Qualifying tournaments are held within the six FIFA continental zones, each organized by their respective confederations: AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North and Central America and the Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania), and UEFA (Europe).

As a courtesy, the host receives an automatic berth selection, as has happened with the immediate past tournament winner during much of the competition's history.

The first ever World Cup qualifying match was played on 11 June 1933, when Sweden defeated Estonia 6–2 in Stockholm, and the first goal was scored 7 minutes into the game, with some sources[1] attributing it to Swedish captain Knut Kroon while others[which?]

While the format of the qualifying tournaments has evolved, teams have always been grouped into zones which have remained relatively unchanged and roughly correspond to the continents.

Places in intercontinental play-offs are represented as fractions, as follows: Only teams that played at least one match are considered for first appearance.

Note that this order does not represent any official rankings, and qualification tournaments are not direct competitions among all teams.

Qualification tournaments generally consist of a number of stages, made up of groups or knock-out ties.

While it was used in the 2010 qualifiers, the qualification for the 2006 World Cup used the head-to-head comparison prior to goal difference (although this system was – where applicable – used in the 2006 finals themselves).