Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England and hosts South Africa.
The seeding was based on the October 2009 FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.
The pots from which the other teams for each of the tournament’s first round groups will be drawn are as follows:
– Pot 2 will be composed of teams from Asia (Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic), North, Central America and the Caribbean (Honduras, Mexico, USA) and Oceania (New Zealand)
– Pot 3 will include teams from Africa (Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria) and South America (Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay)
– Pot 4 will have the remaining European teams (Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland)
Additionally,
– Hosts South Africa will be automatically positioned as A1; the other seeded teams will be drawn into the other groups B-H, but will always be in position “1” of their group
– Groups will be drawn from A to H and the positions in the group will be drawn for Pots 2 to 4
– Geographical criteria will also be respected, meaning that no two teams from the same confederation will be drawn in the same group (except European teams, where a maximum of two will be in a group). For example, South Africa cannot play the African teams from Pot 3 and Argentina and Brazil cannot be drawn against the three remaining South American teams.