FIFA considers changing World Cup draw rules, Italy expected to benefit

There were reports on Sunday that FIFA is considering changing the rules for confirming seeded teams in the 2026 World Cup, which may benefit the Italian team if they break through the play-offs.

The Italian team still has two World Cup qualifying group matches to play. As things stand, Gennaro Gattuso's team is second in Group I, three points behind Norway. Since Norway leads on goal difference by 16 goals, if the Italian team wants to advance directly to the World Cup, it must not only win the last two games, but also hope that Norway will lose points to Estonia. If ranked second in the group, Italy will have to go back to the mistakes of the past two World Cups and once again go through the test of the play-offs.

According to past practice, when the World Cup group draws, teams that advance through the play-offs will automatically enter the fourth pot. This means that if the Italian team advances through the play-offs, it will become the team in the lowest tier and be divided into a group with the teams in tiers 1-3. The teams in Pots 1-3 are determined based on the current world rankings. According to reports from Football Meets Data and "Calcio e Finanza", FIFA is considering modifying this rule to classify all teams according to the world rankings. If the reports are true, the Italian team will basically lock in the first pot and will not fall to the fourth pot, which means that they will avoid other top-seeded teams, of course, they must be able to advance first.