Forced by the COVID-19 pandemic CONCACAF has adjusted their initially proposed qualification format for the World Cup to the following process:
- a group stage with 6 groups of 5 teams. Each team plays 2 home matches and 2 away matches against the other group opponents this March and June.
- the 6 group winners play (still in June) in 3 two-legged play-offs for a place in the octogonal. The pairing of these group winners in the play-offs is fixed: winner A plays F, winner B plays E and winner C plays D.
- a final group stage with 8 teams in a double round-robin format (octogonal) from September to March 2022. The top 5 from the July 2020 ranking (Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Honduras) is automatically qualified for this stage.
- the top 3 of the octogonal qualifies for Qatar; number 4 goes to the interconfederational play-offs in June 2022.
This crowded schedule can only be realised because the June window contains 4 MD's and the September, October, January and March windows will contain 3 MD's each.
