Kampala — The draws for the preliminary round of the Africa Zone of 2006 World Cup qualifiers, and Africa Nations Cup in the same year will be held tomorrow in Paris, France, beginning at 5 p.m local time.

The finals of the World Cup will be held in Germany while Egypt will host the Nations Cup finals. A record 51 African countries including Uganda will take part. Only Djibouti has not entered.

Fufa General Secretary Haruna Mawanda to The Monitor Uganda's participation.

Nine countries will be given a bye into the second stage. The nine include Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia who competed in the 2002 World Cup in jointly hosted by Japan/South Korea.

The other four are Morocco,Egypt, Ivory Coast and DR Congo. The draw will involve 42 teams, who will play home and away between October and November this year. The 21 winners from the knockout phrase will join the exempted teams in five groups of six teams each, to be played on a round robin basis.

The winners of each group will qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany in June while the top three in each group go to the Nations Cup finals in Egypt, early in the same year. The draw for the group stage will be held in Germany along with the other World Cup draws for the other confederations in December.