2018 World Cup: How the draw for Africa's qualifiers will be conducted

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) have announced the procedure for today’s draw for the 2018 World Cup qualifying tournament.

The draw will be staged at the five-star Marriot Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, from 3pm Ghana time.

This stage of the preliminary competition will involve 20 teams drawn into five four-team groups, with sides playing each other home and away on a round-robin basis.

All five group winners will qualify automatically for Russia 2018.

According to CAF, the teams in Pot 4 will be drawn first.

The team drawn first in Pot 4 will be in Group A and their exact position in the group will be determined by a ball drawn from a second pot, which has group positions 1-4.

The team drawn second from Pot 4 will be in Group B and the same process repeated to determine their position in this group.

The same procedure will be repeated for the teams in the other three Pots.

The Seedings for the draw

Pot 1: Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia

Pot 2: Cape Verde, Egypt, DR Congo, Nigeria, Mali

Pot 3: Cameroon, Morocco, Guinea, South Africa, Congo

Pot 4: Uganda, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Gabon, Libya