Kosovo, Gibraltar Join FIFA before 2018 World Cup Qualifying

Kosovo and Gibraltar are to play 2018 World Cup qualifiers after being admitted as new members of FIFA, world football governing body confirmed on Thursday.

    Following the decision taken by the FIFA Congress in May 2016 to confirm the admission of Kosovo and Gibraltar as the 210th and 211th FIFA members respectively, both associations are entitled to take part in the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, with UEFA tasked to look into the best way to integrate them in the preliminary competition.

    UEFA's emergency panel has today decided that Kosovo will join Croatia, Iceland, Ukraine, Turkey and Finland in Group I, and Gibraltar will join Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Estonia and Cyprus in Group H of the qualifiers.

    The panel also decided that Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia should not play against Kosovo for security reasons.

Source: QNA