Nigeria to miss out as FIFA announces Africa’s World Cup seeds

 

Next month, the world football governing body, FIFA, will confirm the top five seeds for the African zone of the 2018 World Cup qualifying series.
The seeds will be announced between June 8 and 10, before the main draws take place on June 24 in Cairo, Egypt.
Nigeria will most certainly miss out, as the current FIFA rankings will be one of the criteria used. The Super Eagles are ranked 14th in the continent and are not likely to jump too high in the June rankings.

The top five ranked countries in Africa this month are Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal and Egypt.

FIFA will also consider previous World Cup performances, a yardstick that may favour Nigeria.
The qualifiers will be played on a league basis of 20 teams divided into five groups from October. Only the winners of the five groups will qualify for Russia 2018