The entire calendar for the qualifications has been released, and Ghana will begin their path to the 2026 FIFA World Cup with a home match against Madagascar in November 2023.
The Black Stars are in Group I with Mali, Comoros, Central African Republic, Chad, and Madagascar. This grouping was decided during the July draw ceremony.
Ghana will welcome Madagascar, widely known as the Barea, between November 13 and 21, to begin their quest for a ticket in the global football spectacular in 2026. Following that, the squad will travel to Comoros for their second qualifying encounter, also in November. The next eight matches are set to take place in 2024 and 2025.
The Black Stars will try to clinch their position in the World Cup for a sixth time after competing in 2006, 2010, 2014, and the most recent edition in Qatar last year. Ghana is the only side from Group I to have reached the World Cup finals, since Mali, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Comoros, and Chad have yet to do so.
Within each of the nine groups, the qualification procedure consists of a home-and-away round-robin style. The winners of these groups will be guaranteed a place in the FIFA World Cup 2026. Furthermore, the four best group runners-up will advance to a play-off stage to select the Confederation of African Football (CAF) representation in the FIFA play-off competition.
The FIFA play-off event will include one team from each of FIFA’s six confederations, with the exception of UEFA, as well as one additional team from the host confederation (Concacaf). Two of these teams will be seeded according to the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. The seeded teams will battle for a place in the FIFA World Cup against the winners of the first two knockout matches among the four unseeded nations.
Below is the complete fixture list for Ghana in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers:
November 13 – 21, 2023: Ghana vs Madagascar || Comoros vs Ghana
June 03 – 11, 2024: Mali vs Ghana || Ghana vs Central African Republic
March 17 – 25, 2025: Ghana vs Chad || Madagascar vs Ghana
September 01 – 09, 2025: Chad vs Ghana || Ghana vs Mali
October 06 – 14, 2025: Central African Republic vs Ghana || Ghana vs Comoros
