Sorry to say this but the reason Sepp Blatter the FIFA boss promises direct World Cup qualification for Oceania is for crony politics and not on merit or need for world soccer. Vote rich Oceania with tiny island nations helped Blatter avoid corruption charges and stay in power. Blatter repaid Basil Scarsella of Australia by saying he stays chairman of Oceania. But the population of Oceania is similar to S. Korea and most Oceania nations have less people than a average Asian street. Soccer is booming in Asia and it needs and deserves WC spots before Oceania. The middle east or Indian subcontinent have more claim to be a confederation than Oceania. More WC games for those regions may help distract them from war and terrorism. Also could say Africa has need for the vacant spot. Indian Ocean could nearly be a confederation like Oceania - Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles, Maldives and other island nations - very similar to Oceania in population. But would be ridiculous proposal. The Socceroos going straight to WC after kicking Rugby/Aussie Rules scores against tiny Pacific atolls will not help them in the finals. Australia and the soccer public of Asia will be both helped by the vacant spot going to Asia but to play the winner of Oceania. More competition with Asian nations for the Socceroos - they don't have to travel to Sth America. Fairer for the world and not crony politics.
What you are proposing is still a play off spot for oceania which is not fair. I would be more than happy if oceana gave the spot to asia in return for the top two oceania nations going into the final ROUND of asian qualifying. All oceania wants is the same system every one else has, a chance to qualify fairly. I agree that the oceania group is not strong, however, what chance does australia, New Zealand or even fiji have against a south american or asian side who has played a lengthy qualifying process in a playoff. We are expected to turn up and play well in a one off game. Ausralia have lost only two games in the last three world cup qualifying attempts but still have not qualified. How ,any other nations can say that.
I agree with sending the top two from Oceania into the AFC qualification. If that were the case the AFC deserves at least 4.5 spots if not a full 5 spots. OFC sending its top members into AFC qualification is what use to happen in the 70s I believe.
Giving OFC a spot would help the development of the sport in the region. It was also boost popularity and quality of the domestic leagues in the region. This kind of screwing is likely why soccer hasn't had the foothold in the OFC compared to elsewhere.
Yea maybe that would be a good idea, austrailian person... but you should qualify with concacaf.....asia isn't as good, saudi arabia and china should not have been in the WC. Honduras could have been and the other nations in concacaf did well...
If we were asked to qualify with concacaf, that would be fine with me as long as we play in the qualifying group. If you mean play a playoff match against concacaf, forget it. The whole reason oceania wants a full spot is so that we don't have to have the whole process come down to a home and away game.
Realistically, CONCACAF is too far for OFC to be pulled into the qualifying process. I'm still in favor of sending the top 2 Oceania countries into AFC qualifying, then giving the combined Asia/Oceania group 4.5 spots.
Ok, listen to this theory. All of the regions should have a certain amount of spots and then a half of a spot. It would look something like this: CONMEBOL: 4 1/2 OFC: 1/2 AFC: 3 1/2 UEFA: 14 1/2 CONCACAF: 3 1/2 CAF 4 1/2 Now, instead of having a bunch of home-and-home series to decide whether or not a team should go to the Finals (which I believe is wrong, especially for Australia), they should be broken down into a group of 6, 1 team from each region, with the top 3 qualifying for the Finals. They would play a single round robin schedule (1 match against each team in group, 5 total) at a neutral site. Now this neutral site could either: A) Be decided on before WCQ begins OR B) Be in Germany since they are the hosts and won't be participating in the Qualaifying Round. This would give it more of a group format and less of a playoff atmosphere. This means that Australia would play 5 matches against other regions instead of that horrible playoff series. So Australia could lose 1 match and could still qualify. I think that every zone wouldn't mind that, since home-and-home series are not a good measuring stick, cause in most cases one mistake and you're gone. I feel this is the only way for every country around the globe to know that everything is fair. There will never be an OFC merge into any other region, so just forget that idea. I think Australia would be happy because they would get to play 5 matches against 5 different teams instead of just 2 matches against 1 team, giving them a more fairer chance to qualify. I also think that this type of format would be more exciting, as we would get to see a little inter-regional action before the World Cup Finals. Please tell me what you all think of this idea, cause I think it could work.
If Australia think they deserve to be in Worldcup, they should be able to beat 4th or 5th AFC team without much problems. Giving a full spot to OFC isnt fair either.
If they can do it in 94, they can do it again. FIFA will give OFC a spot since countirs don't want to travel to Oz for a one-off match.
We don't want a one off match either. The problem with a playoff is that the team we play against has played in a lengthy qualifying series against decent teams and as such are a match hardened team. When it comes down to the playoff the team that has gone through the qaulifying series has a big advantage over our side who don't get a strong game untill we play NZ. I agree that oceania probably doesn't deserve a full spot, but untill we are allowed to qualify in the final group of another confederation, the current process is not fair.
Exactly, Australia on the road to 94 won Oceania and then beat Canada and then were rewarded for that with a trip to play Argentina
Could we please dispense with the "Asia deserves.." crap. Asia has not done a thing in the WC (barring SoKo homecooking). If Australia gets the free pass to the WC from Blatter, I will be dissappointed, but I certainly don't need to hear that we need more China's and Saudi Arabia's at the Cup. 1 of 14 non- host Asian teams have advanced since 1978. Why on earth reward such futility?
This is the World Cup. It is about representing all areas of the world, not about putting together the best teams in the world to playoff. If that were the case UEFA and CONMEBOL would have all the places and teams from other regions would barely ever get a look in. The concept of the World Cup is to involve all areas of the world, not equally, but nevertheless, all areas. The main objection here to giving Oceania a spot, is that it is then too easy for Australia to qualify directly. Never heard the same argument being advanced about Brazil in CONMEBOL, who've qualified for every WC. (Yes, I know they had a close shave for this WC, but they still qualified). Equally, I've never heard that UEFA should have places reduced because Germany qualifies too often. (BTW, New Zealand were the last Oceanian country to qualify in 1982.) The World Cup is just that - a cup for all areas of the World, and as long as Oceania are denied an automatic spot, then it is not a true World cup. People can speak about quality and so forth, but 30 years ago, the idea of extra spots for Asia and Africa was met with the same arguments and look at the strides that have been made in those areas with increased and automatic places. Between 1930 and 1966, inclusive, that's 8 World Cups, there 10 non-UEFA/CONMEBOL countries which qualified for the WC and that included Mexico about 4 or 5 times. That's 10 out of a total of 122. The first African country did not qualify until 1974. All the arguments about Australia and Ocenia have already been made about Africa and Asia before. Automatic qualification will increase the quality, just as it has done in all other conferences outside of UEFA and CONMEBOL. No one uderestimates the top teams of Asia, Africa and CONCACAF anymore, yet 30 years ago, those that qualified were just along for the ride. Nobody could ever imagine any other CONCACAF team other than Mexico for years and in Asia, it seemed to be only S. Korea. Africa was unheard of and yet this year, (Senegal) they were within a golden goal of being in the semi-finals. An automatic spot for Oceania will only increase the quality throughout the entire conference. It happened in every other conference, why should Oceania be any different?
What r u talking about??? 30years ago, AFC didnt even have a full spot for WC. anyway AFC, CAF, CONCACAF have around 40~50 countries to compete while OFC has ??? Its not even countries, its just bunch of small islands with population way under even a million? only worth opponent for aussie is New Zealand and they were ranked like 88th (I still dont know how they jumped up 41 and ranked 47th in just a month)
Understand my post before you post. 30 years ago AFC didn't have an automatic place because it was thought that the quality of football was not good enough. The arguments against CONCACAF's automatic place were along the lines that Mexico is the only country who would ever qualify as all the others were too weak and too small. These are the same arguments being put forward about Oceania now. And how can the World Cup be really a World[/B} cup when it denies a part of the world an automatic spot? The WC is not a playoff between the best teams in the world, it is a competition for the entire world. An automatic spot would increase the quality in Oceania, just as it has done in every other conference which had gained automatic spots. Asia didn't have automatic spots; now they do, and look at the quality. Same with Africa, same with CONCACAF. Why would Oceania be any different? (BTW, there's nothing in this post that wasn't in my previous post)
Listen Samar, I understand that it is a WORLD Cup and that every part of the world must be represented. But what u talk about improving the quality of Oceania nations will take much longer to develop than it did for CONCACAF, CAF, and AFC. I mean, it's not like Australia is being denied a spot, they're just not given an auto berth. If you read my earlier post on this thread, it explains a good idea to give australia even a better chance to qualify without the auto berth. Also, Oceania has way less teams than CONCACAF(35), CAF(50), and AFC(44). Oceania only has about 11 nations, and the majority of them are pacific ocean islands with very little population and talent. The only teams from Oceania that even could somewhat threaten to get points at a World Cup would be Australia and maybe New Zealand or Fiji. I mean, just because Australia is in Oceania doesn't mean they should get an auto berth into the World Cup Finals (cause basically that's what it would be). Also, you mention Brazil having easy qualification too, but I mean think about it: would they have tough qualification if they were put in another zone? Probably not, unless maybe UEFA, but even that they would still most likely qualify. I mean, as it is, Brazil has to face Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, and Ecuador, all great nations, twice in qualifying. You don't see Brazil beating any other team 31-0 or 22-0 now do you? Oceania qualification is a joke if you ask me. Do you actually think that if Australia goes to the World Cup Finals that the whole rest of the zone will improve their quality? The answer is no it wouldn't. So to sum up, Australia shouldn't just get a spot just to call it a "true World Cup". Until OFC merges with AFC (which it won't) then the current format should stay, or to go with my idea.
