Teams 54 Goals scored 205 | Attendance 1,246,712 Matches played 86 | |
Dates 7 October 2015 – 14 November 2017 Top scorer(s) Similar 2018 FIFA World Cup qualificati, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualificati, 2014 FIFA World Cup qualificati, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualificati, 2018 FIFA World Cup | ||
The African section of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification act as qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Russia, for national teams which are members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). A total of 5 slots in the final tournament are available for CAF teams.
Contents
The CAF Executive Committee approved the format for the qualifiers of the 2018 FIFA World Cup on 14 January 2015, with three preliminary rounds before a final group stage featuring 20 teams. The number of preliminary rounds was reduced to two, based on information provided by FIFA in early July 2015.
Format
The qualification structure is as follows:
Entrants
All 54 FIFA-affiliated football associations from CAF entered qualification. However, Zimbabwe were expelled from the competition on 12 March 2015 due to their failure to pay former coach José Claudinei a severance fee, a decision that the Zimbabwe Football Association said they would appeal.
The July 2015 FIFA Ranking were used to seed the teams for the first two rounds, both of which were drawn in Russia on 25 July 2015. (World rankings shown in brackets)
Note: Niger had to enter the first round as they had fewer FIFA ranking points (345.31) than Benin (345.46) and Libya (345.35). In the FIFA World Rankings, teams share the same ranking if their ranking points round to the same whole number.
Schedule
The schedule of the competition is as follows.
First round
The draw for the first round was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK (UTC+3), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Second round
The draw for the second round was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK (UTC+3), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Third round
The draw for the third round was held on 24 June 2016, 17:00 EET (UTC+2), at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.
Goalscorers
As of 13 November 2016Note: Players in bold are still active in the competition.