LIVE: FIFA 2018 World Cup draw ceremony from Moscow
The draw ceremony for the 2018 World Cup begins at 8.30 pm (IST) at the Kremlin in Moscow. The actual drawing of the balls is expected to start around 30 minutes later and is scheduled to last around half an hour.
Mutko also denied that Norwegian TV station TV2 had been banned from the draw because of anti-Russian output, saying it had merely been a “technical problem” and that their accreditation had been restored.
The draw ceremony will be led by former England striker and 1986 World Cup Golden Boot winner Gary Lineker and Russian sports journalist Maria Komandnaya and is a far simpler format than in previous tournaments.
The 32 teams have been equally divided into four pots based on FIFA world rankings with the exception of Russia, who as hosts are placed in the top seeds’ pot.
Each pot will be emptied one by one into eight groups — Group A to Group H — which will contain four teams each.
Two teams from the same confederation cannot be in the same group, other than Europe, which has 14 teams, and cannot have more than two teams in the same group.
The first match of the tournament will take place in Moscow on June …read more