World football governing body FIFA has revealed the pots ahead of the group stage draw for the World Cup next year.
South Africa’s senior national team, Bafana Bafana, has been placed in Pot 3.
On Friday, 5 December, participating teams will find out which pathway they must follow in their quest to lift the trophy when the draw is conducted in Washington DC, United States of America (USA).
The Final Draw procedures stipulate that the hosts Canada, Mexico and the USA will be allocated to pot 1, and the 39 remaining qualified teams will be allocated to the four pots of 12 teams each according to the FIFA Men’s World Ranking issued on Wednesday, 19 November.
FIFA World Cup 2026 Final Draw pots
Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, USA, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany.
Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria, Australia.
Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.
Pot 4: Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, European Play-Off A, B, C and D, FIFA Play-Off Tournament 1 and 2.
The draw will begin with all the teams from pot 1 being drawn to groups A to L. It will then continue with pots 2, 3 and 4 in that order.
To ensure competitive balance, two separate pathways to the semi-finals have been established when developing the match schedule.
In order to have a balanced distribution of the teams, the four highest-ranked teams in the Men’s Ranking, when drawn, will have the following constraints: the highest-ranked team (Spain) and the second highest-ranked team (Argentina) will be randomly drawn into opposite pathways, and the same principle will apply to the third (France) and fourth (England) highest-ranked teams.
This will ensure that, should they win their groups, the two highest-ranked teams will not meet before the final.
In principle, no group will have more than one team from the same confederation drawn into it. This applies to all confederations except UEFA, which is represented by 16 teams. Each group must have at least one, but no more than two UEFA teams drawn into it.
