The Republic of Ireland have been confirmed in pot three for the FIFA World Cup qualifying draw, which takes place on Monday December 7th.
According to FIFA - "The teams drawn will be allocated to a group in alphabetical order, from Group A to Group J (i.e. the first team drawn will be allocated to Group A, the second team to Group B and so forth). When a draw constraint applies or is anticipated to apply, the team drawn will be allocated to the first available group in alphabetical order as indicated by the draw constraint programme. As Pot 6 will only contain five teams, these teams will be drawn into the sixth position in groups F to J."
Between March and November 2021, all the teams in a group will play each other twice in a home-away format. The group winners (10) will gain automatic qualificaiton for Qatar 2022, while the ten runners-up will advance to play-off games.
FIFA says that - "Besides the ten runners-up from the group stage, the play-offs will also include the two best group winners from the UEFA Nations League 2020-2021 overall ranking that did not qualify directly for the FIFA World Cup 2022 and did not enter the play-offs as runners-up. The 12 teams will be split into three play-off paths, which will feature single-leg knockout matches in March 2022 to determine the last three European nations to book a place in Qatar."
