The FIFA Organising Committee announced the eight seeded teams on 3 December 1997 at Marseille's
Stade Vélodrome. The draw was conducted by at the time FIFA general secretary
Joseph Blatter. Many players, both current and former, helped with the draw, such as
Franz Beckenbauer,
George Weah,
Jean-Pierre Papin,
Raymond Kopa,
Georges Carnus and
Mia Hamm. The historic tradition to seed the hosts (France) and
holders (Brazil) was upheld; while the remaining six seeds were granted for the other
top 7-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 World Ranking position in the last month of the past three years (equal ratio, counting in total 40%). 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. 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 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". The statement from Platini referred to the fact that, shortly before the World Cup finals draw took place, the
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
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. Procedure for the draw: • 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
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
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: 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, 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 and a
match for third place between the losers of the two semi-finals. The fixtures for the group stage were decided based on the draw results, as follows: == Squads ==