The Oceania Playoff - Should it be scrapped?

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:Tbh, Australia shouldn't even be in Asia.


As for a play-off, it should stay until Oceania can prove they can produce regular participants in the World Cup.

pfft no way, going to asia has lifted australias game to a new level. when we were in ofc we rarely played any competitive games, especially friendlies and our players never bothered playing for us unless it was at the confederation cup and in those play off games against south american teams. moving to afc has done more for australian football than any thing else. half the reason why we couldnt qualify for any world cup was because we had no prepartion going into qualification and no way to keep our players match fit as a team. new zealand have it rosy right now compared to how we used to have it, we used to go years only player 1 or 2 friendlies

as for new zealand, afc have already said their stance on them multiple times, they dont want them. very likely that if new zealand was ever swallowed up by afc, fifa would attempt to make afc take all the other island countries on top of that which would be a complete burden. afc is big enough as it is, and the costs in travel are already enormous. ofc countries need so much money propping up(so much that australia donates millions to the OFC to help out of those countries even though we aint in ofc any more)

You aren't in Asia though.

That's like Bolivia saying 'Hell, we get no chance in the South American qualifying, we're going to join CONCACAF to see if we have a better chance'.

Makes no sense whatsoever, same with Kazakhstan joining UEFA. Why?

how is it easier? we didnt join afc for an "easier" route

when we switched, FIFA had already announced a change in the pot system in qualifying meaning that the OFC qualifier would face the 5th place asian team which just so happened to be bahrain. so do you really think taking on bahrain in a one off match, after bullying a bunch of island teams is more difficult and more "challenging" than going through a 14 match qualifying campaign against not just bahrain, but japan, south korea, iran, iraq, china etc etc blah blah? that just doesnt make any sense

the last time that the ofc qualifier had to play a formidable south american opponent was uruguay in 2005 when we kick their ass

but the benefits of moving to afc were far more greater and go a lot further than just "oh its easier" our youth teams now actually play in COMPETITIVE Tournaments. in ofc they played against amateur state league teams. our club teams compete in the asian champions league. before this they had nothing

Ignore the 'easier' bit. My point was it was like Bolivia switching to North America. To me, you're in your continent, if it isn't a good enough standard, then it's down to you to fix it.

i dont see why australia should be responsibly for a bunch of island nations. think of it this way, australia was spending almost $10 million a year, not just in football costs but in government costs to help ofc with their football. Australia lobbied for years to fifa to help with the qualifying format and financially but FIFA never bothered. australia did fix something, we fixed ourselves. and with us gone from ofc it has given NZ a chance that they never had before. they got a great oppurtunity to go to confederations cup and to gain easy qualifiction to the world cup

australia had to move up in the world. it was impossible to do anything else in that farce situation

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

pfft no way, going to asia has lifted australias game to a new level. when we were in ofc we rarely played any competitive games, especially friendlies and our players never bothered playing for us unless it was at the confederation cup and in those play off games against south american teams. moving to afc has done more for australian football than any thing else. half the reason why we couldnt qualify for any world cup was because we had no prepartion going into qualification and no way to keep our players match fit as a team. new zealand have it rosy right now compared to how we used to have it, we used to go years only player 1 or 2 friendlies

as for new zealand, afc have already said their stance on them multiple times, they dont want them. very likely that if new zealand was ever swallowed up by afc, fifa would attempt to make afc take all the other island countries on top of that which would be a complete burden. afc is big enough as it is, and the costs in travel are already enormous. ofc countries need so much money propping up(so much that australia donates millions to the OFC to help out of those countries even though we aint in ofc any more)

You aren't in Asia though.

That's like Bolivia saying 'Hell, we get no chance in the South American qualifying, we're going to join CONCACAF to see if we have a better chance'.

Makes no sense whatsoever, same with Kazakhstan joining UEFA. Why?

how is it easier? we didnt join afc for an "easier" route

when we switched, FIFA had already announced a change in the pot system in qualifying meaning that the OFC qualifier would face the 5th place asian team which just so happened to be bahrain. so do you really think taking on bahrain in a one off match, after bullying a bunch of island teams is more difficult and more "challenging" than going through a 14 match qualifying campaign against not just bahrain, but japan, south korea, iran, iraq, china etc etc blah blah? that just doesnt make any sense

the last time that the ofc qualifier had to play a formidable south american opponent was uruguay in 2005 when we kick their ass

but the benefits of moving to afc were far more greater and go a lot further than just "oh its easier" our youth teams now actually play in COMPETITIVE Tournaments. in ofc they played against amateur state league teams. our club teams compete in the asian champions league. before this they had nothing

