What to know about FIFA 2022 World Cup draw

The Qatar 2022 World Cup draw, billed to hold Friday will help qualifying football teams determine who they will face in the global tournament’s group stage.

The draw for the 2022 World Cup takes place in Qatar, less than eight months before the tournament begins in November.

Some of football’s biggest names are in attendance for the draw at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC).

During the draw, 32 teams will be divided into eight groups of four to compete for qualification into the second round of competitions.

Further, the dust has yet to settle on qualifying, with final matches in the North, Central American, and Caribbean zones only concluding late on Wednesday and three berths to be decided in playoffs in June. Only 29 of the draw’s 32 qualifier places have been filled so far.

The final European berths will be decided in a playoff semi-final between Scotland and Ukraine, with the winners facing Wales.

The remaining two spots will be filled by the winners of the intercontinental playoffs, which will pit Costa Rica against New Zealand and Peru against the UAE or Australia.

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Qatar, with a population of fewer than three million people, won the right to host the World Cup in a vote held in 2010.

It is, however, the first Arab country to host the global tournament, and more than 400 million Arabs in the MENA region will regard it as an Arab World Cup.

The World Cup is usually held in June and July, but due to the extreme heat in the region, the tournament was moved to the northern hemisphere winter.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino is enthusiastic about the event and has even relocated to Doha, saying, “I have never seen a country so ready to host the World Cup as Qatar.”

“It will not only be the best World Cup ever but also a true one-of-a-kind World Cup,” Infantino predicted.

FIFA announced on Wednesday that over 800,000 World Cup tickets had already been purchased.