Scotland's role in World Cup draw farce 40 years ago as they go into the hat for Qatar
dailyrecord.co.ukScotland will be in their first World Cup Finals draw since the 1998 tournament today in Qatar and it's 40 years since the Scots were at the centre of the most farcical draw in football history.
Steve Clarke's men will be in the bottom pot for the Doha draw together with Wales and Ukraine with the winners of the play-off path taking their place at the Finals.
It's the first time Scotland have been in a Finals draw since the December 1997 draw for the following year's tournament in France and Craig Brown's side were actually in Pot Two for the event in Marseille, where they were paired against Brazil, Norway and Morocco.
Former UEFA president Michel Platini later admitted there was a 'little trickery' in the draw to ensure hosts France would play against Brazil in the final if they both qualified from their groups.But that was nothing compared with the high farce that took place on January 16, 1982 at the the Madrid Congress Palace ahead of the Finals that year in Spain.FIFA decided to make it a glitzy affair for the first time with proceedings overseen by a young Sepp Blatter, then General Secretary of world football's governing body, with Joao Havelange President.Scotland were in Pot B, which was actually the third group of four seedings, bizarrely.A completely botched draw had nations plucked out of what looked like a bird cage who shouldn't have been in there in the first place.
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