As the year 2026 draws closer to the season of the FIFA World Cup, the Super Eagles of Nigeria will know their opponents in the 2026 FIFA World Cup African qualifiers today at the draw in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has revealed that the draw will be live on CAF digital platforms and CAFONLINE.com a few hours after the 45th CAF Ordinary Assembly in Abidjan. The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
CAF’s member associations have been divided into nine groups for the draw, with winners of each group automatically qualifying for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
The four best runners-up (from the groups) will play in a CAF play-off tournament, which winner will play in FIFA organised play-off tournament.
Nigeria has been drawn in Pot 1 for the draw as one of the nine seeds in the qualifying series. Others in the same Pot are Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Cameroun, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire. This means that the Super Eagles will not meet any of the teams in Pot 1 in the group stages.
The qualification format will have nine groups of six teams, with the winners from each qualifying for the finals because Africa’s slots were increased to at least nine and a maximum of 10. The four best runners-up will be drawn in a mini-playoff to find one extra team that will advance to the Intercontinental playoffs.
Pot 2 includes Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa, Cape Verde, DR Congo, Guinea, Zambia, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Also, Pot 3 comprises of Uganda, Benin, Kenya, Mauritania, Congo, Madagascar, Guinea Bissau, Namibia, and Angola.
Mozambique, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Malawi and Libya are in Pot 4, while Pot 5 has Niger, Comoros, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Botswana and Liberia, followed by Lesotho, South Sudan, Mauritius, Chad, Sao Tome, Djibouti, Seychelles, Eritrea and Somalia in Pot 6.
