The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has released updated guidelines on how the best runners-up in the African qualifiers for the Fifa World Cup 2026 will be determined, providing clarity amid a campaign marked by withdrawals and uneven group sizes.
According to Caf, the 54 African nations are divided into nine groups of six teams each. The winner of each group will qualify directly for the 2026 FifaWorld Cup.
Meanwhile, the four best runners-up across all groups will advance to a centralized continental play-off to determine which African team will contest the intercontinental play-off tournament.
Caf’s updated criteria take into account the withdrawal of teams or other circumstances that reduce a group to fewer than five participants.
For groups affected, all results against the bottom-ranked team or any withdrawn team will be excluded when calculating points for the runners-up comparison.
If more than one team withdraws or is disqualified from a group, an equivalent number of bottom-ranked teams will be excluded from the calculation.
In practical terms, this affects several groups in the ongoing qualifiers. In Group E, already qualified Morocco leads alongside Niger, Tanzania, Zambia, and Congo Republic, following Eritrea’s withdrawal before the start of the qualifiers.
In Group G, Uganda’s Cranes are poised to advance as Somalia, the bottom-ranked side, will be eliminated from the calculations. The Cranes currently sit on 12 points from six games before the final round of the qualifiers.
Among the current runners-up across all groups, Gabon (22 points, Group F), DR Congo (19 points, Group B), Madagascar (19 points, Group I), and Cameroon (18 points, Group D) top the leaderboard.
Other runners-up include Burkina Faso (18, Group A), South Africa (14, Group C), Niger (12, Group E), and Namibia (15, Group H).
CAF’s clarification ensures a fair comparison among runners-up in a qualifying cycle disrupted by withdrawals.
For Uganda, it means that the Cranes’ chances of finishing among Africa’s top four runners-up will depend on their final match results as well as the outcomes in other groups.
As the qualifiers approach their final stages, attention will shift to who can secure the crucial runners-up positions that offer a lifeline to World Cup contention.
