The International Football Federation (FIFA) has officially announced the draw principles for the FIFA U17 World Cup 2026, a tournament that will see the Vietnam U17 team participate for the first time in history.
According to the plan, the draw will take place at 3:00 PM local time on May 21st at FIFA headquarters in Zurich (9:00 PM Vietnam time) and will be broadcast live on FIFA+, TikTok, and YouTube platforms.
The FIFA U17 World Cup 2026 will take place from November 19th to December 13th, 2026 in Qatar, with the participation of 48 teams. This is the second consecutive time the tournament has been held in Qatar and also the second time in history that the U17 World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams.
At this year's tournament, the Vietnam U17 team is one of nine Asian representatives to qualify for the World Cup, and also the only representative from Southeast Asian U17 football to participate in the biggest youth football event on the planet. The other eight U17 teams are host nation Qatar, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
According to FIFA regulations, the 48 teams will be divided into 4 seeded groups, each containing 12 teams. Host nation Qatar is automatically placed in Group 1 along with the 11 highest-ranked teams according to FIFA's ranking system based on their performance in the last 5 U17 World Cups: 2025, 2023, 2019, 2017, and 2015.
The remaining teams will be divided into groups 2, 3, and 4 according to their FIFA ranking. Recent performance will be given higher weighting, with the 2025 tournament accounting for 100%, 2023 80%, 2019 60%, 2017 40%, and 2015 20%.
Notably, FIFA continues to apply the principle of minimizing the number of teams from the same federation in the same group. This means that the Vietnam U17 team will not face other Asian representatives in the group stage, if the draw allows.
According to the tournament format, 48 teams will be divided into 12 groups, with 4 teams in each group. Qatar, as the host nation, will automatically be placed in position A1. The remaining 11 teams from the top seed group will be drawn into positions 1 of groups B to L in order. Teams from groups 2, 3, and 4 will be drawn in a predetermined order to ensure the principle of distributing teams from the same region.
As of now, UEFA has the most representatives with 11 teams participating, followed by CAF with 10 slots, AFC with 9 slots (including host Qatar), Concacaf with 8 teams, CONMEBOL with 7 teams, and OFC with 3 teams. The final two African slots were not yet determined at the time FIFA announced the draw rules.
Following their historic journey at the 2026 AFC U17 Championship, the upcoming draw will mark another memorable milestone for the Vietnam U17 team as it will determine their opponents for the first time at the FIFA U17 World Cup, the most prestigious tournament for U17 football in the world.
It is known that the FIFA draw (for the U17 boys' and U17 girls' teams) also took place on the opening day of the 2026 FIFA World Cup (May 21-25) – a global campaign launched by FIFA to encourage children to participate more in physical activity and football. One of the key programs of this year's World Cup is the "Be Active" campaign, implemented by FIFA in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), encouraging children to maintain at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day to build physical health and a positive spirit.
According to FIFA, World Football Week is not only an opportunity to promote football but also a chance for member federations, clubs, schools, and communities to spread an active lifestyle and form positive, long-lasting habits for children around the world.
Link to watch the live draw for the U17 World Cup 2026
Source: https://danviet.vn/link-xem-truc-tiep-boc-tham-u17-world-cup-2026-d1428410.html
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