The Qualifiers - How it Works

The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar will be a 32 team tournament. 211 teams are pinning their hopes on qualifying for one of those places. Qatar, as the host nation, automatically qualifies for a place - leaving only 31 places to play for. Which teams will win a coveted place? Only the qualifiers will tell, and if you are unsure how they work, read on for the low-down.

2018 World Cup winners, France do not automatically qualify for the next World Cup. It used to be the case that the previous World Cup winner automatically qualified for the next edition, but no longer. Since 2006, the rules have changed, meaning France will also be competing in the qualifiers for the 2022 tournament.

Organising The World Cup Qualifiers

The qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup tournament began in June 2019 and will finish in March 2022. For the process to run smoothly, FIFA provides the structure under which the qualifiers take place.
FIFA has conveniently divided the world’s football playing nations into 6 confederations:

1. The Asian Football Confederation – AFC
2. Confederation of African Football – CAF
3. Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football - CONCACAF
4. Union of European Football Associations - UEFA
5. Oceania Football Confederation – OFC
6. South American Football Confederation – CONMEBOL

FIFA allocates a fixed number of places in the tournament for each confederation, based on the relative strength of their teams. A number of places are also allocated to the winners of the inter-confederation playoffs. The playoffs are hosted following the conclusion of the national qualifiers for the World Cup.
The final allocations for the 2022 games are:

• AFC (46 national teams) allocated 4 or 5* places (plus Qatar)
• CAF (54 national teams) allocated 5 places
• CONCACAF (36 national teams) allocated 3 or 4* places
• CONMEBOL (10 national teams) allocated 4 or 5* places
• OFC (11 national teams) allocated 0 or 1* place
• UEFA (55 national teams) allocated 13 places

It was agreed that, in March 2022, there would be two inter-confederation playoffs between the qualifying teams from the AFC, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL and the OFC to select two final qualifiers for the tournament.

With the allocations decided, the individual football confederations are responsible for finding their best national teams to send to the tournament.

The Qualifiers

In general, the qualifiers for each confederation follow a well-established system. Essentially, they conduct national group stages and play-off stages, with variations as required by each confederation.

The AFC’s opening two rounds of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup also count towards qualification for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. So Qatar, though they automatically qualify for 2022, is involved in these rounds but not in the follow on qualifier rounds.

In the confederation national group rounds, teams can be organised into groups (generally 4 teams in each). Within the groups all the teams play each other (called round robins). This results in group winners. If at the end of a group’s matches there are tied teams (teams with the same number of points), there is a system of tiebreakers that can be used to determine the actual group winner. Depending on the number of national teams in a confederation, there may be a number of group rounds.

The winners of the group rounds qualify for the World Cup. The runners-up of the group rounds go to the play-off stages, including the inter-confederation playoffs. These are single match knock-out games (semi-finals and finals). The winners of the finals qualify for the World Cup.
For the nations that did not qualify this time around, don’t despair, in the 2026 World Cup there will be 48 places up for grabs in the biggest FIFA football tournament ever! The decision to expand the tournament to 48 teams was made by FIFA in 2017 to ensure more countries were allowed to compete. The new format will see the World Cup Group Stage expanded to 16 groups of 3 teams each. The two qualifying teams from each group will complete in a 32 team Knock-out Stage.

It is worth noting that the 9th FIFA Women’s World Cup will be held in 2023 in Australia and New Zealand. There will be 32 places up for grabs as per the men’s 2022 event. It is a pretty safe bet to say that the 2019 world champions – the USA – will be there.

What Next?

Once the qualifiers have been completed by all six confederations and the teams for the tournament decided, the 2022 World Cup will be ready for kick-off on November 18th. Once again the teams will be pitted against each other in Group Stage and Knock-out Stage matches until the winning team emerges victorious from the Final.

The following diagram highlights the process from qualifiers to the World Cup Final: