As he prepared to head for the Korean city of Busan this morning, FAI general secretary Brendan Menton admitted yesterday that he has little idea of the basis on which FIFA will decide the seedings for Saturday's World Cup finals draw.

Football's governing body is due to announce the seedings this morning but, as of yesterday, even senior officials within the organisation were insisting the mechanism employed to divide the 32 participating nations into four groups of eight for the purposes of the draw was far from being decided.

Speaking to the BBC yesterday, FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper said that there were "three or four" ways in which the seedings might be allocated and joked that the system employed is likely to end up being "something close to algebra".

Four years ago, the system involved a calculation based on weightings attached to each country's performance in the previous three World Cups and their world ranking at the time.

But Cooper suggested yesterday that the ranking list, along with performances at only the most recent World Cup, may be basis for the seedings this time around.

If the old system was to be used again, then Ireland would be placed 14th. Brazil would be ranked first with the rest of the eight top seeds made up of Italy, Argentina, France, Germany, Spain, England and Mexico.

However, South Korea and Japan, who like France have already been allocated to groups, will be top seeds, and that means the English and Mexicans would drop out of the first group of seeds, while there are reports that Spain's place in the first pot is under threat from an African side, probably Nigeria.

FIFA will attempt to construct the draw in such a way as to evenly distribute countries from the various continents. This means that, having ranked the teams from one to 32 - on whatever basis they finally arrive at - FIFA will then extensively juggle the 24 nations not seeded in the top eight so as to ensure that no group contains more than two European sides and that all contain a spread from across the continents.

Teams who have met in qualifying groups are also expected to be kept apart and so the upshot should be a pot filled with the top seeds, one made up solely of European nations, one made up of South American, Asian and weaker Europeans sides as well as one with North American and African nations.

A decision to count only results from France '98 would damage Ireland's chances of making it into the exclusively European pot which will effectively hold the second seeds even if, for the purposes of the group fixtures, they are not drawn in that order.

But that, in turn, would mean the Irish avoiding world champions France and any of the other top-seeded UEFA sides in the group stages.

Instead McCarthy's team would almost certainly face an early clash with Brazil, Argentina or one of the host nations.

As Menton says: "Whatever way you look at it, it gets very complicated very fast and so I'm trying not to get too caught up in it.

"FIFA will sort it all out in whatever way they come up with, and I think that all we can be sure of is that geography will play a huge part in it all."

Saturday's draw will, of course, decide where the Irish play their initial three games, with groups A to D taking place in Korea and groups E to H being played out in Japan.

As a result, McCarthy will know by lunchtime (Irish time) on Saturday not only who his side will play next summer but the location of each of the three stadiums where the group matches are to take place.

Having spent the week looking over possible training sites in both countries, McCarthy will then make his recommendation on preferred venues to Menton on Saturday evening, and it is hoped that a deal can be sorted out and all the necessary arrangements made before the FAI delegation returns to Ireland on Tuesday.

Today's meeting to decide the seedings is, meanwhile, just the first of three days of intensive talks aimed at resolving a whole range of issues relating to next summer's competitions and the running of the game generally.

The rules governing the running of the finals themselves are due to be discussed on Friday, when it is also hoped to resolve the future of the World Club Championship.

Delegates from the competing nations will then meet on Sunday, when they will receive progress reports on the preparations for the finals and get the opportunity to meet up with representatives from the countries they will have been drawn with in the group stages.