FIFA Confirms 2022 World Cup Draw Procedure, Likely Pots for Top Seeds

The groups will be set on April 1—even though qualifying playoffs for the final places in Qatar won’t all be finished.

One doesn’t need to wait until 2022 World Cup draw in order to start conjuring group of death scenarios, now that FIFA has confirmed its procedure for the April 1 event.

Although only 29 of the 32 teams participating in Qatar will be known at the time of the draw, the top seeds will all be sorted by then. FIFA confirmed Tuesday that along with host nation Qatar, the top seven teams in the men’s world rankings as of the March 31 edition will be drawn from Pot 1. The next eight nations in the rankings will be drawn into Pot 2, and so on. 

The current top seven includes Belgium, Brazil, reigning world champion France, South American champion Argentina, England, European champion Italy and Spain. Among them, Italy is the only nation to not yet qualify, although it sits in the same qualifying playoff bracket as the next-ranked team: Portugal. In case neither qualifies, Denmark and the Netherlands are the next highest-ranked teams at ninth and 10th, respectively. 

Barring an unexpected but massive shift in the final ranking before the draw, Germany is set to be in Pot 2. The potential for any of the Pot 1 teams to draw the 2014 champion creates an easily imaginable group-of-death scenario. With 13 teams, Europe is the only region that will serve as an exception to FIFA’s principle of separating teams from the same confederation, as five of the eight groups will have two (but never more than two) European teams. 

Meanwhile, with its current No. 13 ranking, the United States national team appears set to be place in Pot 2 if it can clinch a spot in the World Cup this window. If it finishes fourth in Concacaf, the USMNT will go to the intercontinental playoff against the winner of this week’s Oceania qualifying bracket. 

The winner of the two intercontinental playoffs in June (Asian Football Confederation vs. South America’s CONMEBOL is the other) will be placed in Pot 4, along with the winner of the postponed UEFA qualifying playoff that features Ukraine. According to the Associated Press, at least two of those teams (Wales or Ukraine) would have qualified for Pot 3 if those matches had gone according to schedule. But Russia’s expulsion from qualifying due to the nation’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in a late change to the proceedings.

With the final international window before the draw still to take place, 15 nations have qualified for November’s World Cup. It will be the final World Cup with 32 teams before the competition expands to 48 teams.