WAFCON: Field now complete for 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup direct  qualifiers as CAF fixes Sunday for Play-off 

By Harry Awurumibe,Africa’s No.1 Women’s Football Journalist (Since 1990)

With Nigeria and South Africa joining Zambia and host of 12th CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), Morocco as direct qualifiers for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup final, the field is now complete for the continent’s representatives in the expanded global football fiesta holding in Australia and New Zealand from July 20 to August 20, 2023.

To qualify for the women’s mundial,  Nigeria edged Cameroon 1-0, the same scoreline South Africa defeated Tunisia Thursday night in Casablanca and Rabat respectively. Morocco beat Botswana 2-1 while Zambia dumped out Senegal 4-2 via penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw at  regulation time on Wednesday.

This is even as Africa still has a window to present six teams in the competition if two countries that will qualify from the CAF Play-off involving Cameroon, Senegal, Botswana and Tunisia, losers in the WAFCON quarter-final matches qualify from A 10-team play-off tournament will decide the final three spots at the Women’s World Cup.

All the four direct qualifiers for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup final will play in the WAFCON semi-final  while the four losers now have lifeline to still make it to Australia and New Zealand next year if they qualify for the inter-Confederation play-off.

Prompt News can confirm that the  Confederation of African Football has fixed Sunday, July 17, 2022 as date for the CAF play-off tournament where all the quarter-final losers will play to decide the two nations that will represent Africa at the inter-Confederation play-off later in the year.

According to the fixture released by  CAF for the Sunday’s play-off  for the inter-Confederation  qualifiers made available to our reporter, Senegal will battleTunisia while Botswana will face Cameroon.

CAF Play-off Fixtures:

Senegal vs Tunisia

Botswana vs Cameroon

The two countries  that will emerge victorious on Sunday will enter the inter-Confederation play-off where 10 teams will fight for only three slots to make up the number of participating nations in the 32-team format introduced by FIFA.

A 10-team play-off tournament will decide the final three spots at the Women’s World Cup.

Meanwhile, the allocation of slots for each Confederation for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup final are: AFC (Asia): 6 slots

CAF (Africa): 4 +

CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and the Caribbean): 4 +

CONMEBOL (South America): 3 +

OFC (Oceania): 1

UEFA (Europe): 11+

By this sharing formula, the slots for the two host nations, Australia and New Zealand, were taken directly from the quotas allocated to their confederations, the AFC and OFC respectively as they will not contest for the three slots for

inter-Confederation play-off tournament.

However, the inter-Confederation play-off tournament slot allocation released by FIFA is as follows:

AFC (Asia): 2 slots

CAF (Africa): 2 slots

CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and the Caribbean): 2 slots

CONMEBOL (South America): 2 slots

OFC (Oceania): 1 slot

UEFA (Europe): 1 slot.

The 2023 FIFA World Cup will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the first time that the FIFA Women’s World Cup will have two host nations, and is scheduled to take place from 20 July to 20 August 2023. The 2023 tournament will see the Women’s World Cup expanded from 24 to 32 teams.