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World Cup intercontinental playoffs to be single leg games

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The intercontinental playoffs to qualify for next year’s World Cup finals will be contested as single games rather than the usual two-legged, home and away format, FIFA said on Friday.

The playoffs will feature the highest placed teams not to have automatically qualified from Africa, Asia, South America and the CONCACAF (North and Central America and Caribbean) regions.

Four nations will compete for two spots in the finals which will be held in November 2022 in Qatar.

The playoffs were originally scheduled to take place over two legs in March 2022 but were rescheduled to June 2022 due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the qualifying schedule.

The games will be played at a neutral venue which is yet to be determined by soccer’s global governing body.

The draw for the games will take place on Friday, following the draw for the European qualification playoffs.

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-Reuters

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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