Random the Book

The World Cup draw and how chance is manipulated

FIFA drew 48 teams into groups on Friday in Washington. In a protracted ceremony, the actual draw mechanics reveal how little was genuinely random. Three host nations were pre-assigned to specific groups. The top four ranked teams – Spain, Argentina, France, England – were deliberately separated into different tournament pathways so they can’t meet until the semifinals. That’s tennis-style seeding, not random distribution. Remaining teams were allocated from pots determined by FIFA rankings, with confederation constraints preventing certain matchups.

What remained genuinely random? Which specific team from each pot landed in which group. Everything else was engineered to deliver “competitive balance” – FIFA’s phrase for ensuring predictable outcomes don’t embarrass the spectacle.

This matters beyond football. Organisations constantly design processes that need to appear fair and unpredictable whilst actually controlling outcomes. Tax audits labelled “random selection” that actually target risk-weighted profiles. Quality control sampling that appears random but uses stratified protocols to ensure specific supplier coverage.

The question isn’t whether constraints exist – they usually should. It’s whether your process design is honest about where randomness operates and where it doesn’t. Calling something random when you’ve engineered most of the result just stores up credibility problems.