World Cup 2030: USA, Mexico Learn CONCACAF’s Automatic Qualifying Spots

The governing body for North and Central American and Caribbean soccer says it will have six automatic qualifying spots in the 2030 World Cup and a seventh will be available as part of an intercontinental playoff. CONCACAF made its announcement Friday, although FIFA does not appear to have announced each confederation’s allocation of berths and the president of the South American confederation CONMEBOL has proposed expanding the tournament yet again to 64 nations. FIFA’s media office said in an email it was looking into whether confederations’ allocation had been decided. CONCACAF said Friday that qualifying will start in September 2027 with its teams ranked 14th through 35th playing a home-and-home, total-goals first round. The 11 winners will advance to the second round along with its top 13-ranked nations. The 24 teams will be split into six four-team groups and each nation will play six matches, in October and November 2027, and March 2028. The top two teams in each group advance to a 12-nation final round, to be played in June 2028, and September and October 2029. There will be three final-round groups, and each nation will play six matches. The top two teams in each group will qualify for a 2030 World Cup that will be primarily in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with one game each in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The top two third-place teams advance to a CONCACAF home-and-home, total-goals playoff in November 2029. The winner will advance to FIFA’s intercontinental playoffs. With the expansion of the World Cup from 32 teams in 2022 to 48 this year, CONCACAF doubled its automatic berths to six. United States, Mexico and Canada received automatic spots as co-hosts, Curacao, Haiti and Panama earned berths in qualifying. Jamaica has a chance to earn a seventh berth next month in playoffs with New Caledonia and Congo. CONCACAF also said its 2027 Nations League semifinals and final will be at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Reporting by The Associated Press.