ROAD TO RUSSIA 2018

The road to the Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup for 141 countries will be made known at the qualifying draw to be held at the Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. FIFA general-secretary Jerome Valcke, will conduct the draw; with past and present football stars such as Eto'o, Fabio Cannavaro, Ronaldo De Lima, Diego Forlan, Russia striker Alexander Kerzhakov, former USSR goalkeeper Rinat Dasaev, Madjer, Oliver Bierhoff, and Hulk. The show will be presented by Russian model and philanthropist Natalia Vodianova, and TV presenter Dmitry Shepelev. Procedure: As the Asian, North, Central America and Caribbean, Oceanian and South American Zones all have a place open to them via a two legged play-off, a draw will be made to see which confederations are paired together. Then it’s the turn of the respective confederations to take centre stage. Africa (CAF): With Zimbabwe having been expelled from the preliminary competition by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, Africa sees 53 of its 54 member associations involved in the Preliminary Draw. For Round One, the 26 lowest-ranked participating associations from the region will contest Round One. Those teams will be allocated to two pots of 13 teams based on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking of July 2015; the 13 highest ranked teams and the 13 lowest ranked teams. They will then be drawn against each other to play over two legs on a home and away basis between 5 and 13 October 2015. The winners of those matches advance to Round Two, where they will join the remaining 27 highest-ranked teams from the region and face off in another two-legged play off, home and away. The winners of these games then move into Africa’s final qualification round where five groups of four teams will meet both home and away. The winner of each group will qualify for Russia 2018. EUROPE (UEFA): 52 of Europe’s 53 teams will be involved in the Preliminary Draw, with the only exception being Russia who qualify automatically as hosts. They will be put into seven groups of six teams and two groups of five teams according to the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking of July 2015, with each team playing each other home and away between 4 September 2016 and 10 October 2017. It should also be noted that UEFA have requested that England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands must be drawn into a group containing six teams. As an integral part of the European Qualifiers concept, UEFA will make arrangements for the teams drawn into the two groups of five teams to organise centralised friendly matches for the ten teams concerned as well as for Russia (in principle, with Group I). UEFA will announce the dates and kick-off times of these friendlies in due course after the Preliminary Draw. The nine group winners will qualify for Russia 2018, while the eight best group-runners up will take part in a play-off in