The FIFA+ streaming platform, Brazilian YouTube channel CazéTV, and German subscription-based TV and internet platform Sportdigital Fussball have secured rights to show the African qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup national teams competition.
All matches will be available live with English commentary on FIFA+ internationally, except in the Middle East and North Africa region, parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and India and Portugal.
Highlights of all matches will also be available on FIFA+ worldwide.
Meanwhile, CazéTV, which is run by prominent streamer Casimiro Miguel will hold exclusive rights to the African qualifiers, with at least 23 games set to be shown on the channel, beginning with today's clash between Egypt and Djibouti.
The Sportdigital Fussball deal covers German-speaking countries and includes the first and second matchdays of the qualifying process, starting with Nigeria vs Lesotho today.
Africa’s qualifying matches began yesterday (November 15) with Equatorial Guinea beating Namibia 1-0, with nine African teams now guaranteed to compete at the restructured World Cup. Another African team will also participate in FIFA’s play-off tournament.
African qualifying ends with the last two rounds of matches from October 6 to 14, 2025, and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) play-off tournament from November 10 to 18, 2025.
The new CAF process for qualification was unveiled earlier this year seeing all 54 member associations split into nine groups of six teams.
Only the winner of each group will qualify automatically for the expanded 48-team tournament, which is to be jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
The four best group runners-up will play in the CAF playoff tournament, the winner of which will play in a FIFA playoff tournament for one last chance of qualification.
Previously, CAF has run three rounds of qualifying, with earlier stages involving lower-ranked countries and producing a reduced line-up for the final qualification stage.
The change puts the bigger African nations in greater jeopardy of not qualifying, competing as they must against more teams.
It also means the whole process will take 23 months as opposed to the six months that the qualification process took for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
