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The format of the African section of qualifying for the 2022 FIFA men's World Cup in Qatar was revealed this week with an extra stage added.
The African qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will be held in three rounds; preliminary round, group stage and playoffs. In previous years the group stage winners would be added to the World Cup.
Bafana Bafana is one of the 26 highest ranked teams in Africa.
Format for 2022 World Cup qualifying
1 Preliminary Round
The 26 highest ranked teams, according to the official FIFA ranking will be exited from the preliminary round leaving 28 participating teams. Of these 28 teams, the 14 highest-ranked teams according to the FIFA rankings (released on July 25, 2019) will play against the 14 ranked teams (the 1st leg will be played at the home of the lower-ranked teams).
The 28 teams are Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Malawi, Togo, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Lesotho, Comoros, Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mauritius, Gambia, South Sudan, Chad, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea.
The draw for the preliminary round took place on Monday, 29 July 2019, at the CAF Headquarters in Cairo, Egypt at 10:00 GMT.
Schedule: 2-10 September 2019 (both legs)
Draw
Ethiopia v Lesotho
Somalia v Zimbabwe
Eritrea v Namibia
Burundi v Tanzania
Djibouti v eSwatini (formerly Swaziland)
Botswana v Malawi
Gambia v Angola
Liberia v Sierra Leone
Mauritius v Mozambique
Sao Tome and Principe v Guinea-Bissau
South Sudan v Equatorial Guinea
Comoros v Togo
Chad v Sudan
Seychelles v Rwanda
2 Group Stage
The 14 winning teams from the Preliminary Round will join the 26 free teams for the Group Stage, which will have 10 groups of 4 teams each. The draw for the groups will be based on the 40 teams in 4 Pots according to the official ranking of FIFA. Each group will have a team from each of the pot.
The details for the draw will be communicated later. However, the schedule is as follows:
Day 1: 23-31 March 2020
Day 2: 1-9 June 2020
Day 3 & 4: 22-30 March 2021
Day 5: 30 August – 7 September 2021
Day 6: 4-12 October 2021
3 Playoff
The winners of the ten 2022 World Cup qualifying groups will be divided into 2 Pots based on the official ranking of FIFA. The five (5) highest-ranked teams according to the official FIFA rankings will be played against the 5 lowest ranked teams (the 1st leg will be played at the home of the lower-ranked teams).
Schedule: 8-16 November 2021 (both legs)
The five winners will qualify for Africa at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
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