Ireland enter World Cup qualifying draw: All you need to know

The Republic of Ireland are in the 2026 World Cup qualifying draw on Friday. Find out all you need to know.

When and where?

Friday at 11am at FIFA headquarters in Zurich.

Where can I watch?

The draw will be live on RTÉ Player and the RTÉ News channel

What is the format and what is new?

This World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams from 32. Set to be held in the United States of America, Mexico and Canada.

You may think that dramatically increases Ireland's chances of qualifying.

Unfortunately not. The host nations automatically enter the tournament firstly.

In total 16 teams will come from Europe, that is an increase of three places from previous tournaments.

There will be 12 groups of either four or five teams.

With the dozen group winners qualifying automatically, the four remaining teams will be decided via a 16-team play-off involving the 12 group runners-up and the four best-ranked Nations League sides who failed to place in the top-two in their qualification group. But let's not worry about that now.

Who could we face

Ireland are in Pot 3 of the draw after UEFA ranking is considered.

We can exclude the remaining Pot 3 sides so our opponents will come from

Pot 1: France, Spain, England, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria

Pot 2: Ukraine, Sweden, Turkey, Wales, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Romania, Greece, Slovakia, Czechia and Norway

Pot 4: Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Belarus, Kosovo, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Latvia and Lithuania.

Pot 5: Moldova, Malta, Andorra, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein and San Marino

Complications do not end there

Ireland can be in a four or five-team group.

Due to involvement in next March's Nations League