Europe’s football governing body UEFA is to introduce a new-look playoff system for its 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
According to Daily Mail, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin announced the body’s decision at a conference in Nyon, Switzerland on Wednesday.
UEFA explained that the new format will eliminate the need to compare results of teams in different groups.
It stated that the 55 teams, who will be vying for 13 places at the tournament in Qatar, will be divided into 10 groups.
The 10 group winners will qualify automatically for the World Cup while the runners-up will go into the playoffs along with two more teams from the 2020-21 Nations League.
Those 12 teams will then be split into three paths, with a one-leg semi-final and a one-leg final in each path to decide the remaining three European finalists.
During the qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup, there were nine groups where the winners qualified directly and the eight best runners-up went into four two-leg playoffs.
2 Comments
Depressing news. Why should Europe have 13 places and Africa only 5?
Are we at the same level of football development? All continents are not at the same level ooo