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UEFA preliminary draw for Qatar 2022: Format, pots and rules

Excitement is mounting ahead of the UEFA preliminary draw for the FIFA World Cup 2022™, which will be hosted virtually from Zurich on 7 December at 18:00 CET.




The teams drawn will be allocated to a group in alphabetical order, from Group A to Group J (i.e. the first team drawn will be allocated to Group A, the second team to Group B and so forth). When a draw constraint applies or is anticipated to apply, the team drawn will be allocated to the first available group in alphabetical order as indicated by the draw constraint programme.


As Pot 6 will only contain five teams, these teams will be drawn into the sixth position in groups F to J.


All teams within a group will play each other twice in a home-and-away format between March and November 2021. The ten group winners will qualify directly for Qatar 2022, with the ten runners-up advancing to the play-offs.


Besides the ten runners-up from the group stage, the play-offs will also include the two best group winners from the UEFA Nations League 2020-2021 overall ranking that did not qualify directly for the FIFA World Cup 2022 and did not enter the play-offs as runners-up. The 12 teams will be split into three play-off paths, which will feature single-leg knockout matches in March 2022 to determine the last three European nations to book a place in Qatar.


The full draw procedures, including details on constraints, are available here.


Fans around the world will be able to follow the draw live on FIFA.com, FIFA on YouTube and via FIFA’s broadcast partners.


Based on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, the 55 UEFA member associations have been allocated as follows:


Pot 1: Belgium, France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands


Pot 2: Switzerland, Wales, Poland, Sweden, Austria, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Slovakia and Romania


Pot 3: Russia, Hungary, Republic of Ireland, Czech Republic, Norway, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Scotland, Greece and Finland


Pot 4: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Israel, Belarus, Georgia and Luxembourg


Pot 5: Armenia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Latvia and Andorra


Pot 6: Malta, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and San Marino


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