With the World Cup draw having been set for April 1 Fifa announced the procedure on Tuesday, at last, and 28 of the 32 teams who will play at the World Cup have already been assigned one of four pots.
Qatar, as hosts, will be in Pot 1, alongside the seven highest-ranked teams as per the FIFA rankings. Countries ranked eighth to 15th will be in Pot 2, 16th to 23rd in Pot 3, and 24th to 28th in Pot 4. Pot 4 will be completed with the teams from the intercontinental qualifiers, and the Uefa playoffs.
The intercontinental qualifiers will be played on June 13 and 14 in Qatar, with Africa’s representatives taking on those of CONMEBOL, while the OFC’s side will take on that of Concecaf.
Teams from the same confederation will be separated into different groups, with the exception of those from UEFA as there are 13 teams involved. As a result, five of the eight groups will have two European teams.
FIFA also clarified that the teams who qualify via playoffs will be governed by the same principles of separating them from teams of their same confederation.
