UEFA Nations League to play vital role in FIFA's World Cup qualification

FIFA is preparing a more complicated draw for the European World Cup qualifying groups, giving greater weight to the upcoming UEFA Nations League rather than relying solely on world rankings but also making most teams wait months to find out their full slate of opponents.

The new system will see the list of top-seeded teams for the 12 groups made up of the eight Nations League quarterfinalists plus the four top-ranked teams among those who don't make the last eight of the UEFA competition. That means when the draw is held in December, only placeholder names will be used for the top-seeded teams in each group as the Nations League program will still be underway. The quarterfinals are not completed until March 23, when teams will finally know which top-seeded side they will be facing.

FIFA detailed its preferred format in a briefing note Tuesday to UEFA member federations, outlining the changes compared to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, when seedings relied on the FIFA world ...