The European Football Association (UEFA) invited the Qatar Football Association to participate in the Qatar first team in the European qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar.
The Qatari national team will compete in the European qualifiers in Group A, along with Portugal, Serbia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Azerbaijan.
The Qatari team’s matches will be classified as friendly, and their results will not be counted in the ranking of the teams in Group A, which will determine the qualified team directly to the World Cup Finals, and the team that will participate in the qualifying supplement for the World Cup.
The President of the Qatar Football Association, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Thani, said that this participation is an ideal opportunity to enhance the performance of the Qatari national team through contact with international teams such as Portugal, the European Nations League title holder and the 2016 European Nations Cup winner.
He referred to the Federation’s endeavor to continue working "to find all means to further improve the performance of our team before entering the first edition of the World Cup, which will be held for the first time in the Middle East and the Arab world."
The Qatari team, the holder of the AFC Asian Cup, participated last year in the Copa America in Brazil, and will play in the next year's edition of the same tournament, and will also participate in the CONCACAF Gold Cup 2021, which is the most important tournament at the level of national teams in the Federation of North, Central America and the Caribbean. (CONCACAF).