2022 FIFA World Cup qualification (CAF)

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2022 FIFA World Cup qualification (CAF)
2022 FIFA World Cup African qualification.png
Dates 4 September 2019 – 29 March 2022
Teams 54 (from 1 confederation)
Matches played 158
Goals scored 361 (2.28 per match)
Attendance 1,229,510 (7,782 per match)
Top scorer(s) Algeria Islam Slimani
(8 goals)

International football competition

The African section of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification acted as qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Qatar, for national teams which are members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). A total of five slots in the final tournament were available for CAF teams.[1]

A previous proposal to merge the qualification rounds for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations with those for the World Cup was turned down after a CAF meeting on 11 June 2018.[2]

CAF reverted to the format used for the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification competition.[3]

  • First round: 28 teams (ranked 27–54) played home-and-away over two legs. The 14 winners advanced to the second round.
  • Second round: 40 teams (ranked 1–26 and 14 first round winners) were divided into ten groups of four teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The ten group winners advanced to the third round.
  • Third round: Ten second round group winners played home-and-away over two legs. The five winners qualified for the World Cup.

Entrants[edit]

All 54 FIFA-affiliated football associations from CAF entered qualification. The FIFA World Rankings of July 2019 were used to determine which nations would compete in the first round. For seeding in the second and third round draws, the most recent FIFA Rankings prior to those draws were used.

Libya was threatened with exclusion from the qualifiers if it failed to pay debts to their former coach Javier Clemente. However, Libya complied after FIFA gave them a new deadline.[4]Sierra Leone also faced possible exclusion from the qualifiers due to the suspension of their football association.[5] However, the suspension was lifted by the FIFA Council on 3 June 2019.[6]

Schedule[edit]

Below is the schedule of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign, according to the FIFA International Match Calendar.[8][9] After the rescheduling of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations final tournament from June/July to January/February, the dates of the matchdays 1–2 of the second round were also rescheduled.[10] Because of the interruption of the competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the schedule of the second and third round was revised again and on 19 August 2020 CAF announced the new dates for the aforementioned rounds.[11]

Stage Matchday Dates
First round First leg 4–7 September 2019
Second leg 8–10 September 2019
Second round Matchday 1 1–3 September 2021[a]
Matchday 2 5–7 September 2021[b]
Matchday 3 6–9 October 2021[c]
Matchday 4 10–12 October 2021[c]
Matchday 5 11–13 November 2021[d]
Matchday 6 14–16 November 2021[e]
Third round First leg 24–26 March 2022
Second leg 27–29 March 2022
  1. ^ Matchday 1 originally scheduled for 23–31 March 2020, later for 5–13 October 2020.
  2. ^ Matchday 2 originally scheduled for 1–9 June 2020, later for 9–17 November 2020.
  3. ^ a b Matchday 3 and 4 originally scheduled for 22–30 March 2021.
  4. ^ Matchday 5 originally scheduled for 30 August – 7 September 2021.
  5. ^ Matchday 6 originally scheduled for 4–12 October 2021.

First round[edit]

The draw for the first round was held on 29 July 2019 at 12:00 EST (UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[12][13]

Second round[edit]

The draw for the second round was held on 21 January 2020, 19:00 CAT (UTC+2), at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Cairo, Egypt.[14]

Group A[edit]

Group B[edit]

Group C[edit]

Group D[edit]

Group E[edit]

Group F[edit]

Group G[edit]

Group H[edit]

Group I[edit]

Group J[edit]

Third round[edit]

The ten group winners from the second round were drawn into five home-and-away ties, with the teams seeded based on FIFA World Rankings. The draw was held on 22 January 2022 in Douala, Cameroon.[15] The lower ranked team played the first leg at home. The winners of each fixture qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Qualified teams[edit]

The following five teams from CAF qualified for the final tournament.

Team Qualified as Qualified on Previous appearances in FIFA World Cup
 Ghana Third round winners 29 March 2022 3 (2006, 2010, 2014)
 Senegal Third round winners 29 March 2022 2 (2002, 2018)
 Tunisia Third round winners 29 March 2022 5 (1978, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2018)
 Morocco Third round winners 29 March 2022 5 (1970, 1986, 1994, 1998, 2018)
 Cameroon Third round winners 29 March 2022 7 (1982, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014)

Top goalscorers[edit]

There were 362 goals scored in 158 matches, for an average of 2.29 goals per match.

8 goals

5 goals

4 goals

Below are full goalscorer lists for each round:

References[edit]

External links[edit]