Editing 1998 FIFA World Cup (section)

== Draw ==
{{Anchor|Format}}
{{further|1998 FIFA World Cup seeding}}

The  FIFA Organising Committee  announced the eight seeded teams on 3 December 1997 at Marseille's [[Orange Vélodrome|Stade Vélodrome]]. The draw was conducted by at the time FIFA general secretary [[Joseph Blatter]] and many celebrities helped with the draw such as former players as [[Franz Beckenbauer]], [[George Weah]], [[Jean-Pierre Papin]], [[Raymond Kopa]], [[Georges Carnus]] and women's football player [[Mia Hamm]].

The historic tradition to seed the hosts (France) and [[FIFA World Cup Trophy#Winners|holders]] (Brazil) was upheld; while the remaining six seeds were granted for the other [[1998 FIFA World Cup seeding|top7-ranked teams]], based on their results obtained in the last three FIFA World Cups (ratio 3:2:1, counting in total 60%) and their [[FIFA Men's World Rankings|FIFA World Ranking]] position in the last month of the past three years (equal ratio, counting in total 40%).<ref name="Seeding">{{cite web|url=https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/79d9ab359eab12f3/original/g6sxbyxsmoqdxz3firrz-pdf.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220322012822/https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/79d9ab359eab12f3/original/g6sxbyxsmoqdxz3firrz-pdf.pdf|url-status=live|archive-date=22 March 2022|work=FIFA fact sheet|title=FIFA World Cup: seeded teams in 1930-2014}}</ref><ref name="DrawProcedure">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sport/36285.stm|title=England miss out on World Cup seedings|publisher=BBC News|date=3 December 1997|access-date=28 June 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211105112417/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sport/36285.stm|archive-date=5 November 2021}}</ref>

For the draw, the 32 teams were allocated into four pots. The eight top-seeded teams were allocated in pot A and would be drawn/selected into the first position of the eight groups playing in the group stage. The remaining 24 unseeded teams were allocated into three pots based on geographical sections, with the: Nine European teams in pot B; four Asian teams and three South American teams in pot C; five African teams and three North American teams in pot D.<ref name="Draw of Groups"/>

The general principle was to draw one team from each pot into the eight groups, although with special combined procedures for pot B and pot C, due to comprising more/less than eight teams - but sixteen teams in total. At the same time, the draw also needed to respect the geographical limitation, that each group could not feature more than one team from each confederation, except for the European teams where the limitation was maximum two per group.<ref name="Draw of Groups"/>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! style="width:25%" | Pot A<br>Top-seeded teams<br><small>({{Tooltip|DC|Defending Champion (1994 winner)}} + Host + [[1998 FIFA World Cup seeding|Top7 seeds]])</small>
! style="width:25%" | Pot B<br>Europe<br><small>([[1998 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)|UEFA]])</small>
! style="width:25%" | Pot C<br>Asia & South America<br><small>([[1998 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)|AFC]] & [[1998 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONMEBOL)|CONMEBOL]])</small>
! style="width:25%" | Pot D<br>Africa & North America<br><small>([[1998 FIFA World Cup qualification (CAF)|CAF]] & [[1998 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF)|CONCACAF]])</small>
|- style="vertical-align:top"
|{{plainlist|
* {{fb|BRA}} <small>(1994 winner, group A1)</small>
* {{fb|FRA|1974}} <small>(host, group C1)</small>
----
* {{fb|GER}} (1)
* {{fb|ITA|1946}} (3)
* {{fb|ESP}} (4)
* {{fb|ARG}} (5)
* {{fb|ROU}} (6)
* {{fb|NED}} (7)
}}
|{{plainlist|
* {{fb|AUT}}
* {{fb|BEL}}
* {{fb|BUL}}
* {{fb|CRO}}
* {{fb|DEN}}
* {{fb|ENG}}
* {{fb|SCO}}
* {{fb|FRY}}
* {{fb|NOR}}
}}
|{{plainlist|
* {{fb|CHI}}
* {{fb|COL}}
* {{fb|IRN}}
* {{fb|JPN|1947}}
* {{fb|PAR|1990}}
* {{fb|KSA}}
* {{fb|KOR|1997}}
}}
|{{plainlist|
* {{fb|CMR}}
* {{fb|JAM}}
* {{fb|MEX}}
* {{fb|MAR}}
* {{fb|NGA}}
* {{fb|RSA|1994}}
* {{fb|TUN|1959}}
* {{fb|USA|1960}}
}}
|}

* The draw took place at [[Stade Vélodrome]] in [[Marseille]], and was televised live on 4 December 1997: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAeH5Xn-6t0 FIFA World Cup Draw] on [[BBC Sport]].
For the first time in history, the draw event took place in a football stadium, with 38,000 spectators and an estimated 1&nbsp;billion TV viewers. The draw was officiated by FIFA secretary general [[Sepp Blatter]]. Teams were drawn by football legends [[Franz Beckenbauer]], [[Carlos Alberto Parreira]], [[George Weah]] and [[Raymond Kopa]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The FIFA World Cup Final Draw history |url=https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/mencompwc/51/97/68/fs-201_10e_fwc-draw-history.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100601111831/http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/mencompwc/51/97/68/fs-201_10e_fwc-draw-history.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 June 2010 |publisher=FIFA |access-date=11 August 2010 }}</ref>

Organiser [[Michel Platini]], who later became president of UEFA, admitted in 2018 that the draw for the group stage of the competition had been fixed so that France and Brazil were kept apart until the final, telling [[France Bleu|France Bleu Sport]]: "We did a bit of trickery. When we were organising the schedule. We did not spend six years organising the World Cup to not do some little shenanigans".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://news.sky.com/story/platini-admits-draw-for-1998-world-cup-was-fixed-so-france-faced-brazil-in-final-11377566|title=Platini admits draw for 1998 World Cup was fixed so France faced Brazil in final|publisher=Sky Sports|first=James |last=Pepper|date=18 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220606230913/https://news.sky.com/story/platini-admits-draw-for-1998-world-cup-was-fixed-so-france-faced-brazil-in-final-11377566|archive-date=6 June 2022}}</ref>

The statement from Platini referred to the fact that, shortly before the World Cup finals draw took place, the [[FIFA World Cup Organisers|FIFA Organising Committee]] had met to finalise the draw process. At this meeting, the committee had approved the proposal to assign host nation France to group position C1 and defending champions Brazil to group position A1 ahead of the draw. As the [[1998 FIFA World Cup knockout stage|tournament structure]] was also predetermined so that the winners of Groups A, D, E and H, and the runners-up of Groups B, C, F and G would be kept apart from the group winners of B, C, F and G, and the runners-up of Group A, D, E and H until the final; thus, France and Brazil could avoid meeting each other until the final if both teams finished in the same position in the top two of their respective groups.<ref>{{cite news |first=Dale |last=Johnson |title=Was the 1998 World Cup in France fixed? Michel Platini's comments explained |url=https://www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/world-cup-central/59/post/3502365/was-the-1998-world-cup-in-france-fixed |publisher=ESPN |date=18 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604175626/https://www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/world-cup-central/59/post/3502365/was-the-1998-world-cup-in-france-fixed|archive-date=4 June 2020}}</ref>

Procedure for the draw:<ref name="Draw of Groups">{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAeH5Xn-6t0 |title=FRANCE '98 - FIFA World Cup Draw - BBC Sport|date=4 December 1997|via=YouTube|medium=video|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220608173123/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAeH5Xn-6t0|archive-date=8 June 2022}}</ref>
# Pot A was used to draw the remaining six top-seeded teams for the first position of groups B, D, E, F, G and H.
# Pot D was used to draw one team to each of the eight groups (drawing in the alphabetic order from A to H).
# Pot B was used to draw one team to each of the eight groups (drawing in the alphabetic order from A to H).
# As per the FIFA rule of only allowing a maximum of two UEFA teams in each group, the remaining ninth team from Pot B, was subject to a second draw, to be put in either of the groups containing a top-seeded [[1998 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONMEBOL)|South American (CONMEBOL)]] team.
# Pot C was used to draw one team to each of the seven groups with an empty spot (drawing in alphabetical order from A to H). However, as each group could only contain one South American (CONMEBOL) team, the first [[1998 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)|Asian (AFC)]] team drawn would not be drawn into a group in alphabetical order, but instead be drawn into the remaining open group with a top-seeded South American (CONMEBOL) team.
# To decide the match schedules, the exact group position number for the un-seeded teams in each group (2, 3 or 4), were also drawn immediately from eight special group bowls, after each respective team had been drawn from pot D, B and C.

