ST PETERSBURG — England and Wales will take their place among the top nine European seeds for Saturday's World Cup qualifying draw here Saturday. The top seeds are based on the FIFA world rankings from June meaning previous World Cup winners Italy and France are only second seeds. World champion Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Romania, Portugal, Spain and Croatia are the other top seeds. Along with host Russia, 13 other European nations will qualify for the World Cup with the nine group winners from Saturday's draw being joined by the winners of four playoffs between the eight best second-placed teams. Scotland and Northern Ireland will be in the third of the six pots, whilst the Republic of Ireland is in pot four. The qualifying groups will take place between Sept. 2016 and Oct. 2017 with the playoffs in Nov. 2017. Seedings in full: Pot 1: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, England, Wales, Spain, Croatia. Pot 2: Italy, Slovakia, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, France, Iceland, Denmark, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Pot three: Poland, Ukraine, Scotland, Hungary, Sweden, Albania, Northern Ireland, Serbia, Greece. Pot four: Turkey, Slovenia, Israel, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Bulgaria, Faroe Islands, Montenegro, Estonia. Pot five: Cyprus, Latvia, Armenia, Finland, Belarus, Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova. Pot six: Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Georgia, Malta, San Marino, Andorra. Moscow confirmed to host Cup opener, final Moscow's Luzhniki stadium will host both the opening match and final of the 2018 World Cup after the match schedule was confirmed by FIFA Friday. Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Sochi, Samara will be the quarterfinal venues while St Petersburg and Moscow will stage the semifinals. Russia, allocated as team A1, will play in the opening match on June 14. The final will be held on July 15. The 2017 Confederations Cup, an eight-team tournament featuring the champions of each continent plus the hosts and world champions, will be held from June 17 to July 2, FIFA said. Hulk replaced Brazilian striker Hulk was withdrawn from his role in this weekend's 2018 World Cup draw, four days after saying racism was commonplace at his football games in Russia. FIFA said Hulk was replaced due to “club commitments” with Zenit St. Petersburg, which visits Ural Yekaterinburg in the Russian Premier League Sunday, a day after Saturday's draw. Alexei Sorokin, chief executive of Russia's World Cup organizing committee, said the decision was unrelated to the Brazilian's criticism of racism in Russian football. “Hulk was among those who agreed to participate but very recently we found out that the coach of Zenit made a decision based on purely sporting reasons to withdraw this player from taking part in the draw show,” Sorokin said. “Zenit has a game Sunday in Yekaterinburg, so the coach made the decision that they need to leave together, not leaving anyone behind.” The match has been on the schedule since at least June 30, long before Hulk was announced as a participant in the draw. Hulk was replaced at the draw by former Russia midfielder Alexei Smertin. Hulk, who joined Zenit from Porto three years ago, said Monday that he feared racism could mar the World Cup. “If it happens in the World Cup, it will be really gross, and really ugly. Usually it happens when Russian clubs play, and it doesn't come out to the world, and the world doesn't know about this,” he said through a translator. “I must say that @ almost every game, I see this happening. I used to get angry, but now I see this doesn't help, so I just send a kiss to our fans and try not to get angry.” — Agencies
