Africa starts qualification process for WBSC Baseball5 World Cup 2026

WBSC Africa started the qualification process for the WBSC Baseball5 World Cup 2026 with the Eastern Zone tournament. World No. 15 Kenya, No. 24 Tanzania and No. 30 Uganda will compete for two spots in the African Baseball5 Championship at the Halstrom Auditorium of the African Nazarene University in Nairobi, Kenya.

The other four participants will earn their spot through the Western and Southern Zone tournaments.

A 16-team Baseball5 World Cup

In October 2024, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Executive Board approved expanding the WBSC Baseball5 World Cup and the WBSC Youth Baseball World Cup from 12 to 16 teams, following the extensive growth of the sport globally and the outstanding success of the inaugural tournaments.

The 16-team format will offer more opportunities to athletes globally to participate in the WBSC's premier Baseball5 tournaments with a minimal increase in costs for organisers with the number of spots available increasing from 96 to 128, and the size of the delegations from 120 to 160 people but the overall number of competition days reducing from six to five or four days. The number of games will increase from 50 to 56.

The continent quota for the 16-team Baseball5 and Youth Baseball5 World Cups will be as follows:

• Africa: 2 Teams
• Americas: 4 Teams
• Asia: 3 Teams
• Europe: 3 Teams
• Oceania: 1 Team
• Host: 1 Team
• WBSC: 2 Wild Cards