Oceania Football Confederation

Oceania Football Confederation
Logo of OFC
OFC member associations are in yellow
Formation	15 November 1966
Type	Sports organisation
Headquarters	Auckland, New Zealand
Membership	14 member associations
President	David Chung
Website	www.oceaniafootball.com

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is one of the six continental confederations of international association football, consisting of Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and island nations such as Tonga, Fiji and other Pacific Island countries. It promotes the game in Oceania and allows the member nations to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.

Of the six worldwide confederations, the OFC is by far the smallest and is predominantly made up of island nations where football is not the most popular sport. Consequently, the OFC has little influence in the wider football world, either in terms of international competition or as a source of players for high-profile club competitions. In 2006, the OFC's largest and most successful nation, Australia, left to join the Asian Football Confederation, leaving New Zealand as the largest federation within the OFC. The departure of Australia also left the OFC without a professional domestic league in any of its nations.

Member nations

OFC is made up of 11 full member associations and 3 associate members.^[1]

National teams

1. Associate member of the OFC, but non-FIFA member.

History

The confederation was formed in 1966. The founding members were the Australian Soccer Federation (now Football Federation Australia), New Zealand Soccer (now New Zealand Football), and the Fiji Football Association. In 1996 the OFC was confirmed as a full confederation and given a seat on the FIFA executive. In 1998, the OFC unveiled a new logo and an official magazine, entitled The Wave. On May 24, 2004, New Caledonia became the 12th member of the OFC. On January 1, 2006, Australia left the OFC and joined the Asian Football Confederation. In 2008 an associate member, the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association, also left OFC and in 2009 joined AFC as a quasi-member. In the late 2009 Palau Soccer Association also applied for the same status with AFC.^[2]

Competitions

The winner of the OFC Football World Cup Qualifiers was allowed to compete in a two-legged home-and-away playoff with the team ranked fifth in the South American qualifying competition for a place in the 2006 World Cup. Since 1996, OFC members also play for the OFC Nations Cup, which is held every second year.

The OFC also organises the Oceania Club Championship, a competition that has received surprisingly high levels of media support within New Zealand in its debut season. It serves primarily to determine the Oceania representative at the FIFA Club World Cup. In 2007, the OFC replaced the current club competition with the OFC Champions League which began in 2007. From 2007, the winner has no longer gained direct entry to the FIFA Club World Cup - but instead plays off against the host nation (currently United Arab Emirates) champion for the final spot in the tournament. It is not clear whether this is permanent, or even if it could change if the Oceania entrant were to outperform entrants from other Confederations.

Of the federation's current teams, only New Zealand has ever competed on the world stage from the confederation, competing in the 1982 and 2010 World Cups. Ex-founding member Australia has also competed in the World Cup finals, in 1974 and 2006. At the conclusion of Germany 2006, Australia's exit from the OFC was finalised (exiting formally on the 1 January 2006), being the last commitment of the transition before completely joining the Asian Football Confederation. The other minor exception to this has been the participation of the Solomon Islands in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup.

In the 2004 OFC Nations Cup, which doubled as the Oceania qualifying tournament for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the Solomon Islands unexpectedly made the finals after a 2–2 draw with Australia at the last round. This effectively denied New Zealand a place in the third group phase by one group point as Vanuatu had beaten New Zealand 4–2 in an early round upset of the second group phase. Australia won OFC Nation Cup final by beating the Solomons 5–1 in Honiara and 6–0 in Sydney to represent OFC in the FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany 2005 The two teams met again in a two-legged World Cup qualifying final in September 2005 for the right to play the OFC representative for a place in the World Cup finals; Australia won 9–1 on aggregate (7–0 at home and 2–1 away) and progressed to the CONMEBOL – OFC play-off. Australia won this playoff on penalties after a 1–1 aggregate score after both legs of the playoff and after extra time, and qualified for the World Cup.

List of competitions

• OFC Nations Cup
• Oceania Club Championship (defunct)
• OFC Champions League replaces the Oceania Club Championship in 2007, winner qualifies for play-off for FIFA Club World Cup
• OFC Cup (Include club champions of developing countries – American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga. It is proposed that this competition will in future seasons become a preliminary tournament with the winner qualifying to play off for a place in the O-League.)^{[3] [4]}
• AFC – OFC Challenge Cup (defunct)
• OFC Olympic Qualifying Tournament
• OFC Under 20 Qualifying Tournament
• OFC Under 17 Qualifying Tournament
• Polynesia Cup (defunct)
• Melanesia Cup (defunct)
• Wantok Cup
• Pacific Games
• Pacific Cup (Involving the top five teams from the Pacific Games and possibly the New Zealand Olympic team)^[5]

Female

• OFC Women's Championship
• OFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament
• OFC Women's Under 20 Qualifying Tournament
• OFC Women's Under 17 Qualifying Tournament

Futsal

• Oceanian Futsal Championship

Beach Soccer

• OFC Beach Soccer Championship

FIFA World Cup Qualifiers

Oceania has sent representatives to the Men's World Cup four times: Australia in 1974 and 2006, and New Zealand in 1982 and 2010. However, Australia was not a member of the confederation in 1974, having withdrawn in order to apply to join the Asian Football Confederation. It rejoined the OFC in 1978. Neither Australia in 1974 nor New Zealand in 1982 progressed beyond the first round, while Australia in 2006 advanced to the second round. OFC is the only FIFA confederation that does not have a guaranteed spot in the World Cup finals (a major reason for Australia's leaving the confederation in 2006 to join Asia). Between 1966 and 1982, OFC teams joined the Asian zone qualification tournament, while from 1986 onwards, the winners of the Oceanian zone qualification tournament have to enter the Intercontinental Play-offs against teams from other confederations in order to gain a spot in the FIFA World Cup finals.