Ignore the 'easier' bit. My point was it was like Bolivia switching to North America. To me, you're in your continent, if it isn't a good enough standard, then it's down to you to fix it.

i dont see why australia should be responsibly for a bunch of island nations. think of it this way, australia was spending almost $10 million a year, not just in football costs but in government costs to help ofc with their football. Australia lobbied for years to fifa to help with the qualifying format and financially but FIFA never bothered. australia did fix something, we fixed ourselves. and with us gone from ofc it has given NZ a chance that they never had before. they got a great oppurtunity to go to confederations cup and to gain easy qualifiction to the world cup

australia had to move up in the world. it was impossible to do anything else in that farce situation

Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:

You aren't in Asia though.

That's like Bolivia saying 'Hell, we get no chance in the South American qualifying, we're going to join CONCACAF to see if we have a better chance'.

Makes no sense whatsoever, same with Kazakhstan joining UEFA. Why?

how is it easier? we didnt join afc for an "easier" route

when we switched, FIFA had already announced a change in the pot system in qualifying meaning that the OFC qualifier would face the 5th place asian team which just so happened to be bahrain. so do you really think taking on bahrain in a one off match, after bullying a bunch of island teams is more difficult and more "challenging" than going through a 14 match qualifying campaign against not just bahrain, but japan, south korea, iran, iraq, china etc etc blah blah? that just doesnt make any sense

the last time that the ofc qualifier had to play a formidable south american opponent was uruguay in 2005 when we kick their ass

but the benefits of moving to afc were far more greater and go a lot further than just "oh its easier" our youth teams now actually play in COMPETITIVE Tournaments. in ofc they played against amateur state league teams. our club teams compete in the asian champions league. before this they had nothing

Ignore the 'easier' bit. My point was it was like Bolivia switching to North America. To me, you're in your continent, if it isn't a good enough standard, then it's down to you to fix it.

i dont see why australia should be responsibly for a bunch of island nations. think of it this way, australia was spending almost $10 million a year, not just in football costs but in government costs to help ofc with their football. Australia lobbied for years to fifa to help with the qualifying format and financially but FIFA never bothered. australia did fix something, we fixed ourselves. and with us gone from ofc it has given NZ a chance that they never had before. they got a great oppurtunity to go to confederations cup and to gain easy qualifiction to the world cup

australia had to move up in the world. it was impossible to do anything else in that farce situation

Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

lol its not that simple. australia is thousands of miles away from anywhere. to bring high profile teams here for friendlies cost a l ot of money, infact we had to pay $2 million just for argentina and something similar for the netherlands, this is crazy money for a developing football country like australia. we may have a decent rep in the world but this country is still growing. you may think, we could easily play all our friendlies in europe, but this would not help the game grow in this country. australia has a very competitive sporting market and football is near the bottom of the food chain

also every country has aspirations to one day get a seed classification at a world cup. australia also harbours this and thus competitive qualification games are far more important than friendlies as the fifa rankings multiplier is a lot bigger. plus nothing quite compares to the experience a player can get from having to come back 1-0 down to win a match at an away game in asia - the coniditons, fans, pitch can be volatile and the experience is something the players get something from that they would never get from a friendly

but like i said before, its not just about internationals, its about club football. the professional route that AFC offers is something OFC will never be able to compete with. fully fledged AFC competition is not just a competition either, the TV rights for it are damn huge for a competition that is no where near the standards of the uefa champions league and the copa libertadores

AFC has also given a new path into asia for pro australian players, we have players all over asia now because of the asian quote "3+1" rule which means that every AFC club must have no more than 4 foreign players and one of those players has to be from an AFC based country. Australians are generally very honest players and come cheap so this opportunity for the 30 or so aussies we now have playing in the top level in asia something that would of never happened before. and this filters down to everything

you shouldnt underestimate this. i dont know any reason why you could be overwhelmingly negative about this. to say that "you arent asian, you arent in asia" thats just not a logical argument for me. the postitives for both afc and australia far outweigh any sort of geographical divide you are putting up here especially since australia in economical terms is an asian country - we trade more with asian markets than any other region in the world. our links with china and japan run very deep and its not like australia is on the otherside of the world either.

Pip wrote:Not true. IMO, Solomn Islands will be better in 10 years time, plus other nations will have improved too, such as New Caledonia, they look promising.

how the fuck do you know this shit?

Gegilworld93 wrote:

Pip wrote:Not true. IMO, Solomn Islands will be better in 10 years time, plus other nations will have improved too, such as New Caledonia, they look promising.

how the fuck do you know this shit?

I subscibe to OFC's channel and read the Solomon Star.

