Blatter to attend World Cup draw in Russia

David Cooper - Writer 04:33 25/07/2015
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  • Resilient: Blatter.

    Preparations for Russia’s 2018 World Cup will get under way with the qualification draw across five confederations taking place on Saturday.

    Despite the ongoing FIFA scandal, president Sepp Blatter – who is stepping down next February – will appear on stage in St Petersburg with Vladimir Putin.

    Moscow has attempted to portray the US corruption probe as a Western-orchestrated attempt to strip Russia of its right to host the event.

    Billions of dollars will be poured into infrastructure projects as well as providing the 12 stadiums across 11 host cities for the tournament (June 14-July 15, 2018). The draw will involve 141 national sides from all but the Asian confederation as their qualification process has already begun.

    Russia are the only side to qualify automatically as hosts, so world champions Germany will have to secure one of the remaining 13 qualifying spots available to the European nations if they are to defend their crown in three years’ time.

    The nine winners of the European groups drawn at the Konstantin Palace will progress along with the winners of four play-off matches between the eight best second-placed sides.

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    Africa’s five representatives will be decided by the winners of five groups of four sides after two preliminary rounds have whittled the participating nations down from 53 to 20.

    Four South American sides will qualify directly after a marathon 18-match round robin between all 10 competing nations with the fifth-placed side guaranteed an inter-confederation playoff.

    CONCACAF will have three direct entrants, while the Asian confederation retains four places. The other three teams for the interconfederation play-offs will come from the fourth-placed side from CONCACAF, the best side from Oceania and Asia’s fifth-best side.

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