2022 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)

The Asian part of the **2022 FIFA World Cup qualification** is the qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It is for the national teams who are members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Besides from Qatar (who qualified automatically as hosts), there a total of 4 or 5 slots (4 direct slots and 1 possible inter-confederation play-off slot) to the World Cup.

The tournament has four rounds; the first two rounds also being qualification for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup (which is why Qatar plays in the first two rounds). The first round would have also been qualifiers for the 2020 AFC Solidarity Cup but it was cancelled.

## Format

The qualification format is as follows:
- **First round**: Twelve teams (ranked 35–46) played home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round.
- **Second round**: Forty teams (ranked 1–34 and six first-round winners) were divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. Originally, the eight group winners and the four best group runners-up were supposed advance to the third round of FIFA World Cup qualification, as well as qualified for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. However, since Qatar won their group, the fifth-best runners-up took their place in the third round.
- **Third round**: Twelve teams that advanced from the second round will be divided into two groups of six teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The top two teams of each group will qualify for the World Cup, and the third-placed teams will advance to the fourth round.
- **Fourth round**: The two third-placed teams from the third round will play a single match. The winner will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs.

## Entrants

All 46 FIFA associations from AFC entered qualification. The FIFA World Rankings from April 2019 was used to determine who would play in the first round. The second and third rounds used the FIFA World Rankings at the time of the draw.

Because the qualification format was for both the World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers, both Qatar (automatically qualifying to the World Cup as hosts) and China PR (automatically qualifying to the Asian Cup as hosts) entered the second round. Qatar played for qualification to the Asian Cup, and China to the World Cup.

Timor-Leste was banned from playing in the Asian Cup qualifiers after they fielded 12 players they weren't able to play in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification. FIFA did not ban them from the World Cup qualifiers though, so Timor-Leste was allowed to enter the competition. They are not able to qualify to the Asian Cup but they can qualify to the World Cup.

|style="width:50%"|Bye to the second round (Ranked 1st to 34th)|style="width:50%"|Competing in first round (Ranked 35th to 46th)|
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|# (21) # (26) # (37) # (41) # (55) # (67) # (72) # (74) # (76) # (83) # (85) # (86) # (86) # (95) # (97) # (98) # (99) # (101) # (111) # (114) # (120) # (121) # (124) # (125) # (136) # (140) # (141) # (146) # (149) # (151) # (156) # (159) # (160) # (161)||||

## Schedule

The schedule of the competition according to the FIFA International Match Calendar.

|Round|Matchday|Date(s)|||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|valign=top|{| class="wikitable"||||
|rowspan=2|First round|First leg|6 June 2019||
|Second leg|11 June 2019||||
|rowspan=10|Second round|Matchday 1|5 September 2019||
|Matchday 2|10 September 2019||||
|Matchday 3|10 October 2019||||
|Matchday 4|15 October 2019||||
|Matchday 5|14 November 2019||||
|Matchday 6|19 November 2019||||
|Matchday 7|25 March, 28 May and 3 June 2021||||
|Matchday 8|4 December 2020, 30 March and 7 & 9 June 2021||||
|Matchday 9|30 March, 30 May and 11 June 2021||||
|Matchday 10|13 and 15 June 2021|}|valign=top|{| class="wikitable"|
|rowspan=10|Third round|Matchday 1|2 September 2021||
|Matchday 2|7 September 2021||||
|Matchday 3|7 October 2021||||
|Matchday 4|12 October 2021||||
|Matchday 5|11 November 2021||||
|Matchday 6|16 November 2021||||
|Matchday 7|27 January 2022||||
|Matchday 8|1 February 2022||||
|Matchday 9|24 March 2022||||
|Matchday 10|29 March 2022||||
|Fourth round|Single leg|May or June 2022|||
|Inter-confederation play-offs|Single leg|13 or 14 June 2022|}||

|Stage|Matchday|Date||
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|rowspan=4|Second round|Matchday 7|26 March 2020, later 8 October|
|Matchday 8|31 March 2020, later 13 October|||
|Matchday 9|4 June 2020, later 12 November, then 7 June 2021|||
|Matchday 10|9 June 2020, later 17 November|||
|rowspan=10|Third round|Matchday 1|3 September 2020|
|Matchday 2|8 September 2020|||
|Matchday 3|13 October 2020|||
|Matchday 4|12 November 2020|||
|Matchday 5|17 November 2020|||
|Matchday 6|25 March 2021|||
|Matchday 7|30 March 2021|||
|Matchday 8|8 June 2021|||
|Matchday 9|7 September 2021|||
|Matchday 10|12 October 2021|||
|rowspan=2|Fourth round|First leg|11 November 2021|
|Second leg|16 November 2021|||
|rowspan=2|Inter-confederation play-offs|First leg|March 2022|
|Second leg|March 2022|||

## First round

The draw for the first round was held on 17 April 2019 at 11:00 MST (UTC+8), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

## Second round

The draw for the second round was held on 17 July 2019 at 17:00 MST (UTC+8), at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

### Summary

|width="12.65%"|Group A|width="10.05%"|Group B|width="10.05%"|Group C|width="10.05%"|Group D|width="10.05%"|Group E|width="10.05%"|Group F|width="10.05%"|Group G|width="10.05%"|Group H|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|style="vertical-align:top"|(Third round only)|style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"|(Asian Cup only)|style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||
|style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||
|style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||
|style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||style="vertical-align:top"||

### Group H

North Korea withdrew from the qualifying round because of COVID-19 concerns.

### Ranking of runner-up teams

Because North Korea withdrew from Group H, games against the fifth-placed teams of each group were not counted in the ranking of the runner-up teams.

## Third round

The third round consists of two groups of six teams. The first two teams in each group will qualify for the World Cup. The two third-placed teams proceed to the fourth round. The draw was held on 1 July 2021 in Malaysia.

## Fourth round

The two third-placed teams in each group from the third round will play against each other in a single match to decide which team will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs.

The host city and venue for this match will be announced during the draw for this round.

## Inter-confederation play-off

The inter-confederation play-off was determined by a draw held on 26 November 2021. The fifth-placed team from AFC was drawn against the fifth-placed team from CONMEBOL. The play-off is scheduled to be played as a single match in Qatar on 13 or 14 June 2022.

## Qualified teams

The following teams from AFC qualified for the final tournament.

|Team|Qualified as|Qualified on|data-sort-type="number"|Previous appearances in FIFA World Cup<sup>**1**</sup>|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
||||0 (debut)||

## Top goalscorers

Below are full goalscorer lists for each round:

- First round
- Second round
- Third round
- Fourth round

## Similar pages

- 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualification

## References

- Notes

## Other websites

- Qualifiers – Asia, FIFA.com
- FIFA World Cup, The-AFC.com

## Infobox (international football competition)

- **tourney name**: 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)
- **num teams**: 46
- **confederations**: 1
- **top scorer**: Ali Mabkhout
(14 goals)
- **updated**: 1 February 2022
- **prevseason**: 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC), 2018
- **nextseason**: _2026 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC), 2026_