Durban on South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast yesterday played host to the draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. As the tens of millions of football fans across the globe watched, draw assistants George Weah, Ali Daei, Marcel Desailly, Kasey Keller, Kaizer Motaung, Abedi Pele, Doreen Nabwire, Jomo Sono, Lucas Radebe and Christian Karembeu literally had the fate of 170 nations in their hands.

The African draw intriguingly doubles as the draw for the 2010 African Cup of Nations in Angola. So although South Africa qualifies automatically for the 2010 World Cup as hosts, it needed to also navigate through the qualifying series to win a spot at Angola 2010.

The African zone of the qualifiers places the 48 teams into 12 groups of 4 teams with the group winners and eight best runners up advancing into five groups of four and the winners of these groups go through to the World Cup Final proper.

For the African Cup of Nations qualifiers the top three teams in each of the five groups and Angola will qualify for the competition.

The drew threw up some intriguing matches particularly for hosts South Africa who drew continental power house Nigeria in group 4, while 2002 finalists Senegal will face Algeria finalists from 1982 and 1986.

The twelve groups for the initial phase of the African Qualifiers are:

Group 1
Cameroon
Cape Verde Islands
Tanzania
Mauritius

Group 2
Guinea
Zimbabwe
Namibia
Kenya

Group 3
Angola
Benin
Uganda
Niger

Group 4
Nigeria
South Africa
Equatorial Guinea
Sierra Leone

Group 5
Ghana
Libya
Gabon
Lesotho

Group 6
Senegal
Algeria
Liberia
Gambia

Group 7
Cote d Ivoire
Mozambique
Botswana
Madagascar

Group 8
Morocco
Ethiopia
Rwanda
Mauritania

Group 9
Tunisia
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Seychelles

Group 10
Mali
Congo
Sudan
Chad

Group 11
Togo
Zambia
Eritrea
Swaziland

Group 12
Egypt
Congo DR
Malawi
Djibouti