That's absolutely ridiculous. The only thing an auto bid would do is possibly increase the qulality of play in AUSTRALIA, cause thats the only nation that would ever qualify! The other nations are going to continue to stink and they'll never get past Australia, who can just breeze into the World Cup and get destroyed when it faces a decent team. The current playoff situation is just fine and if Australia can't beat a team like Uruguay or Iran then they don't deserve to be included in the WC.
If AFC is crap and they dont deserve to be in WC, then Australia should have no problem beating 4th0 AFC team. If you cant beat 4th AFC team, you dont deserve to be in WC, no matter who you are.
Oh stop it thug!!!!! Australia isn't the power it used to be. recent results by New Zealand have obviously shown that in recent years. Everyone else is catching up. Besides, the AFC is never going to accept them into their fold. No one wants to travel to Australia to go into a macth where they will likely lose.
Agreed that New Zealand is catching up, though clearly Australia is still the team to beat in Oceania. It will be interesting to see what happens the next time NZ and Australia play in an important tournament. I will say that the balance of the nations in Oceania are not of the same caliber nor will they be for many years to come. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I believe there was a possibility that Oceania or Australia could have been part of the Asian Confederation at it's inception. I don't remember the circumstances, but it would have been better for all parties since they would have benefited from an increase in the quality of competition. To me, merging these two confederations still makes the most sense. Then you can award the extra spot to the combined confederation.
There seem to be 2 reasons posters here want to deny Oceania an automatic spot in the WC Finals. 1. The confederation is too small and the quality of football is generally lousy. 2. It will end up being an automatic slot for Australia. Does it not bother anyone that these reasons are patronising and almost neo-colonial? In other words "We here in the developed football world know what's best for you, and we don't think that you are good enough for an automatic spot." Condescending in the extreme. With the exception of CONMEBOL and UEFA, all other confederations have had to fight for places at the big table. When eventually some far sighted people saw the rationale in allowing in the smaller confederations, all improved. For everyone howling about the wonderful successes of the USA, Senegal and S. Korea this time around, remember that this success was largely built upon people constantly asking for spots for their respective conferences. Yes, there were ignominies - S. Korea on the wrong end of 7-0 in '54, Zaire losing 9-0 in '74 or Haiti going down 7-0 the same WC - but all of these confederations have become stronger as the years have gone on. If the staus quo had persisted, as some posters here would now like to do with Oceania, then the WC would NEVER have grown into a World game, remaining a tournament for Brazil, Argentina and UEFA. The USAs, Senegals, and S. Koreas of this world would still be on the outside looking in, being patronisingly told, "Yes, yes, all in good time, you're just not quite good enough now, y'know." It is remarkably shortsighted to say that the learning curve for Oceania will be longer and not worth the time and effort. Players, teams and confederations do not get better by playing against bad teams, they get better playing against good teams. And for every Zaire that went down 9-0 in '74, there is a Senegal in '02 who were a golden goal away from the semis. Oceania has more members than CONMEBOL and if you want to talk population, then explain not only China, but also India, the 2 most populous nations on earth. And population itself is no predictor of WC Finals qualification. Slovenia, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Uruguay (won it twice) have all qualified with populations of 5 million or less. There is no doubt that the quality of football is lousy in Oceania, but it will improve, as every other confederation has done to date with regular participation. Yeah, Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 and still didn't make the WC Finals. But Iran beat the Maldives 18/19?-0 and didn't make the finals, also. Oceania is a fully fledged member conference of FIFA, and all members have the same number and type of vote that all other members of FIFA have, yet, they do not have an automatic card to the dance, as everyone else has? This makes as much sense now, as did keeping out CONCACAF, the AFC and the CAF 30-40 years ago. (I know they weren't excluded totally, but they had to qualify via playoffs or drawing lots or acting as replacements for other teams that dropped out.) Oceania is part of the FIFA family, it should have all the benefits that the other members have; enough with the conservatives who want to change nothing and opt for the status quo.