ESPN

 

England have been seeded for the World Cup finals along with South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Argentina, FIFA announced at a press conference in Cape Town.

France have unexpectedly been unseeded after FIFA decided to move away from their usual system of taking into account past performances at the finals.

It had been expected that Netherlands would miss out on being seeded, while reports on Wednesday morning also suggested that by taking an average of ranking over the past three years could result in England being unseeded.

FIFA chose to base the seedings upon their October 2009 FIFA world rankings. That France have been placed into the general pot of European teams may be seen as punishment for their controversial win over Ireland in the World Cup play-offs.