New qualification paths for 2026 FIFA World Cup

With the 2022 FIFA World Cup in the middle of the qualification steps, I’m looking ahead to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

That’s because every confederation has extra spots for qualification, along with the intercontinental playoff tournament expanding significantly. With this in mind, I decided to create new systems for each confederation (where necessary) for qualification. I should note that I have not assigned an additional team for a host confederation because it will constantly change – I feel that it will make things easier for these initial calculations.

One thing that people will note is that I am a firm believer in national development. The more that countries play football at a competitive level, the stronger nations become as footballing nations. For the most part, I try to eliminate the initial stage that removes those nations.

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) (jumps from 4.5 to 8+1)

The AFC has 46 eligible members, with 8 qualifying for the World Cup and 1 for the intercontinental playoff tournament. I do appreciate how the AFC combines World Cup Qualification and Asian Cup Qualification, so I do want to keep that together.

Under my plan, I would broadly keep the same system. However, I would remove the first round – I think it would be better for those nations to be playing competitive matches, even if it’s in the later stages of Asian Cup qualification. More matches is a good outcome.

So in the table below, I will use FIFA Rankings for 21 October 2021 to determine the pots.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4	Pot 5	Pot 6
Iran	China	Vietnam	Kuwait	Singapore	Bangladesh
Japan	Oman	Palestine	Myanmar	Indonesia	Brunei
Australia	Syria	India	Hong Kong	Nepal	Timor-Leste
South Korea	Uzbekistan	North Korea	Yemen	Cambodia	Pakistan
Qatar	Bahrain	Tajikistan	Afghanistan	Macau	Guam
Saudi Arabia	Jordan	Thailand	Malaysia	Mongolia	Sri Lanka
United Arab Emirates (UAE)	Lebanon	Philippines	Maldives	Laos
Iraq	Kyrgyz Republic	Turkmenistan	Chinese Taipei	Bhutan

So if these are the pots, let’s conduct a draw – I tend to use Random Lists and their Random Team Generator to work pot by pot.

Group	Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4	Pot 5	Pot 6
Group A	Japan	Oman	North Korea	Chinese Taipei	Indonesia	Guam
Group B	Qatar	Bahrain	Thailand	Hong Kong	Singapore	Brunei
Group C	Saudi Arabia	Uzbekistan	Philippines	Malaysia	Laos	Pakistan
Group D	UAE	Kyrgyz Republic	Turkmenistan	Myanmar	Bhutan	Timor-Leste
Group E	Iran	Syria	India	Afghanistan	Mongolia	Sri Lanka
Group F	Australia	China	Tajikistan	Maldives	Cambodia	Bangladesh
Group G	South Korea	Jordan	Palestine	Kuwait	Macau	N/A
Group H	Iraq	Lebanon	Vietnam	Yemen	Nepal	N/A

So, readers will notice that 6 of the 8 groups have 6 nations, while 2 have 5 countries. I did consider this when I was creating it. The top 2 from each group will automatically qualify for the Asian Cup while going to the next stage of World Cup qualifying, as will the four best 3rd placed teams. When assessing the four best 3rd ranked teams, matches against the last-placed team in the group are eliminated, so everyone is on the same number of games. This is a common way to even the groups up.

This leaves 20 nations – I would put them in 4 groups of 5. They play each other in a double round-robin (as they did in the first stage). The top 2 in each group qualify for the World Cup. The third-place nation in each group plays in a seeded knockout tournament to determine who goes to the intercontinental playoff tournament.

The remaining 26 nations would be put into 4 groups of 6 or 7. The winner of each group goes to the Asian Cup while providing competitive matches for the smaller nations.

Confederation of Asian Football (CAF) (jumps from 5 to 9+1)

CAF has 54 member nations, which is easily divisible by 9 – that makes life REALLY EASY, and I like that!

The most significant change I would make would be scrapping the first round of CAF qualification, which eliminates a bunch of nations. I think they need more matches, and I want to encourage them.

As a result, I would create 9 groups of 6. The top nation from each group qualifies for the World Cup. The runner-up in each group qualifies for a seeded knockout tournament that determines the competitor for the intercontinental playoff tournament.

