The Confederation of African Football have announced a change in format for the African FIFA World Cup qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The CAF Executive Committee held a meeting, chaired by President Dr Patrice Motsepe, in Algiers on Friday.
One of the agenda points was a change in format of the World Cup qualification for African teams.
“On the FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers, the Executive Committee approved the format, dates of the Qualifiers. The new format has been adapted in line with FIFA’s expanded FIFA World Cup format and will involve all the 54 Member Associations of CAF who will be divided into nine (9) Groups,” CAF stated.
“Winners of each Group will automatically qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2026. The four best runners-up (from the Groups) will play in a CAF Play-Off tournament. The winner (CAF Play-Off tournament) will play in the FIFA Play-off Tournament.”
Up until now, the 28 lowest-ranked CAF teams had to play a playoff round to qualify for the group stages, where 40 teams were divided into 10 groups. Of those 10 groups, the group winners would meet each in the five playoffs to determine Africa’s representatives.
However, with the extension of the FIFA World Cup from 32 to 48 teams, CAF will get nine guaranteed spot, plus an additional nation could qualify via the FIFA Play-Off Tournament with one team from each of FIFA’s six confederations and one additional one from the host federation CONCACAF. In the end, two teams from this play-off tournament will also book their World Cup ticket.
CAF also also announced that the official draw of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast will be conducted on Thursday, 12 October 2023.
