Why new World Cup qualifying draw for European teams gives Nations League more weight

FIFA is preparing a more complicated draw for the European World Cup qualifying groups, giving greater weight to the upcoming UEFA Nations League rather than relying solely on world rankings — but also making most teams wait months to find out their full slate of opponents.

The new system will see the list of top-seeded teams for the 12 groups made up of the eight Nations League quarterfinalists plus the four top-ranked teams among those who don’t make the last eight of the UEFA competition. That means when the draw is held in December, only placeholder names will be used for the top-seeded teams in each group as the Nations League program will still be underway. The quarterfinals are not completed until March 23, when teams will finally know which top-seeded side they will be facing.

FIFA detailed its preferred format in a briefing note Tuesday to UEFA member federations, outlining the changes compared to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, when seedings relied on the FIFA world rankings.

The new seeding proposal would give lower-ranked teams like Hungary, Israel, Scotland and Bosnia-Herzegovina a chance to outperform their current FIFA ranking with a good six-game Nations League program. But it also gives the top-ranked European teams like France, Spain, England and Belgium a direct route to a top seed. England was demoted to League B in the Nations League and therefore could not have been one of the eight quarterfinalists from League A, but is currently the third highest-ranked European nation behind France and Spain.

Having a top seeding helps teams avoid most of the expected toughest opponents, with only the top team in the 12 groups guaranteed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup played in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Four more teams will qualify through a playoffs in March 2026.

FIFA said Wednesday it plans to confirm details this week of the World Cup qualifying draw, which shapes as the most complex ever in Europe.

European qualifying for the first 48-team men’s World Cup already was set to be amended because 16 UEFA members will qualify for the expanded tournament being hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. Europe gets three more entries than the 13 that went to Qatar for the last 32-team World Cup in 2022.

Extra entries meant more qualifying groups, 12 instead of 10, yet also smaller ones. Europe no longer has qualifying groups of six teams each playing 10 games, and now will be evenly split between groups of five and four teams. The four-team groups, with each playing only six games, will start in September next year.

The smaller groups created space in the 2025 calendar of national-team games for UEFA to add knockout and playoffs rounds in the multi-tier Nations League competition.

Nations League games finish Nov. 19 and three days later UEFA will draw the quarterfinal pairings in the top tier. The winners of those two-leg quarterfinals played March 20-23 advance to a Final Four mini-tournament in June.

Final Four teams will not be free to play World Cup qualifying games in June. They must be drawn by FIFA into four-team World Cup qualifying groups and begin playing games in September next year.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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