Senior OFC teams record

OFC FIFA World Cup record
Year	Qualifier	Round	Position	GP	W	D*	L	GS	GA	Notes
1930 (1st)	No teams from Oceania entered
1934 (2nd)
1938 (3rd)
1950 (4th)
1954 (5th)
1958 (6th)
1962 (7th)
1966 (8th)	No OFC Team Qualified	Entered in Africa and Asia.
1970 (9th)	Entered in Asia.
1974 (10th)	Australia	Group Stage	14th	3	0	1	2	0	5	Entered in Asia.
1978 (11th)	No OFC Team Qualified	Entered in Asia.
1982 (12th)	New Zealand	Group Stage	23rd	3	0	0	3	2	12	Entered in Asia.
1986 (13th)	No OFC Team Qualified	Play-off.
1990 (14th)	Play-off.
1994 (15th)	1st Play-off and 2nd Play-off.
1998 (16th)	Play-off.
2002 (17th)	Play-off.
2006 (18th)	Australia	Round of 16	16th	4	1	1	2	5	6	Play-off.
2010 (19th)	New Zealand	Group Stage	22nd	3	0	3	0	2	2	Play-off.
2014 (20th)	To Be Determined	Play-off.
2018 (21st)	To Be Determined
2022 (22nd)
Total	Best: Round of 16	4/19		13	1	5	7	9	25

OFC Play-off Record

1970 AFC – OFC Final Round

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Israel	2–1	Australia	1–0	1–1

1974 AFC – OFC Final Round

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Australia	2–21	South Korea	2–2	0–0

¹ Australia beat South Korea 1–0 in a play-off to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.

1986 UEFA – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Scotland	2–0	Australia	2–0	0–0

1990 CONMEBOL – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Colombia	1–0	Israel	1–0	0–0

Israel played in the OFC zone for political reasons

1994 CONCACAF – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Canada	3–3 (P)	Australia	2–1	1–2

1994 CONMEBOL – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Australia	1–2	Argentina	1–1	0–1

1998 AFC – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Iran	(A) 3–3	Australia	1–1	2–2

2002 CONMEBOL – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Australia	1–3	Uruguay	1–0	0–3

2006 CONMEBOL – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Uruguay	1–1 (P)	Australia	1–0	0–1

2010 AFC – OFC play-off

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Bahrain	0–1	New Zealand	0–0	0–1

FIFA U-20 World Cup

• See also: Men's U-20 World Cup Qualifiers

FIFA U-17 World Cup

• See also: Men's U-17 World Cup Qualifiers

FIFA Confederations Cup Qualifiers

Oceania has sent representatives to the FIFA Confederations Cup six times: Australia in 1997, 2001 and 2005, and New Zealand in 1999, 2003 and 2009. However, Australia was a member of the OFC until 2006.

OFC FIFA Confederations Cup record
Year	Qualifier	Round	Position	GP	W	D*	L	GS	GA
1992 (1st)	No teams from Oceania entered
1995 (2nd)
1997 (3rd)	Australia	Runners-up	2nd	5	2	1	2	4	8
1999 (4th)	New Zealand	Group Stage	8th	3	0	0	3	1	6
2001 (5th)	Australia	Third Place	3rd	5	3	0	2	4	2
2003 (6th)	New Zealand	Group Stage	8th	3	0	0	3	1	11
2005 (7th)	Australia	Group Stage	8th	3	0	0	3	5	10
2009 (8th)	New Zealand	Group Stage	8th	3	0	1	2	0	7
2013 (9th)	To Be Determined
2017 (10th)
2021 (11th)
Total		Best: Runners-up	6/8	13	5	2	15	15	44

Women's World Cup Finals

Team	1991	1995	1999	2003	2007	2011	Total
Australia		GS	GS	GS			3
New Zealand	GS				GS		2

• See also Women's U-20 World Cup Qualifiers
• See also Women's U-17 World Cup Qualifiers

Men's Confederations Cup Finals

Team	1992	1995	1997	1999	2001	2003	2005	2009	2013	Total
Australia			2nd		3rd		GS			3
New Zealand				GS		GS		GS		3

See also

• IFFHS Oceania's best clubs of the 20th century

References

External links

• Oceania Football Confederation Official Site
• Oceania Football Confederation, Soccerlens.com. Retrieved: 09/10/2010.