Nigeria remains in Pot Two for Friday’s African World Cup qualifiers draw, according to the Federation of International Football Association.
In a sudden turn of events, the body via a press release on Wednesday night decided to invalidate a previously announced “special” ranking which demoted the Super Eagles to Pot Three and placed Egypt in Pot One.
The seeded teams and the four pots for the draw were defined by the decision of the Emergency Bureau for the Fifa World Cup qualifiers of June 22, 2016 composed of Sheik Salman Ibrahim Al Khalifa, Alejandro Dominguez and David Chung.
Fifa also reeled out the procedure for a hitch-free draw ceremony billed for Cairo.
“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.”
Having missed out of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nation, Nigeria would be hoping to secure one of the five spots for the 2018 Fifa World Cup billed for Russia.
Pots In Full
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.