Explained: New format of FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifying Draw

The draw will be held on 27 July.

The qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be kick-starting from this year itself when it comes to the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) members. The tournament, that will be hosted by Canada, the USA and Mexico in three years' time – will see a major change from anything we’ve seen before.

FIFA has already confirmed it will be increased to a 48-team format, marking the most number of teams to have ever played in a single World Cup edition. That will benefit every single federation in the world, which includes the AFC. The AFC will now be able to send eight-and-a-half of its members to participate in the tournament, an increase of four-and-a-half from the previous edition.

In the 2022 edition, AFC saw six of their members represent them in the World Cup – the highest ever. With the quality of Asian Football getting better with every past year, the AFC has now been told how the qualifications will work for teams in their federation.

When will the 2026 World Cup qualifiers start for AFC nations?

The AFC currently has 45 member associations (teams) that will be able to participate in the qualifying process for the 2026 World Cup. FIFA will be holding the official draw for the first two rounds of the 2026 World Cup qualifying on July 27, 2023 at the Asian Football Confederation house in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

After this is done, the 18 lowest-ranked teams (in terms of the FIFA rankings) will start their qualification journey in Round 1 of qualifiers.

The 18 teams in the first round will be split into nine pairings, with each pair (involving two teams) playing one home and one away match on October 12, 2023 and October 17, 2023. The winners of this round will then be able to move on to the second round of qualifying.

https://youtu.be/KcrJ4RTYiwg

It must be noted that India will not have to play in the first round of qualifiying. This is because of the Blue Tigers being among the top-20 AFC teams in the latest FIFA ranking when they moved up to 99th place.

When does India’s journey start and what must they do to qualify for the 2026 edition?

India’s journey will, instead, begin in Round 2. The winners of Round 1 will join the 27 remaining AFC teams for the second round of qualifying. These 36 teams in total will be split into nine groups of four teams, competing against each other in the traditional home-and-away round-robin format. These qualifiers will begin on November 2023 and go on until June 2024.

After this, the nine group winners and the runners-up will be moving on to the third round of the World Cup qualification process. The draw for the third qualifiers round will be held in 2024. In this, the 18 teams that have qualified from the Round 2 will be placed into three groups of six teams.

Out of this, the top two teams from each of the three groups will directly qualify for the 2026 World Cup.  The other two AFC teams in the World Cup will then be decided in the fourth round of qualifying, involving the remaining 12 teams that failed to progress past the third round. Moreover, a possible ninth AFC team can also qualify for the World Cup – which will be decided in an intercontinental play-off clash against a team from another continent – that is likely to be held soon before the 2026 World Cup.

With that being said, India’s road in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers will begin in the second Round from November, 2023 onwards. Igor Stimac’s side have a tough journey ahead as they need to be among the top-two of their group in Round 2 to make it to the third round and keep their qualification dreams alive.