Bafana Bafana players joke around during a training session. South Africa along with other African countries will have a easier route to reaching the 2026 World Cup. Photo: Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix
Cape Town – Since Fifa allocated Africa nine places for the expanded 48-team World Cup tournament in North America in 2026, South Africa will have to defeat at least one higher-ranked country to qualify automatically.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has drastically trimmed the tedious qualifying programme which has been in place for the past few years.
Instead of the usual preliminary rounds and then group stage matches followed by two-legged play-offs over three years, the 2026 World Cup qualifying format will be a single round of five matches for each of the 54 member countries.
CAF will divide the 54 countries into nine groups of six teams. Presently there are only 52 African countries on Fifa’s world rankings, and that means two groups may end up with five teams. Teams in those groups will then play four instead of five matches.
OFFICIAL:
— Kick Off (@KickOffMagazine) May 19, 2023
CAF has made some new announcements regarding the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2026 FIFA World Cup, confirming a format change to qualification for the latter. 👏
More here! ▶️ https://t.co/FJbOcgLIKx pic.twitter.com/MZnp0KtwQ3
Bafana Bafana are currently ranked 12th in Africa and, therefore, will end up in a group where at least one team will have a higher world ranking. The rankings are headed up by Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria.
The draw for the nine groups will be held in Cotonou, Benin, on July 12. Teams will be seeded according to the latest Fifa rankings.
The nine group winners will qualify automatically for the 2026 showpiece, which will be co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the US.
There is a second chance for the four best runners-up from the nine groups. These four teams will play in a CAF play-off tournament in November 2025.
The winner will play in the Fifa play-off tournament against teams from other confederations in March 2026. The six teams will be one from each confederation, except Europe, and one additional team from the confederation of the host countries (Concacaf).
The 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification format for Africa has been revealed.
— Naija Sports (@naijasports_) May 19, 2023
There will be 9 groups of 6 teams, the winners of each group qualifies automatically.While,the best four 2nd placed teams will contest a playoff, where the winner qualify for the Intercontinental playoffs pic.twitter.com/n0xzJVm1zi
If an African team wins this Fifa play-off tournament it will mean Africa will have a 10th team in North America.
With this new format, the qualifying process will be completed in 23 months. It starts in November 2023, continues in June 2024 and the final matches in March, September and October 2025.
CAF has also announced that the Africa Cup of Nations 2023 draw will be on October 12.
Côte d'Ivoire is the host, and the tournament starts on January 13 and will run until the final on February 11.
Six of the 24 participating teams have already qualified, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, South Africa, Morocco and Burkina Faso and will join hosts Côte d'Ivoire.
This is the second time that the Ivorians are hosting the tournament, having staged the 1984 edition when Cameroon was crowned champions.
CAF president Patrice Motsepe has made his promise good of improved prize money in the two continental club competitions. The Champions League's winner’s purse has moved from $2.5-million to $4m (R77-million).
The prize money for the Confederation Cup has increased from $1.25m to $2m (R38.5m).
@Herman_Gibbs