[1] The six winners: Botswana (awarded), São Tomé and Príncipe, South Sudan, Lesotho, Eswatini and Gambia advanced to the group stage to join the 42 teams which entered directly.
[4] The twelve involved national teams were previously seeded into two pots of six based on the FIFA World Rankings from 23 December 2021 (shown in parentheses).
[6] Lesotho (145) Eswatini (146) Botswana (148) Gambia (150) South Sudan (167) Mauritius (172) Chad (180) São Tomé and Príncipe (189) Djibouti (192) Somalia (194) Seychelles (197) Eritrea (202) Former Cameroon captain Rigobert Song and Nigerian former player Emmanuel Amunike were the draw assistants during the ceremony.
[9] In May, Mauritius were awarded a 3–0 win in their first leg against São Tomé and Príncipe, allowing them to reach the group stage with a 6–3 aggregate score, after the goalscorer for the latter Luís Leal was found to have breached the COVID-19 regulations.
[10][11] However, in June, São Tomé and Príncipe had their appeal honoured and the result of the first leg was allowed to stand, enabling them to qualify for the next stage 4–3 on aggregate.