They don't have one player who plays outside of Oceania.

They're probably not nearly good enough to play a League Two side....yet alone in the World Cup.

Lux wrote:They don't have one player who plays outside of Oceania.

They're probably not nearly good enough to play a League Two side....yet alone in the World Cup.

Totori is more than good enough for League Two imo. Problem is that hardly anyone scouts over there.

Pip wrote:

Gegilworld93 wrote:

Pip wrote:Not true. IMO, Solomn Islands will be better in 10 years time, plus other nations will have improved too, such as New Caledonia, they look promising.

how the fuck do you know this shit?

I subscibe to OFC's channel and read the Solomon Star.

You live thereabouts?

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

Dan wrote:

GCU wrote:

how is it easier? we didnt join afc for an "easier" route

when we switched, FIFA had already announced a change in the pot system in qualifying meaning that the OFC qualifier would face the 5th place asian team which just so happened to be bahrain. so do you really think taking on bahrain in a one off match, after bullying a bunch of island teams is more difficult and more "challenging" than going through a 14 match qualifying campaign against not just bahrain, but japan, south korea, iran, iraq, china etc etc blah blah? that just doesnt make any sense

the last time that the ofc qualifier had to play a formidable south american opponent was uruguay in 2005 when we kick their ass

but the benefits of moving to afc were far more greater and go a lot further than just "oh its easier" our youth teams now actually play in COMPETITIVE Tournaments. in ofc they played against amateur state league teams. our club teams compete in the asian champions league. before this they had nothing

Ignore the 'easier' bit. My point was it was like Bolivia switching to North America. To me, you're in your continent, if it isn't a good enough standard, then it's down to you to fix it.

i dont see why australia should be responsibly for a bunch of island nations. think of it this way, australia was spending almost $10 million a year, not just in football costs but in government costs to help ofc with their football. Australia lobbied for years to fifa to help with the qualifying format and financially but FIFA never bothered. australia did fix something, we fixed ourselves. and with us gone from ofc it has given NZ a chance that they never had before. they got a great oppurtunity to go to confederations cup and to gain easy qualifiction to the world cup

australia had to move up in the world. it was impossible to do anything else in that farce situation

Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

lol its not that simple. australia is thousands of miles away from anywhere. to bring high profile teams here for friendlies cost a l ot of money, infact we had to pay $2 million just for argentina and something similar for the netherlands, this is crazy money for a developing football country like australia. we may have a decent rep in the world but this country is still growing. you may think, we could easily play all our friendlies in europe, but this would not help the game grow in this country. australia has a very competitive sporting market and football is near the bottom of the food chain

also every country has aspirations to one day get a seed classification at a world cup. australia also harbours this and thus competitive qualification games are far more important than friendlies as the fifa rankings multiplier is a lot bigger. plus nothing quite compares to the experience a player can get from having to come back 1-0 down to win a match at an away game in asia - the coniditons, fans, pitch can be volatile and the experience is something the players get something from that they would never get from a friendly

but like i said before, its not just about internationals, its about club football. the professional route that AFC offers is something OFC will never be able to compete with. fully fledged AFC competition is not just a competition either, the TV rights for it are damn huge for a competition that is no where near the standards of the uefa champions league and the copa libertadores

AFC has also given a new path into asia for pro australian players, we have players all over asia now because of the asian quote "3+1" rule which means that every AFC club must have no more than 4 foreign players and one of those players has to be from an AFC based country. Australians are generally very honest players and come cheap so this opportunity for the 30 or so aussies we now have playing in the top level in asia something that would of never happened before. and this filters down to everything

you shouldnt underestimate this. i dont know any reason why you could be overwhelmingly negative about this. to say that "you arent asian, you arent in asia" thats just not a logical argument for me. the postitives for both afc and australia far outweigh any sort of geographical divide you are putting up here especially since australia in economical terms is an asian country - we trade more with asian markets than any other region in the world. our links with china and japan run very deep and its not like australia is on the otherside of the world either.

Fair enough, I still don't agree. Although, I don't agree with the Welsh clubs playing in the English league.

Gegilworld93 wrote:

Pip wrote:

Gegilworld93 wrote:

Pip wrote:Not true. IMO, Solomn Islands will be better in 10 years time, plus other nations will have improved too, such as New Caledonia, they look promising.

how the fuck do you know this shit?

I subscibe to OFC's channel and read the Solomon Star.

You live thereabouts?

I wish I did, hopefully will in the future.

Pip wrote:

Gegilworld93 wrote:

Pip wrote:

Gegilworld93 wrote:

Pip wrote:Not true. IMO, Solomn Islands will be better in 10 years time, plus other nations will have improved too, such as New Caledonia, they look promising.

how the fuck do you know this shit?

