagree, we are all biased and think FIFA is out to get us, England weren’t even represented on the committee that decided the seeds, France was (by Platini), we’ve all cried foul over the years when it hasn’t gone our way, but France have been favoured enough to negate any claims of an agenda against them (e.g. the recent last-minute seeding in the European playoffs) – as for commercial interest, yes it’s better to keep big teams for longer, but it’s not specific to any teams, France are worth far more commercially than the Dutch, and they will have no desire for them to go out early – England would have been seeded however you did it thanks to two top 8 finishes, so don’t accuse us of being FIFA favourites – who would you replace them with and on what criteria? Plus they weren’t seeded in 2002, despite being big in Asia

Reply
aubgraham said | December 4th 2009 @ 10:54am | Report comment

Quote: If the seedings for the 2006 World Cup had been determined by the FIFA World Ranking, the seeds would have been (using October 2005 ranking) Germany, Brazil, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Argentina, France, Mexico and United States, as opposed to the actual seeds of Germany, England, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy and Argentina.

This is actually not a fair comparison since they substantially revamped the Ranking system after the 2006 World Cup (partly to make it harder for teams in CONCACAF to be seeded so highly). Or to put it another way, if they had used the same system in October 2005, as they used in November 2009 then USA would probably not have been eighth on the list (though I haven’t checked this).

It is clear (at least to me) that seeding decisions are a purely political process for which FIFA rankings are used as a means to justify the ends. After all, for the 2006 World Cup they used the November 2005 rankings as part of their seeding formula. But magically changed to October this year to ensure that Argentina and England were seeded ahead of Portugal and France. The reasoning given by FIFA for this decision is that it is unfair because some teams played extra qualifying matches (which are worth 2.5 times a friendly).

I do agree with your general point, that FIFA should announce the seeding system for 2014 immediately after the conclusion of 2010. However, I do not agree at all with the ranking system.

The above point about changing the months, shows a direct weakness of the system – each team plays a different number of valuable qualifying matches. This is one of the reasons why Australia was always quite low on the FIFA rankings table, we never played enough of these valuable matches – our all time high of 14 came because we are now playing these games more regularly (and winning them too).

FIFA also skew the weighting against the poorer nations in another way – the value of a game is determined by your opponents ranking and the average strength of both confederation. So if you are from CONCACAF your games are worth less, but this means your opponent has a low ranking which penalises the value of the game again. Another way to look at it is that Australia beating Wales in a friendly is worth less than Greece beating Wales in a friendly. I believe the ranking itself should be sufficient enough determine the value of the game.

For me ELO is a better system, and would give the same seeding as FIFA finally decided on but in a much more transparent way.

Reply
Gibbo said | December 4th 2009 @ 12:28pm | Report comment

garbage. the best teams got seeded, and they changed the methodology to ensure this was achieved. what’s not transparent about it? ends, rather than means, are paramount when it comes to an event like the world cup.

Fifa isn’t a democracy. this isnt the justice system or parliament. not everything has to be approved and voted on by the people. for the good of the game they make decisions and act on them. it would be riddiculous to have had USA seeded last WC, and the French have not been playing well enough to deserve the privildge at this WC. Good on them for making the tough calls and boo to this petty criticism.

Reply
- dasilva said | December 4th 2009 @ 1:53pm | Report comment
  
  DId I asked for a democracy. I just asked for a pretty common sense and professional approach which is that the seeding system should be announced before the World Cup Qualifiers and not after the teams have qualified.
  
  I also think USA being seeded is a joke. That’s why I prefer the old system. Having FIFA world ranking to determine seeds is going to make the next world cup be susceptible for having teams like USA being seeded. Gippo, will you accept USA being seeded for the next world cup if the rankings reflect that?
  
  You simply can’t have a system where you change the system every 4 years to pick and choose the team you want to be seeded. Now If FIFA says that this FIFA world ranking is going to be used for the World Cup 2014 and stick by it.
  
  If they don’t then what’s the point then. You might as well removed the facade and just announced that seeding system is scrapped and have FIFA personally picked the teams being seeded due to commercial reasons. Why bother trying to put an objective spin in it.
  
  When the EPL season starts, we know what conditions before hand will result in teams winning the premier league, the number of teams going to relegated and the number of teams going to qualify through europe. Imagine if after the season is complete, they suddenly decided that the team relegated will be reduced from 3 to 2 (as they don’t want a particular high profile club to be relegated which actually has been done in other leagues in the world) or changing the number of teams qualifying to europe after the season is completed to ensure a team that misses the top 4 qualify.
  
  It will be incredibly unprofessional. This is what this seeding system of making it up after the team is qualified is doing.
  
  Reply
  - dasilva said | December 4th 2009 @ 2:18pm | Report comment
    
    This is just like FIFA intervening and seeding the UEFA playoffs
    
    Now I actually thought it was a good idea to seeds the playoff. However it was completely unprofessional to change the system in the middle of qualification. It should have been implemented for the qualification for the 2014 world cup not just change the system whenever FIFA feels like it.
    
    Reply
  - AndyRoo said | December 4th 2009 @ 2:22pm | Report comment
    
    I am in favor of having the system in place beforehand and for that I prefer performance at the last 3 world cups.
    
    However the fact they previously used the system in order to pretty much keep Mexico and the USA (who weren’t two of the 8 best teams in the world) from getting seeded sugests it’s not about commercial intrests or USA would have been seeded.
    
    Reply
- Tarquin said | December 4th 2009 @ 5:47pm | Report comment
  
  There still needs to be a fair system – it would hardly be fair to just pick teams for the world cup, qualifying is weighted, but they all get a fair chance – there needs to be some sort of basis for the seeds
  
  Reply
aubgraham said | December 4th 2009 @ 1:02pm | Report comment

Who the best teams are is a matter of opinion. You think this is courageous because you think the best teams got seeded.
We don’t know what motivations FIFA has when they seed. A seeding that uses a ranking system that everybody understands and that everybody agrees accurately reflects the strengths of the teams at the time would be a more transparent way of assigning this privilege.

There are plenty of ways to design a ranking system and I don’t think the FIFA one is very good. If you don’t use such a system then seedings are just the opinion of a select few. Fortunately, they actually play the games to test these views.

Reply
Ignatius said | December 6th 2009 @ 12:36am | Report comment

They changed them because the French and the Portuguese would have been seeded teams with the unfair advantage of having played more matches than Argentina and England

Reply
- dasilva said | December 6th 2009 @ 12:52am | Report comment
  
  That’s a different issue
  They decided to use October FIFA rankings instead of November FIFA rankings for that reasons
  
  However if they kept the past performance for the last two world cups as part of the seeding criteria
  France would have been seeded and holland and portugal will remain unseeded irrespective of whether FIFA chooses to used the november or october rankings.
  
  Reply