England face new seeding format for World Cup draw

ENGLAND are set to benefit from tennis-style seeding at next summer's World Cup and avoid Spain and Argentina until the semifinals and France until the final - if all those teams win their groups.

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FIFA is introducing a tennis-style system for the 2026 World Cup knockout stages, having adopted a similar format for the Club World Cup earlier this year.

The top two teams in the current FIFA rankings - Spain and Argentina - will be on opposite draw pathways, as will the third and fourth-ranked sides, France and England.

Those four teams would then be placed in different quadrants of the 32-team knockout phase if they all come top of their groups.