World Football Cup Qualification System

The following page specifies the qualification system to all CONIFA World Football Cups from 2018 on. The guidelines were approved unanimously by the Executive Committee of CONIFA in 2017 and will remain valid until a new qualification system is passed by the Executive Committee.

Definitions and Shortcuts

Global Tickets

CONIFA will issue so-called “Global Tickets”, which do not in any way affect the continental quotas for the tournament. The following types of Global Tickets will be issued:

Host Ticket(s)

If a single CONIFA member hosts the World Football Cup, this member will be automatically qualified for the World Football Cup.

Should more than one CONIFA member host the World Football Cup, they will all be automatically qualified, if they invite at least 10 more non-hosting guest teams. Should they invite less than a total of 10 non-hosting guest teams, the host members will only receive the following number of host tickets:

Total number of participating teams in the WFC – 10 = host tickets

In this last case, the host organizations need to clarify which of the hosting parties will receive the host tickets in their common WFC hosting bidding document.

All issued host tickets are direct tickets.

World Football Cup Ticket

The reigning World Champion of CONIFA is automatically qualified for the directly following WFC.

The World Football Cup ticket is a direct ticket.

Wild Card Ticket(s)

The CONIFA ExCo will distribute a single global Wild Card to a CONIFA member, which is not yet qualified, at latest nine months before the concerned WFC.

In extraordinary circumstances, the ExCo reserves the right to issue additional Wild Card, if approved by the Annual General Meeting.

The Wild Card ticket is a direct ticket.

Qualification Tournament Ticket(s)

Every CONIFA member has the possibility to host an official CONIFA Qualification Tournament for the following World Football Cup. Such a tournament has to be played between the first of January of the year of the last World Football Cup and the Qualification Deadline. Furthermore, only tournaments with at least 4 CONIFA members participating can be considered as qualification tournaments. For any tournament fulfilling the above mentioned requirements, a host of the tournament can request the CONIFA Executive Committee in written form to grant the tournament a qualification status. This request must be submitted at least 2 months before kickoff. If a simple majority of the Executive Committee members vote in favor of granting the tournament qualification status, the winner of the tournament will win a Qualification Tournament Ticket to the next CONIFA World Football Cup. The CONIFA Executive might reject the issuance of the qualification ticket, if the tournament is not documented properly. To ensure a proper documentation the tournament host shall follow the “CONIFA match documentation guidelines”

Continental Quota Calculation

CONIFA members are split into 6 continents. Each continent should be represented by its quota of current CONIFA members. To ensure that rounding does not result in too many issued tickets, the tickets for a certain continent will be calculated for the least represented to the most represented continent in that order. All resulting continental tickets will be rounded to nearest for all, but the last. The most represented continent ultimately receives all remaining tickets.

Continental Tickets

All of the following tickets are issued within a continent. They will further be issued “from top to down” and only as long as continental tickets are still available.

Continental Football Cup Ticket(s)

If a CONIFA Continental Football Cup was held since the last World Football Cup was carried out, the top X teams will qualify, where X is the number of participants divided by 4.

The Continental Football Cup Ticket(s) are direct tickets.

Qualification Points Ticket(s)

All CONIFA members do earn qualification points with every properly documented match they play between the first of January of the year of the previous World Football Cup and the Qualification Deadline. Only the first two played friendly matches between identical oppositions are considered within this period. Should two teams meet a third time within the qualification period, but in a tournament (competitive or friendly), the match shall be considered as well.

Furthermore, only the best 10 matches within the concerned period will be considered. “Best” here is defined as those matches that earned the considered team the most points.

The Qualification points are calculated for every single match and added up over the whole period. The points for a single match are calculated with the following formula:

Points for a single match = (Opposition Factor) * (Result Factor)

Hereby the Opposition Factor is 3 for CONIFA members, 2 for any other international team and 1 for any other opposition. The Result Factor is 3 for a win, 2 for a draw and 1 for a loss.

If any CONIFA members hosted a CONIFA Continental Football Cup between the last World Football Cup and the Qualification Deadline, this member shall receive an additional X points, where X is the number of guest teams multiplied by 3.

Matches in World Football Cups are not considered for the calculation of the points of a team. Matches against the own youth squad or reserve squad, as well as matches of reduced length (less than 90 minutes) or non-standard pitch sizes (futsal, small fields, etc.) cannot be considered.

All Qualification Points Tickets are not direct tickets and will only be issued at the Qualification Deadline on the current standings at this date.

Continental Quota for WFC 2018

Currently, CONIFA has 46 active members. This figure might change until the Qualification Deadline, which might result in a re-calculating the quota.

Latin America

0 members, and thus no qualification places issued.

Oceania

2 out of 46 members = 4,35 %
0,0435 x 10 = 0,435 qualification places
1 qualification place issued

North America

2 out of 46 members = 4,35%
0,0435 x 10 = 0,435 qualification places
1 qualification place issued

Africa

8 out of 46 members = 17,39%
0,1739 x 10 = 1,739 qualification places
2 qualification places issued

Asia

10 out of 46 members = 21,74%
0,2174 x 10 = 2,174 qualification places
2 qualification places issued

Europe

The most represented continent, Europe, receives all 10-(1+1+2+2) = 4 qualification places.

Continental Football Cup Qualification place(s)

As only a single Continental Football Cup, in Europe, was held between the last World Football Cup and the Qualification Deadline, continental direct qualification places are only issued to the top-2 placed teams of this tournament, which are Padania FA and Northern Cyprus FF.

Qualification Points Qualification Place(s)

Note 1:

As no CONIFA members in North America and Oceania did earn any qualification points and both did not schedule any matches before the Qualification Deadline, the CONIFA ExCo reserves the right to issue the (one each) Continental Qualification Places in those Continents as Continental Wild Cards, to allow the teams a maximum preparation time.

The following Wild Cards were issued on the 08.06.2017:

Oceania:
Unanimously, the ExCo decided to give the Continental qualification place for Oceania to Kiribati. (reserve Tuvalu)

North America:
Unanimously, the ExCo decided to give the North America qualification place to Cascadia. (reserve Les Quebecois)

Note 2:
In all other Continents the Qualification Points Qualification Place are non-direct qualification places, which means that their issuance will only happen on the Qualification Deadline. The following point calculations just only reflect the “status quo” only.

Note 3:
For the sake of simplicity, points are not calculated for already qualified teams.