The much longer answer requires a little bit of an argument, so here goes...
Seeding teams works very well in a 'Swiss type' competition. However, it is not needed in a Round-Robin tournament as every team plays against every other team.
However, in a Knock-out tournament (of any kind), seeding teams, in my opinion, seeding teams reduces the competition to a farce.
If you look at the above image of the seeded teams, if the seeding is done correctly, the top four teams should each will win their group which will actually make the group stages a waste of time and utterly redundant.
That is just on a cursory glance, but once you look at the distribution it will seem as though there is something far more sinister afoot.
Mathematically the two top seeded teams are awarded the easiest group stages with the next two seeded teams (three and four) getting the hardest groups.
This will ultimately mean that the two top seeded teams will then sail out of the group stages.
Based on these groups the top four teams will then be the main contenders in the knock-out/elimination stages with the top seeded, and second seeded, teams battling it out for 1st and 2nd place respectively.
Any organiser that uses this, in my opinion, seems to be treating the players, spectators, and sponsors as if they were fools.
If you are going to use a 'knock-out' system, the only fair way to do it is to do a random draw. That is how it is done in all the major sports for this type of tournament.
Yes, that does then that there may be a group of death - but it is at least fair, and no-one can claim that the result is manipulated.