Group	Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4	Pot 5	Pot 6
Group A	Senegal	Guinea	Sierra Leone	Sudan	The Gambia	Liberia
Group B	Egypt	Cabo Verde	Guinea-Bissau	Tanzania	Botswana	Somalia
Group C	Morocco	Congo DR	Gabon	Niger	Comoros	Sao Tome
Group D	Algeria	South Africa	Libya	Malawi	Togo	Mauritius
Group E	Cote d’Ivoire	Uganda	Namibia	Mozambique	Burundi	Djibouti
Group F	Cameroon	Mali	Mauritania	The Central African Rep.	Lesotho	Eritrea
Group G	Nigeria	Zambia	Kenya	Angola	Eswatini	South Sudan
Group H	Ghana	Benin	Madagascar	Equatorial Guinea	Rwanda	Chad
Group I	Tunisia	Burkina Faso	Congo	Zimbabwe	Ethiopia	Seychelles

An alternative approach could see the top 2 nations from each group combined into 3 groups of 6. The top half of each group would qualify for the World Cup, and the three nations in 4th place would have to play off for the intercontinental playoff tournament spot, probably through seeding.

This set of groups could be used for the African Cup of Nations qualification if they chose to.

Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) (up from 3.5 to 6+1)

CONCACAF has 35 member nations. With 6 slots, it would be easy to run six groups of 6 (albeit one group had 5 members) – you know that the Americans would call it the Hex-a-Hex or some other stupid name.

If we progress down that path, I would have the winner of each group progress to the World Cup, with the runners-up seeded to go into a knockout tournament, the winner of which is chosen to go to the intercontinental playoff tournament.

Group	Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4	Pot 5	Pot 6
Group A	Costa Rica	Panama	Suriname	Puerto Rico	St Lucia	Bahamas
Group B	Canada	Haiti	Dominican Republic	Grenada	Aruba	The British Virgin Islands
Group C	USA	Guatemala	Barbados	Guyana	Dominica	US Virgin Islands
Group D	Mexico	Curacao	St Kitts & Nevis	St Vincent & Grenadines	Cayman Islands	Anguilla
Group E	Honduras	El Salvador	Antigua & Barbuda	Bermuda	Montserrat	Turks & Caicos Islands
Group F	Jamaica	Trinidad & Tobago	Nicaragua	Belize	Cuba	N/A

An alternative approach could see the top 2 nations from each group combined into 2 groups of 6. The top half of each group would qualify for the World Cup, and the two nations in 4th place would have to play off for the intercontinental playoff tournament spot.

South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) (up from 4.5 to 6+1)

I would not change anything about what CONMEBOL does. Their double round-robin system that involves every single nation works brilliantly. CONMEBOL only has 10 members, the top 6 qualify, and the seventh-place goes to the intercontinental playoff tournament.

Nice and simple 🙂

Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) (jumps from 0.5 spots to 1+1)

This is a massive development for the OFC. It is the first time they will ever have a permanent place in the FIFA World Cup.

With that in mind, I’d like to use the CONMEBOL method to get as many competitive games as possible for this, frankly, undeveloped part of the footballing world. It would mean a 20-game league, probably over two years and several match days. It could be used for the OFC Nations Cup qualification, with perhaps the top 6 or 8 nations qualifying for it.

Naturally, at the end of twenty games, the top nation would qualify for the World Cup, and the runner-up would be eligible for the intercontinental playoff tournament.

Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) (jumps from 13 to 16 spots)

UEFA doesn’t get any intercontinental playoff tournament spots unless some of their host nations host the World Cup.

UEFA is also challenging to work with because of the UEFA Nations League. I’m still not sure that I understand how the UEFA Nations League works with World Cup qualification.

However… looking at the Wikipedia entry for the 2022 World Cup qualification for UEFA, I’ve realised that minimal changes are required. There are currently 10 groups, with the 10 winners qualifying for the World Cup and all the runners-up joining…

the best two Nations League group winners, based on the Nations League overall ranking,^[39] who finished outside the top two of their qualifying group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(UEFA)

In total, that incorporates 12 nations. That needs to be reduced to six countries, which means that the existing seeding system built into the second round still works. The only change is that instead of using seedings to set teams across three different “paths,” they are now two-legged home and away affairs. This is not a significant change from what took place in previous iterations of European qualification for the World Cup (2018 and earlier).

Summary of my changes

I think that my methods see more international football across the world, to the benefit of countries. While some fans will complain about going to “lower” nations, it can be promoted as an opportunity for many fans to visit new places and cultures, develop new relationships, and form new bonds.

In my opinion, exploring new ideas for international tournament qualifications should be explored.

What do you think? Where do you want to go and watch your nation play in your confederation that they haven’t played before? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!