2014 World Cup Qualification
Currently, only the host team, Brazil, automatically qualify for the final tournament. Up until 2002, the title holder also qualified, but as from the 2006 World Cup, the title holders must also qualify. This means that the 2010 World Cup Winners, Spain, must qualify from theier European Qualification Group in order to cement their place in the upcoming World Cup.
For the 2014 World Cup Finals, the 31 qualified teams will have played in global groupings decided by FIFA each global region are allocated limited qualification slots broken down as follows: 13 from Europe, 5 from Africa, 4 (or 5) from South America, 4 (or 5) from Asia, 3 (or 4) from North-Central America, 0 (or 1) from Oceania, this depends fully on the results of the play offs:
UEFA – Europe The European qualification process consists of eight groups of six teams and one group of five. The winners of each group automatically qualify, as do the best runners-up. The eight best second-placed teams fight it out in the play-offs for the remaining four spots.
CAF-Africa A preliminary round will take place in order to reduce the teams. This will be followed by ten groups of four. The ten winners will be paired into five home-and-away ties, with the winners going to the World Cup.
CONMEBOL-South America Ten teams in a single group will play a round robin, playing each other once on a home and away basis. The teams finishing from first to fourth position will qualify, the fifth placed team will play a two legged play-off with the fourth placed team from the Americas group. This time the teams will be reduced to nine as Brazil automatically qualify.
AFC-Asia Two preliminary rounds will narrow the teams down from forty two to twenty, which are then split into five groups of four. Winners and runners-up of these groups will then be divided into two groups of five with the winner and runner-up of each group qualifying and with the two third placed teams playing a playoff against each other. The winner of this game will then play a final play off with the first placed Oceania team.
CONCACAF-The Americas Round One will be played to reduce the number of teams. They will then be divided into six groups of four. The winners will progress through to the third round where they will be joined by the six teams who had a bye through to this stage. They will be organised into three groups of four, with the top two teams in each group going through to the final round. Six teams play each other twice in a single group, with the top three teams going to the World Cup. The fourth placed team will playoff with the fifth placed team from the South Americas.
OFC-Oceania The four semi-finalists of the OFC Nations Cup will play in a final group to decide who will progress through to a play-off with the 5th placed from AFC.
