FIFA rejected Concacaf’s request to award it a fourth place in the 2014 World Cup. Instead, all six confederations will keep the number of berths they had in 2010 with one twist. The four playoffteams will be paired in an open draw.
“It’s impossible to make always everybody happy,” said FIFA president Sepp Blatter. “If we lookat the sporting results of the World Cup in 2010 there was no reason to change anything.”
In the prearranged pairings used for the 2010 finals, Concacaf’s Costa Rica faced Uruguay ofSouth America and Oceania champion New Zealand played Asia’s Bahrain. Uruguay and New Zealand won to advance to the finals in South Africa.
The playoffs will again include SouthAmerica’s fifth-place team, Concacaf’s fourth-place team, Asia’s fifth-place team and Oceania’s winner. Brazil qualifies as the host country so as many as six of the 10 SouthAmerican teams could play at the 2014 World Cup.