World Cup draw live updates: Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to learn potential opponents
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the 2026 World Cup draw, which takes place at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC at 5pm. Or at least starting at 5pm, with Tom Brady, Wayne Gretzky and Shaquille O’Neal among others involved it might go on a while.
It’s somewhat a hypothetical for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, it requires winning two playoff games, but they will at least know then who they will be playing and whether qualifying will give them a chance of going far in the tournament or not. They will be in pot 4, where there is a a smattering of quality in all pots, but pot 1 has the big hitters and the not-quite-so-strong hosts of USA, Mexico, Canada, so they’d be better ones to get.
Pot 1 will include the host nations – USA, Canada and Mexico alongside Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Pot 2, based on Fifa rankings, will be Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria and Australia.
Pot 3 includes Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
Pot 4 includes Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Haiti, New Zealand and the six outstanding qualifiers.
