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The African section of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification will act as qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Russia, for national teams which are members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). A total of 5 slots in the final tournament are available for CAF teams.

The CAF Executive Committee approved the format for the qualifiers of the 2018 FIFA World Cup on 14 January 2015.

Format

The qualification structure is as follows:

First round, Second round, and Third round: The competing teams will go through three preliminary rounds to reduce the number of teams to 20.
Fourth round: The 20 teams remaining after the first three rounds will be divided into five groups of four teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The winners of each group will qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.