The African section of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification acts 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 are available for CAF teams.[1]
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 4 September 2019 – March 2022 |
| Teams | 54 (from 1 confederation) |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 108 |
| Goals scored | 248 (2.3 per match) |
| Attendance | 625,510 (5,792 per match) |
| Top scorer(s) |  Islam Slimani(6 goals) |
Format
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) will be divided into ten groups of four teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The ten group winners advance to the third round.
- Third round: The ten second round group winners play home-and-away over two legs. The five winners qualify for the World Cup.
Entrants
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 will be 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]
| Bye to the second round (Ranked 1st to 26th) |
Competing in first round (Ranked 27th to 54th) |
|---|---|
|
|
Schedule
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 | March 2022 |
| Second leg |
- ^ Matchday 1 originally scheduled for 23–31 March 2020, later for 5–13 October 2020.
- ^ Matchday 2 originally scheduled for 1–9 June 2020, later for 9–17 November 2020.
- ^ a b Matchday 3 and 4 originally scheduled for 22–30 March 2021.
- ^ Matchday 5 originally scheduled for 30 August – 7 September 2021.
- ^ Matchday 6 originally scheduled for 4–12 October 2021.
First round
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]
| Team 1 | Agg. | Team 2 | 1st leg | 2nd leg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ethiopia 
|
1–1 (a) |  Lesotho
|
0–0 | 1–1 |
Somalia 
|
2–3 |  Zimbabwe
|
1–0 | 1–3 |
Eritrea 
|
1–4 |  Namibia
|
1–2 | 0–2 |
Burundi 
|
2–2 (0–3 p) |  Tanzania
|
1–1 | 1–1 (a.e.t.) |
Djibouti 
|
2–1 |  Eswatini
|
2–1 | 0–0 |
Botswana 
|
0–1 |  Malawi
|
0–0 | 0–1 |
Gambia 
|
1–3 |  Angola
|
0–1 | 1–2 |
Liberia 
|
3–2 |  Sierra Leone
|
3–1 | 0–1 |
Mauritius 
|
0–3 |  Mozambique
|
0–1 | 0–2 |
São Tomé and Príncipe 
|
1–3 |  Guinea-Bissau
|
0–1 | 1–2 |
South Sudan 
|
1–2 |  Equatorial Guinea
|
1–1 | 0–1 |
Comoros 
|
1–3 |  Togo
|
1–1 | 0–2 |
Chad 
|
1–3 |  Sudan
|
1–3 | 0–0 |
Seychelles 
|
0–10 |  Rwanda
|
0–3 | 0–7 |
Second round
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
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group B
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group C
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group D
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group E
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group F
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group G
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group H
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group I
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Group J
Template:2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – CAF Second Round group tables
Third round
The third round will see the ten group winners from the second round drawn into five home-and-away ties. The winners of each fixture will advance to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
- Qualified teams
Top goalscorers
There were 362 goals scored in 158 matches, for an average of 2.29 goals per match. Players highlighted in bold are still active in the competition.
8 goals
5 goals
4 goals
3 goals
Below is full goalscorers lists for all rounds:
References
- ^ "Current allocation of FIFA World Cup confederation slots maintained". FIFA. 30 May 2015. Archived from the original on 30 May 2015.
- ^ "CAF turns down idea to pair World Cup 2022, AFCON 2021 qualifiers". Futaa. 12 June 2018.
- ^ "CAF reverts to previous format for 2022 African World Cup qualifiers". Ahram Newspaper (english web version). 10 July 2019.
- ^ "Libya pays debts to former national soccer team coach". The Libya Observer. 20 January 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
- ^ "FIFA suspends the Sierra Leone Football Association". FIFA. 5 October 2018. Archived from the original on October 8, 2018.
- ^ "FIFA Council appoints Qatar as host of the FIFA Club World Cup in 2019 and 2020" (Press release). FIFA. 3 June 2019. Archived from the original on 3 June 2019. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
- ^ "FIFA Men's Ranking – July 2019 (CAF)". FIFA.com. 25 July 2019. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019.
- ^ "INTERNATIONAL MATCH CALENDAR 2018-2024" (PDF). FIFA. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-03-16. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
- ^ "INTERNATIONAL MATCH CALENDAR 2020-2024" (PDF). FIFA. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-01-03. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
- ^ "CAF reschedules dates of Nations Cup and World Cup qualifiers". Ahram Online. 16 January 2020.
- ^ "Cameroon 2021 qualifiers resume November, Qatar 2022 set for May 2021". cafonline.com. 19 August 2020.
- ^ "204 member associations in contention for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 berths". FIFA.com. FIFA. 16 July 2019. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
- ^ "CAF to Hold Draw for 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers on Monday". Sada ElBalad English. 22 July 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
- ^ "FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers: draws to take centre stage in South America and Africa". FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 11 December 2019. Retrieved 11 December 2019.