===Draw results and group fixtures===
The draw resulted in the following eight groups:<ref name="Draw of Groups"/>
{{col-begin|width=auto}}
{{col-break|gap=4em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group A|Group A]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} || width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|A1 || {{fb|BRA}}
|-
|align=center|A2 || {{fb|SCO}}
|-
|align=center|A3 || {{fb|MAR}}
|-
|align=center|A4 || {{fb|NOR}}
|}
{{col-break|gap=2em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group B|Group B]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} || width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|B1 || {{fb|ITA|1946}}
|-
|align=center|B2 || {{fb|CHI}}
|-
|align=center|B3 || {{fb|CMR}}
|-
|align=center|B4 || {{fb|AUT}}
|}
{{col-break|gap=2em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group C|Group C]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} || width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|C1 || {{fb|FRA|1974}}
|-
|align=center|C2 || {{fb|RSA|1994}}
|-
|align=center|C3 || {{fb|KSA}}
|-
|align=center|C4 || {{fb|DEN}}
|}
{{col-break|gap=2em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group D|Group D]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} || width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|D1 || {{fb|ESP}}
|-
|align=center|D2 || {{fb|NGA}}
|-
|align=center|D3 || {{fb|PAR|1990}}
|-
|align=center|D4 || {{fb|BUL}}
|}
{{col-end}}

{{col-begin|width=auto}}
{{col-break|gap=4em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group E|Group E]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} || width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|E1 || {{fb|NED}}
|-
|align=center|E2 || {{fb|BEL}}
|-
|align=center|E3 || {{fb|KOR|1997}}
|-
|align=center|E4 || {{fb|MEX}}
|}
{{col-break|gap=2em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group F|Group F]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} ||width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|F1 || {{fb|GER}}
|-
|align=center|F2 || {{fb|USA|1960}}
|-
|align=center|F3 || {{fb|FRY}}
|-
|align=center|F4 || {{fb|IRN}}
|}
{{col-break|gap=2em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group G|Group G]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} ||width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|G1 || {{fb|ROU}}
|-
|align=center|G2 || {{fb|COL}}
|-
|align=center|G3 || {{fb|ENG}}
|-
|align=center|G4 || {{fb|TUN|1959}}
|}
{{col-break|gap=2em}}
{|class="wikitable" style="display:inline-table;"
|+ [[#Group H|Group H]]
|-
!{{Tooltip|Pos|Position}} ||width=120|Team
|-
|align=center|H1 || {{fb|ARG}}
|-
|align=center|H2 || {{fb|JPN|1947}}
|-
|align=center|H3 || {{fb|JAM}}
|-
|align=center|H4 || {{fb|CRO}}
|}
{{col-end}}
In each group, the teams played three matches, one against each of the other teams. Three points were awarded for each win, while a draw was worth one point. After completion of the group stage, the two teams with the most points in each group would advance to the [[#Knockout stage|knockout stage]], with each group winner facing the runner-up from one of the other groups in the round of 16. This was a new format for the World Cup, following the expansion from 24 teams in 1994. A total of 64 games were played, including the [[#Final|final]] and a [[#Third place play-off|third-place play-off]] between the losers of the two semi-finals.

The fixtures for the group stage were decided based on the draw results, as follows:

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+ Group stage schedule
|-
!Matchday
!Dates
!Matches
|-
|Matchday 1
|10–15 June 1998
|1 v 2, 3 v 4
|-
|Matchday 2
|16–22 June 1998
|1 v 3, 2 v 4
|-
|Matchday 3
|23–26 June 1998
|4 v 1, 2 v 3
|}