World Cup 2022: Dates, draw, schedule, kick-off times, final for Qatar tournament Football News

A team representing Russia, which uses the Russian flag and anthem, could not participate under the WADA decision whilst the ban is active. The decision was appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and on 17 December 2020, Russian teams were banned from competing at world championships organised or sanctioned by a WADA signatory until 16 December 2022, the day before the third-place playoff. Four-time world champions and reigning European champions Italy failed to qualify for a second successive World Cup for the first time in their history, losing in the qualification play-off semi-finals. Italy are also the fourth team to have failed to qualify for the upcoming World Cup having won the previous UEFA European Championship, after Czechoslovakia in 1978, Denmark in 1994 and Greece in 2006. The previous World Cup hosts, Russia, were disqualified from competing due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chile, the 2015 and 2016 Copa América winners also failed to qualify for the second consecutive time.

Qatar, the current World Cup host, has confirmed eight possible venues for the 2022 tournament. The 32 teams who will compete in the 2022 World Cup will be divided into eight groups of four teams each. Tim Cahill has tipped Australia to spring some surprise World Cup selections as he urged the Socceroos to adopt a fearless mentality for the finals.

Given that there were half a million Indian workers in Qatar, the Indian government said that was quite a normal number of deaths. In the knockout stage, if a match is level at the end of normal playing time, extra time is played and followed, if necessary, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners. For the draw, the 32 teams were allocated into four pots based on the FIFA Men's World Rankings of 31 March 2022. Pot two contained the next best eight teams, with the next best eight teams into pot 3.

The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany's victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation did not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018. This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder. Currently, all members of the top three teams receive medals with an insignia of the World Cup Trophy; winners' , runners-up' , and third-place . In the 2002 edition, fourth-place medals were awarded to hosts South Korea.

Sixty matches will take place in the US, including all matches from the quarter-finals onward, while Canada and Mexico will host 10 games each. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a "Hosting Agreement" from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. On 27 February 2022, FIFA announced a number of sanctions impacting Russia's participation in international football.