The FIFA World Cup qualification is the process that a national association football team goes through to qualify for the final tournament of the FIFA World Cup. The qualification reduces the large field of eligible entrants from 211 to just 32 for the finals as of the 2022 edition (to be expanded to 48 from 2026 onwards).
Qualifying tournaments are held within FIFA's six continental zones and are organized by their respective confederations: AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North and Central America and the Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania), and UEFA (Europe). For each World Cup, FIFA decides beforehand the number of places in the finals allocated to each of the zones, based on the numbers and relative strengths of the confederations' teams.
The hosts receive automatic berths, and until 2002, so did the defending champions. Unlike with other sports, results of the previous World Cups or of the continental championships are not taken into account.
The current qualification process is the 2022 qualification, which commenced in 2019 and finishes in 2022.
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