The rules for the 16th edition remain the same as those for the previous edition.
1 important date to note: 26 July is the deadline for playing your 4 qualifying matches

The list of the 16 qualifiers will therefore be published on Monday 27 July (a supplementary list of four federations ranked 17th to 20th will also be published, and the four federations on this list will be placed on a waiting list in the event that any of the federations ranked 1st to 16th do not wish to enter the final phase draw.

Any federation that has played, or even simply scheduled, more than four matches by 26 July will not be eligible for qualification,......nor will any federation that has played fewer than four matches but has scheduled a match to be played after 26 July, as this scheduling prevents the manual scheduling of matches for the second phase. There will be no exceptions to this rule.

To put it plainly, if you wish to take part in the second phase of the competition, do not schedule any matches beyond 26 July and wait patiently for the manual scheduling; otherwise, you will not be included in the list of qualified federations.

I would like to remind you that the Federation module still contains a few residual bugs and that, unfortunately, we have no choice but to accept them and sometimes suffer the consequences in terms of the rules.

Finally, I would like to remind you that the competition’s prize money is reserved solely for participants who actually take part in the second phase, according to a scale that remains unchanged from the edition that has just ended, namely:
3M to all qualifiers present in the final draw + 1M per victory in the second phase + prizes for those who reach the podium, namely: 12 M to the winner, 5 M to the runner-up and 3 M to the winner of the third-place play-off).

You have 8 days left – up to and including Sunday 26 July – to play your maximum of 4 matches, in order to be ranked amongst the top 16 in the first phase.

Here is the current provisional ranking of the 16 potential qualifiers:

1 Spain 12 pts 11-0 (4 matches)
2 South Africa 12 pts 9-0 (4 matches)
ex Argentina 12 pts 9-0 (4 matches)
4 Japan 9 pts 10-0 (3 matches)
5 France 9 pts 9-0 (3 matches)
6 Costa Rica 9 pts 10-2 (4 matches)
7 Russia 9 pts 7-0 (3 matches)
8 Slovakia 9 pts 6-0 (3 matches)
9 Uruguay 9 pts 6-2 (4 matches)
10 Germany 9 pts 4-0 (3 matches)
11 Iceland 9 pts 4-2 (4 matches)
12 Turkey 9 pts 4-3 (4 matches)
13 Puerto Rico 8 pts 6-4 (4 matches)
14 England 7 pts 8-0 (3 matches)
15 North Macedonia 7 pts 7-3 (3 matches)
16 Wales 6 pts 7-0 (2 matches)

Not included in the rankings as they have exceeded the maximum of 4 matches: Australia, Switzerland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Georgia, Trinidad and Tobago, Samoa.

It is worth noting that Spain and Argentina occupy the top two places: … a sign of things to come for the World Cup (the real one!)

A quick note regarding the final standings.
The United States, who currently have 7 points, will have their three lost matches (against China, Mexico and Tunisia) forfeited.
Reason: Fielding two players from the same club
A. McIntosh
Johnson

Furthermore, when you win a match by walkover, for example:
#match?mid=6871507
You must let me know, as the French-language programme awards 0 points rather than 3 points to the winning federation.
Federations League rules: for the league table, wins by walkover are counted as 3 points and 1–0 on goal difference.