The FIFA Organising Committee announced the eight seeded teams on 3 December 1997. The historic tradition to seed the hosts (France) and holders (Brazil) was upheld; while the remaining six seeds were granted for the other top7-ranked teams, based on their results obtained in the last three FIFA World Cups (ratio 3:2:1, counting in total 60%) and their FIFA World Ranking position in the last month of the past three years (equal ratio, counting in total 40%).^[21]^[22]

For the draw, the 32 teams were allocated into four pots. The eight top-seeded teams were allocated in pot A and would be drawn/selected into the first position of the eight groups playing in the group stage. The remaining 24 unseeded teams were allocated into three pots based on geographical sections, with the: Nine European teams in pot B; four Asian teams and three South American teams in pot C; five African teams and three North American teams in pot D.^[23]

The general principle was to draw one team from each pot into the eight groups, although with special combined procedures for pot B and pot C, due to comprising more/less than eight teams - but sixteen teams in total. At the same time, the draw also needed to respect the geographical limitation, that each group could not feature more than one team from each confederation, except for the European teams where the limitation was maximum two per group.^[23]

More information Pot ATop-seeded teams (DC + Host + Top7 seeds), Pot BEurope (UEFA) ...

Pot A Top-seeded teams (DC + Host + Top7 seeds)	Pot B Europe (UEFA)	Pot C Asia & South America (AFC & CONMEBOL)	Pot D Africa & North America (CAF & CONCACAF)
Brazil (1994 winner, group A1) France (host, group C1) Germany (1) Italy (3) Spain (4) Argentina (5) Romania (6) Netherlands (7)	Austria Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Denmark England Scotland FR Yugoslavia Norway	Chile Colombia Iran Japan Paraguay Saudi Arabia South Korea	Cameroon Jamaica Mexico Morocco Nigeria South Africa Tunisia United States

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The draw took place at Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, and was televised live on 4 December 1997: FIFA World Cup Draw on BBC Sport.

For the first time in history, the draw event took place in a football stadium, with 38,000 spectators and an estimated 1 billion TV viewers. The draw was officiated by FIFA secretary general Sepp Blatter. Teams were drawn by football legends Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto Parreira, George Weah and Raymond Kopa.^[24]

Organiser Michel Platini, who later became president of UEFA, admitted in 2018 that the draw for the group stage of the competition had been fixed so that France and Brazil were kept apart until the final, telling France Bleu Sport: "We did a bit of trickery. When we were organising the schedule. We did not spend six years organising the World Cup to not do some little shenanigans".^[25]

The statement from Platini referred to the fact that, shortly before the World Cup finals draw took place, the FIFA Organising Committee had met to finalise the draw process. At this meeting, the committee had approved the proposal to assign host nation France to group position C1 and defending champions Brazil to group position A1 ahead of the draw. As the tournament structure was also predetermined so that the winners of Groups A, D, E and H, and the runners-up of Groups B, C, F and G would be kept apart from the group winners of B, C, F and G, and the runners-up of Group A, D, E and H until the final; thus, France and Brazil could avoid meeting each other until the final if both teams finished in the same position in the top two of their respective groups.^[26]

Procedure for the draw:^[23]

Pot A was used to draw the remaining six top-seeded teams for the first position of groups B, D, E, F, G and H.
Pot D was used to draw one team to each of the eight groups (drawing in the alphabetic order from A to H).
Pot B was used to draw one team to each of the eight groups (drawing in the alphabetic order from A to H).
As per the FIFA rule of only allowing a maximum of two UEFA teams in each group, the remaining ninth team from Pot B, was subject to a second draw, to be put in either of the groups containing a top-seeded South American (CONMEBOL) team.
Pot C was used to draw one team to each of the seven groups with an empty spot (drawing in alphabetical order from A to H). However, as each group could only contain one South American (CONMEBOL) team, the first Asian (AFC) team drawn would not be drawn into a group in alphabetical order, but instead be drawn into the remaining open group with a top-seeded South American (CONMEBOL) team.
To decide the match schedules, the exact group position number for the un-seeded teams in each group (2, 3 or 4), were also drawn immediately from eight special group bowls, after each respective team had been drawn from pot D, B and C.

Draw results and group fixtures

The draw resulted in the following eight groups:^[23]

More information Pos, Team ...

Group A
Pos	Team
A1	Brazil
A2	Scotland
A3	Morocco
A4	Norway

Group B
Pos	Team
B1	Italy
B2	Chile
B3	Cameroon
B4	Austria

Group C
Pos	Team
C1	France
C2	South Africa
C3	Saudi Arabia
C4	Denmark

Group D
Pos	Team
D1	Spain
D2	Nigeria
D3	Paraguay
D4	Bulgaria

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More information Pos, Team ...

Group E
Pos	Team
E1	Netherlands
E2	Belgium
E3	South Korea
E4	Mexico

Group F
Pos	Team
F1	Germany
F2	United States
F3	FR Yugoslavia
F4	Iran

Group G
Pos	Team
G1	Romania
G2	Colombia
G3	England
G4	Tunisia

Group H
Pos	Team
H1	Argentina
H2	Japan
H3	Jamaica
H4	Croatia

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In each group, the teams played three matches, one against each of the other teams. Three points were awarded for each win, while a draw was worth one point. After completion of the group stage, the two teams with the most points in each group would advance to the knockout stage, with each group winner facing the runner-up from one of the other groups in the round of 16. This was a new format for the World Cup, following the expansion from 24 teams in 1994. A total of 64 games were played, including the final and a third-place play-off between the losers of the two semi-finals.

The fixtures for the group stage were decided based on the draw results, as follows:

More information Matchday, Dates ...

Group stage schedule
Matchday	Dates	Matches
Matchday 1	10–15 June 1998	1 v 2, 3 v 4
Matchday 2	16–22 June 1998	1 v 3, 2 v 4
Matchday 3	23–26 June 1998	4 v 1, 2 v 3

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