On 22 August 2022, CONMEBOL sent a request to FIFA asking to keep the current qualification format that had been used since the 1998 World Cup qualification in South America. This was confirmed, with the first games of the qualifiers tentatively to be played in March or June 2023. On 27 February 2023, CONMEBOL president
Alejandro Domínguez announced that the qualifiers would start in September 2023, which was ratified by the CONMEBOL Council in the run-up to the 73rd
FIFA Congress held on 16 March in
Kigali,
Rwanda. The qualification structure remained the same as in previous editions (despite the increase of slots available to CONMEBOL teams), wherein each team played each other team twice in a home-and-away
round-robin format. Prior to the commencement of the qualification competition,
Ecuador were deducted 3 points for the use of a document containing false information for
Byron Castillo in the
previous World Cup qualification cycle. ==Schedule==