PARIS — Italy will be one of the four seeded teams in the draw for the European playoffs for next year's World Cup after FIFA released their latest world rankings on Monday.

Switzerland, Croatia and Denmark will be the other seeded teams for the two-legged ties, which will be played next month thanks to their positions in the rankings.

The unseeded sides for the draw, which will take place on Tuesday, will be Northern Ireland, Sweden, the Republic of Ireland and Greece.

FIFA will also use these latest rankings to determine the top-seeded nations when the draw for the World Cup group phase is made on Dec. 1 in Moscow. That means that, along with hosts Russia, the top seeds will be holders and No. 1 ranked Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland and France.

Leading nations to miss out on a top seeding include Spain, England and Uruguay. Spain and Peru, who will go into a playoff against New Zealand for a place in Russia, both climb into the top 10 in the latest rankings.

Russia though slipped one place to 65th in the rankings, further diminishing expectations of their chances on home soil next year.

France will be among the top seeds for next month's World Cup draw after they climbed to seventh in the FIFA rankings.

The draw for next year's finals will be held in Moscow on Dec. 1 when the 32 teams will be divided into four pots according to their position in the rankings.

The seven top-ranked sides plus hosts Russia go into in pot one, the next eight ranked teams will be in pot two and so on. Each of the eight four-team first-round groups will consist of one team drawn from each pot.

Spain will be in pot two, where they will be joined by England, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay. Peru, Switzerland and Italy, who all face playoffs in November, will also go into pot two if they qualify.

Iceland, who became the smallest country to qualify for a World Cup when they won their European group last week, will either be in pot two or three depending on who else qualifies. Panama, the other debutants, will be in pot four. Nigeria and Serbia could also end up in pot four, depending who goes through from the playoffs.

Losers Egypt back in 2018 CHAN

Egypt will compete at the 2018 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Morocco, despite being eliminated in the qualifying competition two months ago. The Egyptians lost 4-2 on aggregate to Morocco, who are now automatic competitors in the 16-team event having replaced Kenya as hosts.

This opened the door for Egypt to be reinstated into the biennial tournament restricted to home-based Footballers. African Football body CAF ditched Kenya as hosts last month for falling behind with preparations and Morocco were chosen to replace them at the weekend.

Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mauritania, Namibia, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia are the other finalists.

A draw on a date to be announced will split the 16 countries into four groups, from which winners and runners-up advance to the quarterfinals.

Democratic Republic of Congo (twice), Tunisia and Libya won previous Nations Championship tournaments. FIFA classify CHAN matches as full internationals with results counting toward the monthly rankings. — Agencies