Highlights from the World Cup draw in Moscow

1 December 2017:The draw ceremony for the 2018 World Cup begins at 1500GMT (1800 local time) at the Kremlin in Moscow. The actual drawing of the balls is expected to start around 30 minutes later and is scheduled to last around half an hour.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko, who also serves as the head of the Russian Football Union and the chairman of the tournament's local organising committee, have already held a news conference ahead of the draw when questions about Russian doping dominated .

Infantino declined to get involved, saying: "FIFA doesn't participate in any speculations about any situation," referring to allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russia that could see the country banned from the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February.

Mutko vehemently denied the existence of state-backed doping in Russia and said the country was being unfairly targeted by international sports authorities.

"I am ready to go to any court, to any disciplinary body and say that there was never, isn't and never will be any doping cover up programme," he said.

Mutko also denied that Norwegian TV station TV2 had been banned from the draw because of anti-Russian output, saying it had merely been a "technical problem" and that their accreditation had been restored.

The draw ceremony will be led by former England striker and 1986 World Cup Golden Boot winner Gary Lineker and Russian sports journalist Maria Komandnaya and is a far simpler format than in previous tournaments.

The 32 teams have been equally divided into four pots based on FIFA world rankings with the exception of Russia, who as hosts are placed in the top seeds' pot.
Each pot will be emptied one by one into eight groups -- Group A to Group H -- which will contain four teams each.

Two teams from the same confederation cannot be in the same group, other than Europe, which has 14 teams, and cannot have more than two teams in the same group.

The first match of the tournament will take place in Moscow on June 14, featuring Russia, with the final also in Moscow on July 15.

Pot 1: Russia (hosts), Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France

Pot 2: Spain, Peru, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia

Pot 3: Denmark, Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran

Pot 4: Serbia, Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia