CONCACAF Qualifiers Announced for FIFA World Cup 2022
IslandStats.com
CONCACAF has published an updated Men’s International calendar which includes a new format for the CONCACAF Qualifiers to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and updates on the CONCACAF Nations League and 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
CONCACAF Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022
The new CONCACAF Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 comprise of three rounds and provide all participating Member Associations with the chance to compete for the Confederation’s three and a half World Cup spots.
The First Round (30 teams) will be played between the CONCACAF Member Associations ranked 6-35 based on the FIFA rankings as of July 16th, 2020.
The 30 Men’s National teams will be drawn into six groups of five in a seeded draw. The six highest ranked teams, El Salvador, Canada, Curacao, Panama, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago will be pre-seeded into groups A to F respectively.
Each team will play every other team in their group once, playing a total of four matches; two home and two away. These games will be played in the FIFA match windows of October 2020 and November 2020.
At the end of the First Round the six group winners will progress to the Second Round.
The Second Round (six teams) will be played between the group winners from the First Round, with the matchups pre-determined as follows:
Group A winner vs Group F winner Group B winner vs Group E winner Group C winner vs Group D winner
CONCACAF Nations League
The CONCACAF Nations League is a key part of the Confederation’s strategy to provide more competitive football opportunities for national teams across the region.
The inaugural group stage included all 41 CONCACAF Men’s National teams in the FIFA match windows of September, October and November 2019 with great competition across the region.
The League A group winners: Mexico, USA, Honduras and Costa Rica qualified for the first CONCACAF Nations League Finals, originally scheduled for June 2020 but suspended due to the public health situation.
Additionally, CONCACAF can now confirm that the second edition of this exciting competition, the 2022/23 CONCACAF Nations League, will begin in June 2022 and conclude with the 2022/23 CONCACAF Nations League Finals in March 2023.
2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup
The CONCACAF Gold Cup is the Confederation’s flagship men’s international football competition. The 2019 event was expanded from 12 to 16 teams and the Final – competed between Mexico and the USA – was viewed by a record 8.5 million fans.
This event is eagerly anticipated by fans across the region and CONCACAF can now confirm the start date for the 2021 Gold Cup will be July 10th, 2021, and the Final will take place on August 1, 2021.
CONCACAF will now work towards creating a centralized Gold Cup preliminary round for those teams which had been due to play the Road to Gold Cup Qualifiers.
This will take place in the United States in the week before the commencement of the Gold Cup group stages. Further details on the format and schedule of this preliminary round will be provided in the coming weeks.
The 12 participating teams in the preliminary round will be: Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cuba, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Montserrat, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.
