The second round saw the top 26 ranked CAF teams joined by the 14 winners from the
first round. These teams were drawn into ten groups of four teams to play home-and-away
round-robin matches. The winners of each group advanced to the
third round.
Seeding
The draw for the second round was held on 21 January 2020, 19:00
CAT (
UTC+2), at the Nile Ritz-Carlton in
Cairo, Egypt.[1]
The seeding was based on the
FIFA World Rankings of December 2019 (shown in parentheses below).[2]
Below is the schedule of the second round of CAF 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification.[3] After the rescheduling of the
2021 Africa Cup of Nations final tournament from June/July to January/February, the dates of Matchdays 1 and 2 of the second round were rescheduled.[4] Because the competition was interrupted by the
COVID-19 pandemic, the schedule of the second round was revised again and on 19 August 2020 CAF announced the new dates, and the entire second round was postponed to 2021.[5] On 6 May 2021, the second round was once again postponed due to the pandemic, and all matches were rescheduled to be played between September and November 2021.[6]
^An appeal by the Benin Football Federation alleging that DR Congo had violated the substitution rules in the match was declared inadmissible by FIFA.[14][11]
^The Angola v Gabon match, originally to be played at 17:00 UTC+1, was delayed by 90 minutes because the Gabonese players did not undergo COVID-19 tests when arriving Luanda.[8]
^An appeal by the South African Football Association alleging that the match had been fixed was declared inadmissible by FIFA.[12][13][11]
^An appeal by the Benin Football Federation alleging that DR Congo had violated the substitution rules in the match was declared inadmissible by FIFA.[15][11]