The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced that Zambia’s Chipolopolo is one of the continent’s top ranked CAF sides who will be exempted from first round action of the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018. The announcement was made at CAF headquarters in Cairo today, four days ahead of the draw which takes place in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on Saturday 25 July.
With Zimbabwe having been expelled from the preliminary competition by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, Africa sees 53 of its 54 member associations involved in the Preliminary Draw on Saturday, 25 July 2015 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
THE 2018 DRAW PROCEDURE
FIRST ROUND
The 26 lowest-ranked participating associations from the region will contest Round One. Those teams will be allocated to two pots of 13 teams based on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking of July 2015; the 13 highest ranked teams and the 13 lowest ranked teams. They will then be drawn against each other to play over two legs on a home and away basis between 5 and 13 October 2015.
Pot 1 (13 highest ranked teams)
Niger, Ethiopia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Kenya, Botswana, Madagascar, Mauritania, Burundi, Lesotho, Guinea Bissau, Swaziland
Pot 2 (13 lowest ranked teams)
Tanzania, Gambia, Liberia, Central African Republic, Chad, Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros, Sao Tome and Principe, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti
Second Round
The winners of the First Round advance to Round Two, where they will join the remaining 27 highest-ranked teams and face off in a two-legged play off, home and away.
Top ranked 27 teams
Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Tunisia, Senegal, Cameroon, Congo, Cape Verde, Egypt, Nigeria, Guinea, Congo, Mali, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, South Africa, Zambia, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Rwanda, Togo , Morocco, Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, Benin, Libya
Third round
The winners of the Second Round will move into the Third Round, where five groups of four teams will meet both home and away. The winner of each group will qualify for Russia 2018.
“The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced that Zambia’s Chipolopolo is one of the continent’s top ranked CAF sides who will be exempted from first round action of the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018”. I beg to differ with CAF on this matter. Zambia’s form over the past few years has been pathetic to say the least. We have lost to minnows such as Namibia, Malawi, Cape Verde among others and drawn with the likes of Guinea Bissau. CAF will need to revisit the rankings and ensure only deserving teams are exempted from the preliminary rounds.
I concur with you Mutuwapafa above. I think there is tribalism in the way CAF is seeding teams here. Zambian football is at its lowest ebb and its no longer second to christianity. The sports performance and popularity is now rallying behind beer drinking. If we were ranked top seeds and exempted from the first qualifying round of the world beer drinking championships it could have made colossal sense.