The Asian section of the

2022 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualificationAlso the "FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Qualifiers". was the qualifying process which decided the 31 teams that would join hosts Qatar, who received an automatic spot, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Parallel tourn ...

Also the "AFC Asian Qualifiers Road to Qatar". acted as qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup to be held in Qatar for national teams who are members of the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly i ...

(AFC). Apart from

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it ...

(who qualified automatically as hosts), a total of 4.5 slots (4 direct slots and 1 inter-confederation play-off slot) in the final tournament were available for AFC teams. The qualification process involved four rounds; the first two doubled as the

qualification Qualification is either the process of qualifying for an achievement, or a credential attesting to that achievement, and may refer to: * Professional qualification, attributes developed by obtaining academic degrees or through professional exper ...

for the

2023 AFC Asian Cup The 2023 AFC Asian Cup will be the 18th edition of the AFC Asian Cup, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Asia organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It will involve 24 national teams after expansion in 201 ...

. Despite qualifying as hosts, Qatar participated in these rounds to seek Asian Cup qualification. The first round would have acted as qualifiers for the cancelled 2020 AFC Solidarity Cup.

Format

The qualification structure is as follows: *First round: 12 teams (ranked 35–46) played home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round. *Second round: 40 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. The eight group winners and the four best group runners-up advanced to the third round. Since Qatar won their group, the fifth-best runners-up took their place in the third round. *Third round: 12 teams which advanced from the second round were divided into two groups of six teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The top two teams of each group qualified for the World Cup, and the third-placed teams advanced to the fourth round. *Fourth round: Two third-placed teams from the third round played a single match. The winner advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Entrants

All 46 FIFA-affiliated nations from the AFC entered qualification. The FIFA World Rankings of April 2019 were used to determine which nations would compete in the first round. For seeding in the second round and third round draws, the most recent FIFA Rankings prior to those draws will be used. According to the joint format of the World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers, both

(as the host nation of the 2022 World Cup) and China (as the host nation of the 2023 Asian Cup) also entered the second round of the qualifiers.

Timor-Leste East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...

was banned from participating in the Asian Cup qualification after being found to have fielded a total of 12 ineligible players in

2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification The 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification was the qualification process organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to determine the participating teams for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, the 17th edition of the international men's football champions ...

matches among other competitions. However, as FIFA did not ban them from the World Cup qualifiers, Timor-Leste was allowed to enter the competition, but ineligible to qualify for the Asian Cup.

Schedule

The schedule of the competition is expected to be as follows, according to the

FIFA International Match Calendar The FIFA International Match Calendar (sometimes abbreviated as the FIFA Calendar or FIFA Days) is an outline agreement between FIFA, the six continental football confederations, the European Club Association, and FIFPro, which sets out which ...

. On 9 March 2020, FIFA and AFC announced that the second round matches on matchdays 7–10 due to take place in March and June 2020 were postponed by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, with the new dates to be confirmed. However, subject to approval by FIFA and AFC, and agreement of both member associations, the matches may be played as scheduled provided that the safety of all individuals involved meets the required standards. On 5 June, AFC confirmed that matchdays 7 and 8 were scheduled to take place on 8 and 13 October respectively while matchdays 9 and 10 were also scheduled to kick off on 12 and 17 November. On 12 August, FIFA announced that the matches scheduled for October and November 2020 would be rescheduled to 2021. On 25 June 2020, FIFA announced that the inter-confederation play-offs, originally scheduled to be played in March 2022, were moved to June. On 11 November 2020, the AFC Competitions Committee announced that all the Asian qualifiers second round matches should be completed by 15 June 2021 with matchdays 7 and 8 in March 2021 and matchdays 9 and 10 in June 2021 with the final round of the Asian qualifiers beginning in September 2021. Also all 10 matchdays of the Asian qualifiers final round should be finished by the end of March 2022 with the Asian and inter-continental play-offs proposed for the FIFA window of May/June 2022. The Asian play-off for the World Cup in Qatar was proposed as a single match. On the same day, however, FIFA, along with the Bangladeshi and Qatari associations, gave approval to the only second round match originally scheduled for 2020, Qatar v. Bangladesh, which was played on 4 December. On 19 February 2021, FIFA and AFC postponed the majority of the upcoming matches to June.

First round

The draw for the first round was held on 17 April 2019 at 11:00

MST The Master of Studies or Master in Studies (M.St. or MSt; ) is a postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of St Andrews, the Australian National University, University of Dublin and the University of Ne ...

(

UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. With an estimated population of 1.708 billion living within the time zone, roughly 24% of the world population, it is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a ...

), at the AFC House in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

, Malaysia.

Second round

The draw for the second round was held on 17 July 2019 at 17:00

(

), at AFC House in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Summary

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

North Korea withdrew from the qualifying round due to safety concerns related to the

, therefore the results of their matches were excluded from the group standings.

Ranking of runner-up teams

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

Third round

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

Group A

Group B

Fourth round

The two third-placed teams in each group from the third round played against each other in a single match to determine which team advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs. The match was played in

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the count ...

, Qatar on 7 June 2022.

Inter-confederation play-off

The inter-confederation play-off was determined by a draw held on 26 November 2021. The AFC fourth round winners was drawn against the fifth-placed team from CONMEBOL. The play-off was played as a single match in Qatar on 13 June 2022.

Qualified teams

The following six teams from AFC qualified for the final tournament. :

¹ ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

² Australia qualified as a member of the OFC in 1974 and 2006 (qualifying took place until 2005 and they left the OFC and joined the AFC in 2006).

Top goalscorers

Below are full goalscorer lists for each round: * First round * Second round *

Third round Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hig ...

Fourth round Fourth or the fourth may refer to: * the ordinal form of the number 4 * ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971 * Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision * Fourth (music), a musical interval * ''The Fourth'' (1972 film), a Sovie ...

Notes

References

External links

*
Qualifiers – Asia
FIFA.com
FIFA World Cup
The-AFC.com {{2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers Afc FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC) 2019 in Asian football 2020 in Asian football 2021 in Asian football 2022 in Asian football

Format

Entrants

Schedule

First round

Second round

Summary

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Ranking of runner-up teams

Third round

Group A

Group B

Fourth round

Inter-confederation play-off

Qualified teams

Top goalscorers

See also

Notes

References

External links