14/10/2025
🚨HOW IS THE PLAYOFFS FOR THE 2026 FIFA WORLD CUP LIKE?
Here is the full breakdown:
1. What Does Playoff Means?
Playoff is basically a last-chance knockout for teams that almost qualified but didn’t get an automatic spot from their continent (Africa, Europe, Asia, etc).
FIFA uses this to decide the final few tickets to the World Cup.
2. How Does it Works for the 2026 World Cup?
- A total of 6 teams will enter the inter-confederation playoffs.
These 6 teams come from:
🌎 1 team from Africa (CAF)
🌏 1 team from Asia (AFC)
🌎 2 teams from North/Central America (CONCACAF)
🌍 1 team from Oceania (OFC)
🌎 1 team from South America (CONMEBOL)
3. What is the Format for the Playoff?
- The two highest-ranked of those 6 teams (based on FIFA ranking) get a bye to the next round.
- The remaining four play two single-match playoffs (knockouts).
- The two winners of those matches then face the two teams with byes.
⚠️The winners of those final two matches qualify for the World Cup.
4. In Summary
- So, in total, 2 out of 6 teams will book the last tickets in a playoff.
- In the case of Nigeria, they will enter the CAF playoff first, facing other group runners-up in Africa (Gabon, Cameroon and Burkina Faso).
Then the winner of that CAF playoff goes to the inter-confederation playoff (against other continents) for one of the final 2 World Cup spots.
I hope it's clear