Oceania Football Confederation

The OFC has 13 members, 11 of which are full members and two which are associate members not affiliated with FIFA. It promotes the game in Oceania and allows the member nations to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.

Oceania Football Confederation

Wiki English
Wiki English
Abbreviation	OFC
Formation	1966; 58 years ago (1966)
Type	Sports organisation
Headquarters	Auckland, New Zealand
Region served	Oceania
Membership	13 member associations (11 full)
Official language	English
President	Lambert Maltock
Vice Presidents	Thierry Ariiotima Kapi Natto John Lord Ve'ehala
General Secretary	Franck Castillo
Parent organization	FIFA
Website	oceaniafootball.com

OFC is predominantly made up of island nations where association football is not the most popular sport, with low GDP and low population meaning very little money is generated by the OFC nations. 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. OFC is the only confederation to have not had at least one international title, the best result being Australia making the final of the 1997 FIFA Confederations Cup.

In 2006, the OFC's then largest and most successful nation, Australia, left for a second time to join the Asian Football Confederation, leaving New Zealand as the largest federation within the OFC.

The President of OFC is Lambert Maltock since April 2018. The Vice Presidents are Thierry Ariiotima, Kapi Natto John and Lord Ve'ehala while Franck Castillo is the General Secretary. The confederation is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.

The confederation formed in 1966, as a result of Australia and New Zealand's failed attempts to join the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The founding OFC members were the following:

• the Australian Soccer Federation (from 2005: Football Australia)
• New Zealand Soccer (subsequently New Zealand Football)
• the Fiji Football Association
• the Papua New Guinea Football Association

Australia resigned as an OFC member in 1972 to again pursue membership with the AFC, but rejoined the OFC in 1978. Their men's national team (nicknamed the Socceroos) became the first Oceanians to play at a FIFA World Cup in 1974, being drawn in the same group as Chile, East Germany and West Germany. They failed to score a goal, but were still competitive in all three of their matches. New Zealand's national team the All Whites played in their first World Cup eight years later. At the 1982 tournament they suffered heavier defeats than Australia previously had.

Chinese Taipei was an OFC member from 1975 to 1989. In 1996, FIFA confirmed OFC as a full confederation and granted it a seat on the FIFA executive. In 1998 the OFC unveiled a new logo and an official magazine, entitled The Wave. Australia meanwhile lost several inter-confederation World Cup playoffs; first to Scotland in 1985, then Argentina in 1993 and then Iran in 1997.

Australia's national team were long considered the biggest challenge in Oceania. There were many highly uncompetitive matches involving them, particularly in the 1990s and 2000s. Their June 1997 second round qualification games for the 1998 FIFA World Cup included a 13–0 defeat of the Solomon Islands. The following year they defeated the Cook Islands 16–0 at the 1998 OFC Nations Cup, while at the 2000 OFC Nations Cup they defeated them 17–0. The uncompetitive results escalated in April 2001, during the first round of OFC qualifiers for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Australia beat Tonga 22–0, following this result up with a 31–0 win over American Samoa and an 11–0 win over Samoa. The American Samoa game became the largest international victory in the history of the sport (breaking the previous record set in the Tonga game), while Archie Thompson also broke the record for most goals in an international match, scoring 13.

Australia's record-breaking form in the early stages of qualifying ultimately couldn't be replicated in their inter-confederation playoff against Uruguay later that year. For the first leg, the Socceroos managed to defeat the South Americans 1–0 in front of a Melbourne crowd of 84,656, but they were overwhelmed 3–0 in the away leg. The away leg was marred by an incident at Montevideo's airport prior to the game itself, where the Australian players were spat on, punched and abused by a mob of Uruguayan fans. On 24 May 2004, New Caledonia became the 12th member of the OFC.

Australia reached another inter-confederation playoff against Uruguay in 2005. Both sides won a game each over the two legs, which led to Australia finally ending their World Cup drought through a dramatic penalty shootout in Sydney. The Socceroos were granted increased security for the first away leg, as a response to the 2001 airport incident, and in the second leg the Uruguayan team were heavily booed while their national anthem played. In the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Australia were eliminated by Italy during the Round of 16. Their 3–1 group stage victory against Japan remains the only time a team representing OFC has won at the tournament. Australia left the OFC again that same year and joined the Asian Football Confederation.

In 2008, an associate member, the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association, also left the OFC and in 2009 joined the AFC as an associate member. In late 2009, the Palau Football Association, geographically a part of Oceania but with no official ties to the OFC, also applied for the same status with the AFC as the Northern Mariana Islands association but was not successful. New Zealand ended their own World Cup drought in 2009 when they defeated Bahrain to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The tournament coincidentally also featured Australia, who were now representing the AFC. New Zealand were the only unbeaten team at the tournament, despite failing to advance past the group stage. With Australia's absence, New Zealand now have a regular presence in World Cup inter-confederation playoffs. They were convincingly defeated by Mexico over two legs in 2013, and narrowly missed out to Peru in 2017 and Costa Rica in 2022.

Throughout its history, there have been numerous calls to either merge the OFC and AFC, or dissolve the OFC and have its members join the AFC, in order to form an Asia-Pacific Football Confederation.

The calls grew louder in 2003 when FIFA reversed a decision to grant Oceania an automatic spot at the World Cup. Australia's lack of World Cup participation prior to 2006 has been blamed by many on the OFC qualification process, with football writer Matthew Hall stating in 2003, "For World Cup qualification, the Socceroos will win games by cricket scores and then face a sudden-death play-off against a desperate, battle-hardened opponent given a second, or even third, life."

Current leaders

Name	Position
Lambert Maltock	President
Thierry Ariiotima	Vice President
Kapi Natto John	Vice President
Lord Ve'ehala	Vice President
Franck Castillo	General Secretary

Source:

Current members

OFC is made up of 11 full member associations and 2 associate members. Those two are associate members of the OFC, but are not FIFA members.

Code	Association	National teams	Founded	Membership	FIFA affiliation	OFC affiliation	IOC member	Note
ASA	American Samoa	(M, W)	1984	Full	1998	1998	Yes
COK	Cook Islands	(M, W)	1971	Full	1994	1994	Yes
FIJ	Fiji	(M, W)	1938	Full	1964	1966	Yes
KIR	Kiribati	(M, W)	1980	Associate	—	2007	Yes
NCL	New Caledonia	(M, W)	1928	Full	2004	1999	No
NZL	New Zealand	(M, W)	1891	Full	1948	1966	Yes
PNG	Papua New Guinea	(M, W)	1962	Full	1966	1966	Yes
SAM	Samoa	(M, W)	1968	Full	1986	1986	Yes
SOL	Solomon Islands	(M, W)	1979	Full	1988	1988	Yes
TAH	Tahiti	(M, W)	1989	Full	1990	1990	No
TGA	Tonga	(M, W)	1965	Full	1994	1994	Yes
TUV	Tuvalu	(M, W)	1979	Associate	—	2006	Yes
VAN	Vanuatu	(M, W)	1934	Full	1988	1988	Yes

Notes