Nigeria remains in Pot 2 for 2018 World Cup qualifiers after Fifa cancels it’s ‘special ranking’

The Super Eagles were earlier placed in Pot Three while Egypt were placed in Pot one after the Egyptian Football Association lodged a formal complaint to express their discontent after being zoned in Pot Two despite being the fifth best ranked team among the 20 teams.

But now, in a sudden turn of events, the governing body of football, FIFA, via a press release on Wednesday night invalidated the ‘Special ranking’ seeding and has now returned Nigeria to pot 2 alongside Egypt.

The four pots for the draw are as follows:

Pot 1: Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia

Pot 2: Cape Verde Islands, Egypt, Congo DR, Nigeria, Mali

Pot 3: Cameroon, Morocco, Guinea, South Africa, Congo

Pot 4: Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Gabon, Libya

Fifa also detailed the procedure for the draw ceremony billed for Cairo, Egypt.
“The teams in Pot 4 will be drawn first. The team drawn first from Pot 4 will be placed in Group A, and its exact position in the group will be determined by a ball drawn from a second pot that will contain four balls with the position numbers 1-4,” it stated.”

“The team drawn second from Pot 4 will be placed in Group B, and its position in the group will also be determined by a ball drawn from the second pot. The team drawn third will be placed in Group C, and its position drawn from the second pot. The team drawn fourth will be placed in Group D, and its position drawn from the second pot. Finally, the team in the last ball in Pot 4 will be placed in Group E, and its position will again be drawn from the second pot.

“This very same procedure will then be applied for Pot 3, then for Pot 2, and finally for Pot 1. When the last ball containing the name of the final team in Pot 1 has been drawn and its position in Group E has been confirmed by drawing the last remaining ball in the second pot, the draw will be concluded.”