World Cup draw: Scotland to be in with lowest-ranked seeds for Qatar 2022

The four-team World Cup play-off path featuring those two countries had been due to be completed by March 29, but Scotland's semi-final against Ukraine has been postponed until June due to the Russian invasion of the eastern European country.

Wales play Austria on Thursday in a semi-final, but the winner of that match must then wait until June to play the winner of the Scotland-Ukraine tie.

Tournament organisers FIFA confirmed the procedure for the draw today, and revealed that the three teams still in with a chance of progressing through the play-off path by the time of the draw on April 1 will be treated as one entrant, and placed in pot four with the lowest-ranked nations.

The seeding of other nations who have definitely qualified by the time of the draw will be determined by the FIFA rankings due to be published on March 31.

The top pot of seeds will feature the seven highest-ranked sides involved, plus hosts Qatar.

England are currently ranked fifth in the world, with only Belgium, Brazil, France and Argentina above them.

As hosts, Qatar will take position A1 from Pot 1, where they will be joined by the seven highest-ranked qualified teams from the rankings.

The countries occupying positions 8-15 in the ranking of the qualified teams will be allocated to Pot 2, while the 16th-23rd best-ranked qualifiers will be placed in Pot 3.

Finally, Pot 4 will include the qualified teams in positions 24 to 28, plus three placeholders representing the two winners of the intercontinental play-offs and the remaining UEFA play-off winner.

The intercontinental play-offs will be contested on June 13-14 in Qatar, with the African representative facing the South American representative and the North American representative taking on the Oceania representative.

The final team to qualify through the UEFA play-offs – Scotland, Ukraine, Wales or Austria – will also be determined in June.

Teams from the same confederation will be kept apart in each of the eight groups with the exception of UEFA, which is represented by 13 teams. Five out of the eight groups will therefore have two European teams.