The 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw Explained, Plus How To Watch

On Friday, the approach of 2026 FIFA World Cup will begin to feel a lot more real with the staging of the World Cup Draw.

The event staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington will reveal the composition of all 12 World Cup groups. The complete World Cup schedule will follow on Saturday, which means for the first time, fans of the 42 sides who have already qualified will know when and where they will be playing their first three tournament matches.

Technically, the entire field won’t quite be set; there are still six spots up for grabs via four UEFA playoffs and two intercontinental playoffs. But the draw will also reveal the destination of those respective playoff winners.

Here’s how you can follow the event in real time, as well as the essentials to understand what you’re watching.

How To Watch The 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw In The U.S.

When

Friday, Dec. 5, 12 pm ET

Where

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.

TV and Streaming

English: Fox, Fox One, Fox Sports App, FoxSports.com

Spanish: Telemundo, Peacock

The 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw Basics

For a full review of the draw procedure, check out FIFA’s website. But what follows are the essential principals that you need to know to understand the draw in real time.

The Pot System

As with previous World Cups, the 48-team field has been divided into four pots based on relative strength to guard against randomly clustering all of the world’s strongest teams into one or two groups.

All 12 World Cup groups will feature one team from each pot. As has been tradition in previous World Cups, the three co-host nations – the United States, Canada and Mexico – have been seeded into Pot 1 along with nine other teams percieved to be the most deserving of top seeding. All six still-to-be-determined playoff berths have been seeded into Pot 4.

Here’s how the pots break down:

• Pot 1: Canada, Mexico, USA, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany
• Pot 2: Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, IR Iran, Korea Republic, Ecuador, Austria, Australia
• Pot 3: Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa
• Pot 4: Jordan, Cabo Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand, European Play-Off A, B, C and D, FIFA Play-Off Tournament 1 and 2

The Playoff Spots

The final six World Cup berths will be decided during the March international window, when 16 teams from UEFA will play for four berths, and six teams from FIFA’s other continental confederations will play for two additional berths.

Here is each nation in each playoff listed in Pot 4 above.

• European Playoff A: Italy, Northern Ireland, Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• European Playoff B: Ukraine, Sweden, Poland, Albania
• European Playoff C: Turkiye, Romania, Slovakia, Kosovo
• European Playoff D: Denmark, North Macedonia, Czechia, Ireland
• FIFA Playoff Tournament 1: New Caledonia, Jamaica, DR Congo
• FIFA Playoff Tournament 2: Bolivia, Suriname, Iraq

Confederation Group Restrictions

In addition to allocating one team from each pot into each group, the draw also includes group restrictions based on continental confederation.

• UEFA: With 16 total berths, all groups must have at least one UEFA team and no more than two.
• All Other Confederations: No more than one team per confederation per group.

All interconfederation playoff spots will be drawn into groups where there is no chance of violating these group restrictions, regardless of which of the three teams emerges as the qualifier.

As one implication, this means none of the three co-hosts – all from Concacaf – can be drawn into the same group as an intercontinental playoff qualifier, since there are Concacaf teams in both FIFA playoff tournaments.