The draw took place on 18 July 2019, 18:30 CAT, in Cairo, Egypt. A total of 52 teams entered the tournament, including the hosts Cameroon, while Eritrea and Somalia chose to not enter the qualifiers.
Seeding
The teams were seeded based upon their June 2019FIFA World Rankings. All 44 teams from Pot 1 to Pot 4 entered the competition at the group stage, while teams from Pot 5 had to compete at the preliminary round in order to advance to the group stage. Each group contained one team from Pot 1, Pot 2 and Pot 3. Groups from Group A to Group D contained a winning team from the preliminary round, while groups from Group E to Group L contained a team from Pot 4
Pot
Pot 1
Pot 2
Pot 3
Pot 4
Pot 5
Teams
Schedule
The schedule of the qualifying competition is as follows. After the rescheduling of the final tournament from June/July to January/February, the dates of the matchdays 3–6 of the group stage were also rescheduled. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all matches of matchdays 3 and 4 scheduled for March 2020 had been postponed until further notice. FIFA had recommended that all June 2020 international matches be postponed, and also postponed the September 2020 window for CAF. On 30 June 2020, the CAF announced the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations final tournament had been postponed from January 2021 to January 2022, without announcing the new dates of the remaining qualifiers.
Preliminary round
All 8 teams from Pot 5 were drawn into 4 ties and played in home-and-away two-legged format. The 4 winners advanced to the group stage to join the 44 teams which entered directly. They went to positions A4, B4, C4 and D4 respectively based on their tie number.
Group stage
The 48 teams were drawn into 12 groups of four teams. Teams consisted of the 44 teams which entered directly, in addition to the 4 winners of the preliminary round whose identity was not known at the time of the draw. The 2021 Africa Cup of Nations host, Cameroon, participates in the qualifiers with the team guaranteed a spot in the finals regardless of its ranking in the group. Their matches and results will count in determining the qualification of the other teams from their group. If Cameroon finishes out of top two teams in the group, a runner-up will not qualify for the main tournament.
