Hosts South Africa plus Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England were named as the top seeds.

France and Portugal both needed a play-off to reach next summer’s tournament, the French beating the Republic of Ireland in controversial circumstances and the Portuguese seeing off Bosnia-Herzegovina.

France qualified courtesy of William Gallas’ extra-time goal, created by Henry’s blatant handball.

“It is an injustice. I wonder if we do not pay for the hand of Thierry Henry,” Hidalgo, who led France to the semi-finals at the 1982 World Cup and victory in the 1984 European Championships, said on French Radio station RTL.

However, the president of the French Football Federation Jean-Pierre Escalettes admitted he did not expect France to be among the seeds.

“It is no surprise,” Escalettes said. “I did my calculations and we had very little chance of being in the first pot.”

France could now be drawn in the same group as the likes of Spain or Brazil, but Escalettes claimed being named in a tough group would not dishearten Les Bleus.

He said: “There is no right or bad news, just as there is no good or bad draw. In 2006 many believed that the draw for the first round in Germany was favourable to us and qualification was difficult.”

There will be four pots in the draw, one containing the top seeds, pot two with countries from Asia, Oceania and north/central America, pot three with the five other African nations and three South American countries and a fourth pot containing the other eight European countries.

A worst-case scenario for a seeded team could see them drawn in a group with France or Portugal from the European pot, an Ivory Coast side boasting the likes of Didier Drogba and the United States, beaten finalists in the Confederations Cup last summer.

Arguably the best scenario would see them take on Slovenia, Algeria and North Korea.

The decision to use world rankings alone to decide the seeds breaks with FIFA’s previous formulas, when they used a combination of rankings with performances in previous finals.

Had they used the old formula, France would have been one of the top seeds and Holland would have missed out.

FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke insisted there was no agenda against France as a result of the play-off controversy.

He said: “In the past the seedings have been determined by a mixture of world rankings and performances in past World Cups but this time the feeling was the October rankings most closely represented the best teams in the tournament.”

Had November’s rankings been used, England would have missed out and France seeded.

Valcke added: “We made the decision last month that the October rankings would be used because they were fairer. Countries who had been involved in the play-offs would have had an unfair advantage because they would have played more games and that affects their ranking.

“This is not a case of wanting Holland to be seeded instead of France, just that the feeling was the October seedings represented the best teams.”

Pots for Friday’s draw: eight groups of four countries to be drawn, each group containing one country from each pot.

Pot 1 (seeds) South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England.

Pot 2 (Asia, Oceania and North/Central America) Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Mexico, Honduras.

Pot 3 (Africa and South America) Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay.

Pot 4 (Europe) France, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Denmark, Slovakia.