The African qualifying campaign for the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 will begin in November 2011, the Confederation of African Football (Caf) has announced.

According to Caf, Ghana and 51 other nations would be involved in a total of 154 matches that will played between November 2011 and November 2013 to determine the continent’s five candidates for the next World Cup.

The Black Stars have played in the last two editions of the World Cup in 2006 (Germany) and 2010 (South Africa).

Caf explains that the qualifying format will begin with the preliminary round which will see the latest 24-bottom FIFA ranked teams play to advance to the next stage of the qualifiers.

The 12 teams to qualifiy from the preliminary round will join the 28 teams, on a bye for the next phase.

The top team from each of the 10 groups will qualify for the final play-off, and will play on home and away basis to determine the five slots.