2022 FIFA World Cup qualification (CAF)


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. A total of 5 slots in the final tournament are available for CAF teams.

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.
CAF reverted to the format used for the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification competition.
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. Sierra Leone also faced possible exclusion from the qualifiers due to the suspension of their football association. However, the suspension was lifted by the FIFA Council on 3 June 2019.
Bye to the second round
Competing in first round

Schedule

Below is the schedule of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign, according to the FIFA International Match Calendar. 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.
StageMatchdayFIFA International Dates
First RoundFirst leg4–7 September 2019
First RoundSecond leg8–10 September 2019
Second RoundMatchday 15–13 October 2020
Second RoundMatchday 29–17 November 2020
Second RoundMatchday 322–30 March 2021
Second RoundMatchday 422–30 March 2021
Second RoundMatchday 530 August–7 September 2021
Second RoundMatchday 64–12 October 2021
Third RoundFirst leg8–16 November 2021
Third RoundSecond leg8–16 November 2021

First round

The draw for the first round was held on 29 July 2019 at 12:00 EST, at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.

Second round

The draw for the second round was held on 21 January 2020, 19:00 CAT, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Cairo, Egypt.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Group I

Group J

Third round

The third round will see the 10 group winners from the second round drawn into five home-and-away ties. The winners of each tie will advance to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Top goalscorers