FIFA Sows the Seeds of Profit

Ian King takes on FIFA's decision to seed the WCQ group stage playoffs with his usual even-handedness:

This issue, however, isn’t really the issue that grates with the decision to seed the UEFA play-offs for the 2010 World Cup finals. It is the timing of it that has caused all of this criticism. It is not unreasonable to expect to know the exact rules of the competition are going to be before it starts, and anything less than that is selling countries that have entered these tournaments short. No-one can say for certain whether FIFA deliberately took a decision to change the rules as soon as it looked possible that some of the “bigger” (and therefore televisually more attractive) countries might struggle to qualify, but the fact that the decision was made at the end of September when some of the “bigger” (and therefore televisually more attractive) countries are struggling to qualify leaves them prone to this criticism, even if it is unfounded.

Read the whole post here. I agree with King that it's the arbitrariness that grates...but as with all things FIFA/UEFA, what are we to do but raise our hands to the sky and cry out, "why"? If they smell money, the best thing to do is just get out of the way.