Oceania Football Confederation

Oceania Football Confederation
Founded	1966
Association headquarters	Auckland , New Zealand
president	Lambert Maltock
Secretary General	Tai Nicholas
Members	14 national associations (including 3 associated)
Homepage	oceaniafootball.com

The Oceania Football Confederation ( OFC for short , German: Oceanic Football Confederation ) is one of the six continental confederations of the world football association FIFA . It was founded in 1966 by the football associations from Australia , New Zealand , Fiji and Papua New Guinea . The OFC currently has eleven associations. The association is based in Auckland , New Zealand. OFC is the host of the Soccer Oceania Championship .

Member associations

The OFC currently has 14 national associations, 3 of which are merely associated and not as members of FIFA.

Country / Territory	Association	accession
American Samoa	Football Federation American Samoa (FFAS)	1998
Cook Islands	Cook Islands Football Association (CIFA)	1994
Fiji	Fiji Football Association (FFA)	1966
Kiribati *	Kiribati Islands Football Association (KIFA)	2007
New Caledonia	Fédération Calédonienne de Football (FCF)	1969
New Zealand	New Zealand Football (NZF)	1966
Niue *	Niue Island Soccer Association (NISA)	2006
Papua New Guinea	Papua New Guinea Football Association (PNGFA)	1966
Solomon Islands	Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF)	1988
Samoa	Football Federation Samoa (FFS)	1984
Tahiti	Fédération Tahitienne de Football (FTF)	1990
Tonga	Tonga Football Association (TFA)	1994
Tuvalu *	Tuvalu National Football Association (TNFA)	2006
Vanuatu	Vanuatu Football Federation (VFF)	1988

* Not members of FIFA , but associate members of the OFC.

Not recognized are u. a. the national teams or national teams of the Marshall Islands , Micronesia , Nauru , Palau and Wallis and Futuna .

On January 1, 2006, the OFC lost its largest member with Australia , since the Football Federation Australia (FFA) joined the Continental Association of Asia . The oceanic countries Guam and the Northern Marianas also belong to the Asian association.

Former member associations

Country / Territory	Association	accession	exit
Australia	Football Federation Australia (FFA)	1966 1978	1972 2006
Chinese Taipei	Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA)	1976 1982	1978 1989
Northern Mariana Islands *	Northern Mariana Islands Football Association (NMIFA)	1983	2009

* Not a member of FIFA , but a former associate member of the OFC.

history

FIFA did not fully recognize the OFC as an independent confederation until 1996. Since then, the point of negotiation has been the participation of oceanic teams in the World Cup. Oceania is currently only entitled to half a starting place. The OFC World Cup contender has to play two play-off games against a national team from another confederation. For the 2010 World Cup , New Zealand surprisingly managed to qualify against the selection from Bahrain. The OFC will have a fixed starting place for the first time at the 2026 World Cup .

Throughout history, teams from Taiwan and Israel have also participated in OFC World Cup qualifiers. This was mostly done for political reasons, as one wanted to avoid that other participants refuse to compete against their opponent (Arab teams and Iran against Israel; People's Republic of China against Taiwan). In 1970 the Israelis were able to prevail against New Zealand and North Korea and then against Australia and qualify for the only time to date for the World Cup finals.

In 2006 Australia joined the Asian continental association AFC and thus left the OFC. Since then, Australia has been taking part in qualifying groups for World Cups and Olympic Games as well as in the Asian Football Cup as part of the competitive games within the AFC and can therefore compete with opponents of equal value.

The Oceanic Association has had a permanent starting place for the Women's World Cup since it was first held in 1991. As host to the 2000 Olympic Games, Australia automatically qualified for the men's and women's tournaments. The OFC has had a fixed starting place for the women's tournament since 2004, which the men received for 1988. Before that, some of the Australians took part in the Asian qualification.

World Cup finals participant

Men

• 1974 - Australia 
• 1982 - New Zealand 
• 2006 - Australia
• 2010 - New Zealand (Australia also qualified - via the Asian Football Confederation - for this World Cup)
• 2014 - (Australia qualified - through the Asian Football Confederation - for this World Cup)
• 2018 - (Australia qualified - through the Asian Football Confederation - for this World Cup)

No team from Oceania could qualify at any of the other World Cup finals.

Women

So far, a representative of the OFC has participated in all women's world championships, but they were all eliminated in the preliminary round. In 2007, Australia reached the quarter-finals as a representative of Asia and was eliminated there against the eventual runner-up Brazil .

• 1991 - New Zealand 
• 1995 - Australia 
• 1999 - Australia
• 2003 - Australia
• 2007 - New Zealand (Australia also qualified - via the Asian Football Confederation - for this World Cup)
• 2011 - New Zealand (Australia also qualified - via the Asian Football Confederation - for this World Cup)
• 2015 - New Zealand (Australia also qualified - via the Asian Football Confederation - for this World Cup)
• 2019 - New Zealand (Australia also qualified - via the Asian Football Confederation - for this World Cup)
• 2023 - New Zealand (Australia and New Zealand host this World Cup)

Competitions

National teams

Men

• Soccer Oceania Championship
• Olympic qualifying tournament
• Football tournament at the Pacific Games (together with the Pacific Games Council)
• Oceania U-20 Football Championship
• U-17 Football Oceania Championship
• OFC Beach Soccer Championship
• Oceania Futsal Championship

Women

• Women's Soccer Oceania Championship
• Olympic qualifying tournament for women
• Football tournament of women in the Pacific Games (together with the Pacific Games Council)
• Women's U-20 Oceania Football Championship
• Women's U-17 Oceania Football Championship

Club teams

• OFC Champions League
• OFC Cup

Web links

Wiktionary: OFC  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Official website of the Oceania Football Confederation
• Oceania Football Confederation on FIFA.com
• Soccer in Oceania on sportstg.com
• OFCfootball on YouTube

Individual evidence

1. ^ History. In: oceaniafootball.com. Oceania Football Confederation, accessed July 8, 2019 . 
2. ^ 50th FIFA Congress, Zurich 1996. In: fifa.com. FIFA , accessed July 8, 2019 . 
3. ↑ This is how the distribution will look from the 2026 World Cup. In: LAOLA1.at. Sportradar Media Services GmbH, May 9, 2017, accessed on March 2, 2019 . 
4. ↑ FIFA Activity Report 2006. (PDF; 17.8 MiB) In: fifa.com. FIFA, p. 17 , accessed July 8, 2019 .