FIFA World Cup 2018 Draw Begins In Moscow

Officials from the 32 World Cup teams have gathered in Moscow to find out who will play who at next year's tournament in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to appear at the draw ceremony, which will take place Friday at the State Kremlin Palace.

The draw will be presided over by former England striker Gary Lineker, who has previously called for FIFA to be disbanded over bribery scandals and questioned Russia's legitimacy to host the World Cup.

The 32 finalists will be split into eight groups of four teams. Only Europe can have two teams in the same group.

HOW DOES THE DRAW WORK?

The draw ceremony starts at 1500 GMT on Friday at the State Kremlin Palace and is set to last for an hour. The 32 finalists will be split into eight groups featuring a team from each pot. Only Europe can have two teams in the same group.

The draw will be presided over by former England striker Gary Lineker, who has previously called for FIFA to be disbanded over bribery scandals and questioned Russia's legitimacy to host the World Cup over the doping across sports.

Greats from the eight World Cup-winning nations will serve as draw assistants: Diego Maradona (Argentina), Gordon Banks (England), Laurent Blanc (France), Cafu (Brazil), Fabio Cannavaro (Italy), Diego Forlan (Uruguay), Miroslav Klose (Germany), Carles Puyol (Spain), and



Nikita Simonyan for host Russia.

Russian sports journalist Maria Komandnaya is the co-presenter.

WHO IS IN EACH POT?

FIFA changed how it allocates teams in the draw and now uses rankings alone for all four pots. At previous World Cups, only Pot 1 was for seeded teams, and the other three pots were decided by a geographical spread.

October FIFA ranking in brackets:

Pot 1: Russia (65), Germany (1), Brazil (2), Portugal (3), Argentina (4), Belgium (5), Poland (6), France (7).

Pot 2: Spain (8), Peru (10), Switzerland (11), England (12), Colombia (13), Mexico (16), Uruguay (17), Croatia (18).

Pot 3: Denmark (19), Iceland (21), Costa Rica (22), Sweden (25), Tunisia (28), Egypt (30), Senegal (32), Iran (34).

Pot 4: Serbia (38), Nigeria (41), Australia (43), Japan (44), Morocco (48), Panama (49), South Korea (62), Saudi Arabia (63).

Russia will play the tournament opener on June 14, 2018. The World Cup final will be held on July 15. Both showpiece games are at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Games will also be hosted in St. Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Sochi and Rostov-on-Don.

More than 740,000 tickets out of a total of 2.6 million have already been allocated and the next phase of sales starts on Dec. 5 through a ballot.