The draw for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, consisting of the 32 teams that qualify, will be held in Cape Town's International Convention Centre (CTICC) on December 4.
Although the exact procedure for the draw has yet to be clarified by the sport's controlling body Fifa, it is not expected that they will simply put the balls containing the names of the countries into four pots of eight by seeds as, for example, no more than two European nations can be in any one group.
A Fifa spokesman said the draw procedure would only be finalized at a meeting of the Fifa organising committee which would be held in Cape Town on December 2.
"It seems likely that they will use a seeding system for the draw, even though this has not yet been decided. If they do use a seeding system, it would make sense to use the Fifa ranking," he said.
The FIFA ranking that was issued last week was released with an appendix saying that if the rankings are used for the draw, the October ones would be used as it would be unfair to use the November ones.
"The playoffs in November would create an unfair advantage to some European countries," he said.
It appears likely that the system used for the 2006 World Cup will be retained by the organising committee headed by the president of the African confederation, Issa Hayatou.
Accordingly, a team's world rankings over the past three years and performances at the previous two tournaments could be taken into account for seeding purposes.
This would likely mean Brazil would be top seeds, followed by Germany, Spain, Italy and England. Hosts South Africa would be seeded as would Argentina and France.
Matches will be played in nine South African cities: Johannesburg, which will have two venues, along with Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein, Nelspruit, Polokwane and Rustenburg. - Sapa-dpa