I subscibe to OFC's channel and read the Solomon Star.

You live thereabouts?

I wish I did, hopefully will in the future.

Where do you live now?

UK

Another idea that would possibly work but would not be popular in Oceania would be to absorb the OFC into the AFC and then give the AFC an additional spot to make up for the scraping of the OFC. The only problem here is I doubt a team from Oceania would take that spot and most likely you would just send another Asian team to the world cup. Maybe these guys will get an automatic spot once we see true competition between the teams rather than just have New Zealand smash almost everyone but then have to deal with a decent Soloman Islands team in the final. I really would like to see these teams that are smaller than New Zealand to schedule some friendlies against some non Oceanic countries because it really is the only way to improve to the level of the larger more powerful confederations. I think they could maybe find a few takers to go to Oceania to play a friendly game against a team like the Soloman Islands since Oceania makes a great place to have a little vacation. You could play a game and then just relax for a few days afterwards for a nice little break.

Oceania will usually get representation in the World Cup, Australia are the strongest team in AFC. I don't see a problem with the winners from the OFC having to play off against a very weak team from Asia.

Pip wrote:UK

Are you from there originally then? Just wondering...

No.

If it's not broken, don't fix it. The quality from Oceania is really poor compared to the other confederations. If the team is good enough to play in the World Cup, then they should win their playoff.

Another solution is to have Oceania merge with AFC for World Cup qualifiers and give the region an extra one or half World Cup spot.

Dan wrote:Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Kazakhstan is half in Europe and the inhabitants are mostly of European origin.

I love it how everybody thinks that OFC is full of shit countries

we beat Serbia in Serbia before the fucking World Cup started

and Totori, Fa'arodo are more than able to play in Europe

New Zealand are decent, but shouldn't be given what really would be a free spot.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Australia are the strongest team in AFC.

South Korea/Japan?...

polska. wrote:

Dan wrote:Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Kazakhstan is half in Europe and the inhabitants are mostly of European origin.

The majority of the country is in Asia.

Dan wrote:

polska. wrote:

Dan wrote:Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Kazakhstan is half in Europe and the inhabitants are mostly of European origin.

The majority of the country is in Asia.

So is Russia

Lux wrote:

Dan wrote:

polska. wrote:

Dan wrote:Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Kazakhstan is half in Europe and the inhabitants are mostly of European origin.

The majority of the country is in Asia.

So is Russia

True, but there's more of Russia in Europe than Kazakhstan.

Chip wrote:I love it how everybody thinks that OFC is full of shit countries

we beat Serbia in Serbia before the fucking World Cup started

and Totori, Fa'arodo are more than able to play in Europe

You shouldn't have many problems beating the 5th placed team from Asia then should you?

Lux wrote:

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Australia are the strongest team in AFC.

South Korea/Japan?...

I reckon Australia are stronger than those two countries. In any case, they're always odds on to qualify.

Asia is beaten quite easily, but how are the Oceania sides (even NZ) gonna cope aginst SA teams?

polska. wrote:

Dan wrote:Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Kazakhstan is half in Europe and the inhabitants are mostly of European origin.

Mostly of Britan inhabitants are from Middle Eastern origin, does not mean we are Asia.

Mr Leiva wrote:

polska. wrote:

Dan wrote:Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Kazakhstan is half in Europe and the inhabitants are mostly of European origin.

Mostly of Britan inhabitants are from Middle Eastern origin, does not mean we are Asia.

invistroll.jpeg

HOF

Pip wrote:Asia is beaten quite easily, but how are the Oceania sides (even NZ) gonna cope aginst SA teams?

Chances are they won't have to. Even if they lose, at least they'll still get to play in the Confederations Cup.

Mr Leiva wrote:

polska. wrote:

Dan wrote:Didn't say you had to be responsible for a 'bunch of little island nations'.

You're not in Asia, Kazakhstan aren't in Europe. If the rest of the teams aren't of a good enough standard for you, then arrange for friendlies against bigger teams when you aren't playing these 'little island nations'. You've built a decent enough profile because of your exploits in the World Cup (and that isn't down to you being in Asia).

Kazakhstan is half in Europe and the inhabitants are mostly of European origin.

Mostly of Britan inhabitants are from Middle Eastern origin, does not mean we are Asia.

invistroll.jpeg

That makes no sense, with or without the troll

Dan, if your technically speaking, Australia should automatically qualify for the World Cup, we are the only continent who doesn't have automatic qualification, we don't belong in either Asia or Oceania, Australia is a continent in its own.