LONDON, June 25: European teams will play fewer matches to qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa than they did to reach the 2006 tournament, UEFA has decided.

The competition will consist of eight groups of six teams, and one group of five. The nine group winners will qualify directly and the best eight runners-up will play home and away playoff matches for the remaining four places.

One group runner-up will fail to make the playoffs with the top eight runners-up chosen following a recalculation after the results of the bottom-placed team in each of the eight larger groups are erased.

“It’s a good compromise solution, because I wasn’t really happy with the format for the last qualifying competition with groups of seven and eight teams,” said UEFA President Michel Platini, who is in favour of smaller groups.—Reuters