OFC issue Is there really a point for OFC? Now with Australia gone I beleive it would be best to merge AFC and OFC and just chuck the half berth into AFC. This would give NZ and the other pacific nations a lot more play time and be better overall imo. Thoughts?
Re: OFC issue The only possible problem is that some of the OFC teams are exceptionally small and couldn't handle the financial burden of making away trips to places like Bahrain or Saudi Arabia. If you still made it regional in the early stages I don't think that would be such a problem though - most of the tiny islands would get knocked out before they had to worry about long distance travel.
Re: OFC issue Not a good idea for the reasons already mentioned. Look, this is pretty much a dead horse when it comes to discussion. It's obvious that small OFC nations can't make it too far across the world to play their away games, and Asia's already a huge confederation in itself (just think - Australia to Iran for instance). Even splitting Asia in West and East would be detrimental to all involved, especially for the balance of Asian teams. The OFC is simply... doomed. I wish there was more to do, but I can never see it getting a full spot in the World Cup or joining Asia completely.
Re: OFC issue Why doesn't ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) join with the OFC. It's perfect. The OFC needs better competition, and ASEAN nations like Vietnam and Indonesia and Malaysia have all struggled in the AFC even though they have decent teams and good fan support. It would at least make the OFC a little more competitive
New Zealand won the intercontinental playoff and didn't finish bottom of their group at the World Cup. That's twice in a row for OFC! So there you go OFC should get 1 full spot! Or at least include the OFC winner in the AFC final round and give AFC + OFC 5.5 spots.
The latter I think. As worthy as NZ has proven themselves, they're not really under much pressure to finish top of the OFC. Personally I think they should merge OFC and AFC, then split it geographically down the middle for a southeast Asia/Oceania confederation and a central/western Asia one. Although there'd be an almighty row over who got how many places.
It's better to either leave things as they are or include the top OFC team in the last round of AFC qualification. My only worry is if another team apart from New Zealand makes the cut and there's difficulty with travel arrangements (Fiji to Uzbekistan? Ouch.).
that wouldnt help anyone because west asia, apart from the uzbeks, are very very average. Japan, Australia and korea dominate and theyd all be in east asia. 4 spots to east 1 to west? better solution would be for NZ to become part of asia.
These things move in cycles. 10-15 years ago you would say the reverse - Saudi Arabia and Iran were the AFC powers and Korea/Japan were pretty poor. West Asia will be back.
Overall Iran and South Korea have been traditional powers in the region. Saudi Arabia started to rise their influence in the 1980s winning the Asian Cup in 1984. Yes, Japan was a joke until 1990s and China was more powerful at that time.
Well what's the problem? If competition is called World Cup, and World is consisted of 6 continents (6 inhabited), then all continents must be represented, no matter on their football development, ranking and value worldwide. OFC must have one spot, as Oceania has in all other sports (even in Handball, where their representative loses by 30-40 goals, and in handball average is about 7-8 goals difference)... so, I totally agree with thoughts that OFC must have one spot
All continents are represented through the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers. So there you go. Whats the point in allowing nations from poor federations to compete just for the sake of it??
Well, I am thinking that each continent must be represented on final tournament... and after 2 years of qualifying, at least one team from each confederation, no matter what strong it is, must be represented at least my opinion
The way I see it, New Zealand has to play at least one legit team before you give them a spot at the World Cup. As qualification stands, that is all they have to do: beat 1 decent, not great Asian team and they're in. As long as New Zealand automatically wins everything in Oceania, you can't just give them a spot at the World Cup. To get a full spot, Oceania needs to get deeper. Now, I believe that by the 2018 cycle Papua New Guinea will likely be just as good as New Zealand. New Caledonia throws in surprise results every now and then. There is certainly the potential for either them or Fiji to compete with PNG and New Zealand every couple cycles. If you can get Oceania to the point where they consistantly have 3+ teams competing with each other at the same level, then you can revisit Oceania getting a full spot.
If you're talking about physical continents (you seem to define such as "by being inhabited") then Oceania doesn't exist, but Australia does (& for that matter so does Antarctica, albeit with a few thousand scientists). If you're talking about FIFA Confederations, then they are voluntary groupings of national FA's and that's altogether a different argument. Handball (as well as a lot of other sports) are ruled under the umbrella of the IOC who treat "nations" as legitimate UN-accredited legal entities, which FIFA clearly does NOT (eg the 4 FA's of Great Britain or the 3 FA's of China, Hong Kong & Macau).
New Zealand are pushing for this at the moment. http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/fifa-w...771/All-Whites-keen-to-mix-it-with-Asias-best Although, you certainly remember FIFA accepting this in 2006 only to go back on their word (because of AFC pressure?): http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/federation/releases/newsid=108198.html "the winning team will enter a group in Asia's final round."
Well, it will be crazy not to on the back of an very solid showing at the World Cup. I actually think that since there are two groups of five teams in the AFC final qualification stage. It would be silly for one of the five teams in the group to be a bye while the others play a WCQ match. I do think that the OFC winner and the OFC runners-up should enter the final stage. I think that AFC would be surprised on how tough some of the Pacific nations are. The Pacific Nations just need a really good coach as well as good grounds. But they play street football and generally good skills level. Just tactical coach can do wonders on raw skill talent with some organisation.
Europe could some like Europe 12.5... we just saw Europe has some bad teams, like France and Italy Asia 4.5 Africa 5 NAM 3.5 SAM 4.5 Oceania 1 host 1 and make this constant... each confederation but Europe stays same, and Europe can have same number by winning in intercontinental play-off