“Bringing this exciting action to a global audience for the first time underscores FIFA’s ongoing digital transformation and its ongoing efforts to support football development in Africa,” announced a representative of FIFA.
Twenty-eight teams will be involved in the first round, a knockout contest where ties are played over two legs on a home-and-away basis. The 14 winners go into the group stage to join the continent’s 26 ranked teams.
The first-round ties involve two sides, Angola and Togo, who qualified for the 2006 World Cup and have since fallen down the rankings. Angola face Gambia and Togo meet Comoros.
Other matches include Somalia v Zimbabwe – with Somalia’s home leg to be played in neigbouring Djibouti – Sao Tome v Guinea-Bissau and Chad against neighbours Sudan.
