Dear Friend, you may Also Follow the 2022 FIFA World Cup Draw. Follow the draw for the live with starting with all the build-up before the ceremony itself begins at 4 p.m. GMT, midday ET.
- 12.29 ET / 16.29 GMT: It’s time! Here’s a remember of your draw pots.
12.27 ET / 16.27 GMT: Hosts Idris Elba and Reshmin Chowdhury are now wrapping up the first part of the ceremony with a tribute to some famous footballers who have died recently, including Diego Maradona, Gordon Banks and Gerd Muller.
12.25 ET / 16.25 GMT: So, this is how the draw is going to work.
– It will begin with Pot 1, the strongest pot. A team will be drawn into a position in each group (1, 2, 3 or 4) apart from Qatar, who will be A1.
– After Pot 1, we go through 2, 3 and 4 and empty each pot before moving on.
– There must be no more than one team from each region, apart from Europe. There will be 5 groups with two teams from Europe. Every group must have at least one team from Europe.
12.20 ET / 16.20 GMT: Not long to go now. FIFA president Gianni has arrived to give his pre-draw speech.
12.17 ET / 16.17 GMT: Every tournament must have an official mascot, and for the Qatar World Cup it’s La’eeb!
12.11 ET / 16.11 GMT: So who exactly is making the draw? Only some soccer legends!
Cafu (Brazil) and Lothar Matthaus (Germany) will team up with six more assistants. They are joined by Adel Ahmed MalAllah (Qatar), Ali Daei (IR Iran), Bora Milutinovic (Serbia/Mexico), Jay-Jay Okocha (Nigeria), Rabah Madjer (Algeria) and Tim Cahill (Australia).
12.05 ET / 16.05 GMT: The ceremony, hosted by actor Idris Elba, is getting under way in Doha.
Right now, there’s six people within illuminated rings spinning around on the stage. It’s what we all wanted, after all.
There’s plenty more of this stuff before we get any teams drawn.
11.59 ET / 15.59 GMT: The 2026 World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada… and the presidents of the FAs have turned up to see how it’s done. From left to right, Canada’s Nick Bontis, U.S. Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone, and Mexican Football Federation president Yon de Luisa.
11.52 ET / 15.52 GMT: Looking at possible draws…. how about a group of England, United States, South Korea and Ghana? After all, the U.S. always draws Ghana!
Of course, the dream draw for the U.S. and Mexico, both in draw Pot 2, is to get the hosts, Qatar.
Qatar are ranked 51st in the world, while the rest of Pot 1 (Brazil, Belgium, France, Argentina, England, Spain, Portugal) are the top ranked countries in the world.
So U.S. and Mexico would love to get perhaps Qatar, South Korea and Ghana.
11.25 ET / 15.25 GMT: Qatar will be the smallest country to ever host a World Cup finals. Just to give you an idea of the size of Qatar (11,571 sq. km), it’s smaller than Connecticut (14,357 sq. km) — the home of ESPN in the U.S. The only states that are smaller than Qatar are Delaware (6,646 sq. km) and Rhode Island (4,001 sq. km.)
11.18 ET / 15.18 GMT: We will know the group stage fixtures and dates for all 32 teams as soon as the draw is made. However, we will have to wait to discover the venues and kickoff times. FIFA is going to optimise the order of matches for supporter demand and to fit in with local TV audiences for the participating teams.