Rio readies for World Cup preliminary draw

The draw for the 20th World Cup will be made in Rio on Saturday as the tournament prepares to return to Brazil for the first time in 64 years. Brazil will join France, Germany, Italy and Mexico in hosting the event twice while the tournament will be the second in succession to be held in the southern hemisphere after South Africa 2010.
The last time South America hosted the show was Argentina 1978, since when Brazil have added two crowns to take their haul to a record five, Italy have added a pair to lift their tally to four and Germany have recorded a third.
France and Spain have also both joined the winners club. France have since slid down the world rankings and will be the only former winner not to be seeded in the draw, set to be attended by 38 coaches, including Spain's Vicent del Bosque. After initial interest from Argentina and Colombia, South American countries rallied around a Brazilian candidature from their CONMEBOL confederation. But since the award of the event in 2007, questions have been asked - as was the case with South Africa - as to whether the huge country of 190 million will have its venues all shipshape and security in place in time for the big kick-off on June 12, 2014. For now, Brazil, qualified by dint of staging the event, have three years to finalise their plans which include a multi-million dollar revamp of the mythical Maracana Stadium in downtown Rio. Everyone else must get down to actually earning one of the 32 berths up for grabs.
FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke confirmed the dates Wednesday, but said it is still not clear where the first game will take place. Europe, which will have nine seeds, will be awarded 13 places with 53 teams competing for them in the qualifiers. Asia has 43 teams scrapping for 4 or 5 berths, the last one decided through a playoff and Africa will have five berths available for 52 teams from a continent yet to land the ultimate prize.
A total of 35 North, Central American and Caribbean (CONCACAF) teams will fight for three guaranteed plus one play-off berth, while Oceania's best finisher from 11 countries will get a place only via a play-off. Come the actual finals, 12 cities from an original pool of 17 applicants will host matches. Organisers in Rio say they believe that the Maracana will be ready in time, but only after renovations costing some 625 million dollars. A further logistical issue is an airport system already running at capacity. A further influx of some 2.5 million football fans means a huge upgrade of the whole system.