Scotland and Wales learn potential World Cup draw pot

The delayed Scotland-Ukraine tie means the winner of the play-off group will not be known by the time the draw takes place on 1 April

Scotland and Wales will be in the bottom pot of seeds for next week’s World Cup draw (Mike Egerton/PA) (PA Archive)

Scotland will be in with the lowest-ranked seeds for next week’s World Cup draw, along with Wales if they get past Austria on Thursday.

The four-team World Cup play-off path featuring those two countries had been due to be completed by 29 March, 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 on Tuesday, 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 31 March.

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.