West African giant, Ghana has been given a free pass at the preliminary stage of the qualifiers for the 2020 FIFA World Cup expected to be staged in Qatar.
The draw for the qualifiers for the African continent was held in Cairo on Monday to come up with the pairings for the first round expected to be played in September and November of this year.
Ghana who had been drawn in the byes had to be given a free pass together with some 25 other nations due to her position on the latest FIFA ranking.
Due to Ghana's position on the FIFA rankings, the Black Stars were exempted from the initial round of qualifiers.
Ghana is currently ranked 50th in the world and is among the top 26 sides which means she will only join the qualifiers in the second round when the countries are put into groups.
The 26 top teams will be joined by 14 winners from the first qualifying round before another draw will be made to decide the groupings for the next round of qualifiers.
The forty nations will battle for 10 qualifying positions that will take them to the final qualifying round.
At the end of it all, only 5 countries will secure qualification to the 2022 FIFA World from the Africa continent.
Below are the pairings for the preliminary round of the WC qualifiers.
Ethiopia v Lesotho
Somalia v Zimbabwe
Eritrea v Namibia
Burundi v Tanzania
Djibouti v eSwatini
Botswana v Malawi
Gambia v Angola
Liberia v Sierra Leone
Mauritius v Mozambique
São Tomé & Principe v Guinea Bissau
South Sudan v Equatorial Guinea
Comoros Islands v Togo
Chad v Sudan
Seychelles v Rwanda