Explain to me why the OFC exists

[ilikepotatoes]

I think if NZ were in the AFC, they'd be good enough to be a decent chance of doing well in the final round of qualifying. Think they could beat the likes of Qatar, Uzbekistan, China, Iraq, North Korea etc and if well coached, could push some of the stronger teams too. At the very least, they wouldn't be blown out of the water and surely playing teams like Australia, South Korea, Japan, Iran etc can only help make them better than disposing of the island nations with relative ease.

Recently lost 4-2 to Japan in a team made up of a fair few youngsters.

 

[imadodgyumpire]

The only way I could see the AFC taking on the OFC, would be to get at least one guaranteed WC spot. Maybe another one, or a play-off chance as well.

 

[NUFC Tiger]

The AFC has 4.5 spots I think? (4 automatic and 1 playoff), if the OFC was merged into AFC, would FIFA likely give us 5 automatic spots, or make it 4 automatic and 2 playoff spots?

 

[Shoei]

You'd need to sort out the other .5 spot from the North American side (I think?)

 

[NUFC Tiger]

Yeah, was thinking that - if they gave the AFC 5 qualifiers, then they'd have to update the allocations for another confederation with a .5 spot as well.

Given the (generally speaking) poor performance of the AFC nations at the WC, I'm sure there would be opposition to giving us an extra spot given the poor showing and that another confederation would be more deserving.

 

[RedStarUncle]

A radical but effective solution would be to split Asia into two separate Confederations (East and Central/West) and merge the OFC nations into the East Asia Confederation.

You'd basically have all the nations east of Bangladesh (including China) thrown in together, with arguably less geographical spread than the current AFC.

If you wanted to be even *more* radical, you could include India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan in the East Asia Confederation, and incorporate North Africa into West Asia (kind of a quasi-Islamic federation). This would create 3 Confederations of roughly even size (Southern/Western Africa, North Africa/West Asia, Central/East Asia and Oceania) rather than imbalance between the size and voting numbers within the various Confederations.

You could probably then merge North and South America and have 5 reasonably equal Confederations, rather than having small South America and Europe with all the best teams in the world while medium-sized CONCACAF and large Asia and Africa massively over-exert political force on FIFA.


Of course... something so radical will never happen in what is essentially a political process.

 

[ilikepotatoes]

Well NZ are about to play their first match under new coach Anthony Hudson, against Uzbekistan. Hopefully it goes well and a decent coach can help to make the most of the few talents the best nation in the OFC does possess

 

[NUFC Tiger]

Well NZ are about to play their first match under new coach Anthony Hudson, against Uzbekistan. Hopefully it goes well and a decent coach can help to make the most of the few talents the best nation in the OFC does possess

For a second there I thought you meant Huddo

 

[ioppolo]

3-1 loss for the All Whites. Not sure what to take from that, didn't see any of the match so I don't know how competitive they were.

 

[ilikepotatoes]

3-1 loss for the All Whites. Not sure what to take from that, didn't see any of the match so I don't know how competitive they were.

Not very. Lots of the young players looked out of their depth.
1st game under a new coach, not too worried.

 

[ilikepotatoes]

3-1 loss for the All Whites. Not sure what to take from that, didn't see any of the match so I don't know how competitive they were.

Not very. Lots of the young players looked out of their depth.
1st game under a new coach, not too worried.

 

[iluvparis]

For a second there I thought you mean Huddo

Hopefully they never score 13 against a minnow