Coming from an Australian that's interested in seeing both the international team succeed and the local game move ahead I immediately and unequivocally say "Hell no". However I now find myself supporting the Oceanic region more, as a whole, than I ever did when Australia was a part of it. FIFA's treatment of Oceania has been less than stellar over the years. It's arrogance has come down to the fact that football in that region is not the number one sport, as it is in other confederations (even in Africa). However the same can be said for CONCACAF (where Canada and the USA are obviously non-footballing nations), and to a lesser extent Asia (where football in its most successful countries often plays number 2 to baseball). The treatment of Oceania as a second class citizen on the world stage also comes from the fact that football is not as professional in the majority of countries as it is in other confederations. As a result what you have is 2 or 3 stronger nations participating against several smaller, weak nations. Unfortunately the same can be said for CONCACAF and to a lesser extent, Asia, but this is a bias FIFA cannot readily overcome. Australia have persistently pushed to become a part of Asia now for the past 30 years. Before the advent of the Oceaniac confederation Australia, along with countries such as New Zealand and Fiji played their qualifiers as a part of the Asian federation (and in some bizarre cases, along with the African federation). The question stands, then. If Australia staying in Oceania meant that the confederation would receive 1 direct place in the World Cup, should Australia have stayed?
There are a couple of reasons why a say no and also a reason why it will never happen. The condeferation is and always would have been dominated by Australia. To have them dominate (eg: 31-0 over Am Samoa) they way they were did nothing for the minow teams and also meant that Australia would have never developed playing weaker opposition. There is nothing to be learnt by playing in these matches. To say we would get this development playing in a world cup is false as this would only be a 4 year experience. At least in AFC we are against teams more on par (Japan, Sth Korea, China) with us which allows the team to grow in experience. Our performance at the AFC Cup was example of how far we need to go and also gives us the opportunity to play quality opposition at a tourn every two years, as well as more challenging opponents who may knock us out. As far as getting the 1 direct this will never happen as the OFC does not have enough votes on the FIFA board to gain the support for a place. Why would any other confederation want to give up a place to give it to them. The only way this group will ever continue to qualify is to align itself via a playoff with another confederation. Many years ago I thought that OFC should have come to an agreement with AFC who has enough votes to push this forward: The top two OFC teams join a group of two AFC pools consisting of 5 or 6 teams in each group. The top two from each group qualify automatically and the third place teams play in a two leg play off to go through. This way the confederation gets 5 places and OFC has two teams in for a chance to qualify. Unfortunately I believe the conferation tried to get the direct route instead of aligning with someone and lost out. To be honest these days since Australia left OFC I dont even know how they qualify at the moment. Presume it would still be a play off against a Sth American team.
And why is this so? Even when Australia was there it most certainly deserved 1 full place. Equal confederations such as Asia and CONCACAF have plenty of teams in them that aren't strong, footballing-wise, and only have a few strong teams, but they have plenty of more places. CONCACAF is almost laughable in the fact that Mexico and the United States are by far the best teams in that confederation, yet a Jamaica or Costa Rica can make it through. Likewise in Asia with smaller gulf countries that have neither a great national team or home league to depend on, making it through via sheer numbers of the places given to that particular confederation. What makes Oceania so terrible that it doesn't deserve 1 place? Actually it's the fairest decision from FIFA that I've seen regarding the qualifying process: The Oceanic winner (New Zealand for 2010), plays the 5th place Asian team for their .5 chance.
The entire region should merge with Asia. Australia staying would virtually block the rest of the region from ever qualifying (though New Zealand did manage to pull it off once.) Also the region has not done anything to earn their berth (Africa and Asia toiled for decades in WCs before finally proving their mettle and earning their extra slots.) One decent performance in 2006, cancelled out by a bad one in 1974, topped off by a very bad one in 1982. Not to mention loosing out on World Cup qualifying to Iraq, the United Arab Emrites, Kuwait, etc. And has already been stated, football is far from being the most popular game in most of their respective countries.
That is most certainly fuel for a different type of thread, but on that point is certainly has been brought up before, with the opposing viewpoint that it already makes a huge confederation simply impossible to traverse (especially for smaller teams). The way Asia is right now, schedules are far more hectic than any pampered UEFA or CONMEBOL team can imagine. Consider Iraq facing Australia or Japan. Now imagine Fiji or the Solomon Islands facing Iran...
Asia also has its small teams (tons of them.) Former Iranian star Ali Daei racked up a huge number of goals due to Iran regularly beating its opponents with double-digit scores. I believe they set a world record by beating a South Asian nation (can´t remember which one) by over 20 goals, it was so bad the players had to get psychological counseling. CONMEBOL and UEFA have by far the most cluttered calenders in the world. Half of the animosity directed at Blatter comes from both South Americans and Europeans angry at having their players forced to play in extra tournaments like the Confederations Cup, in addition to the grueling UEFA club schedule, the Copa America, European Championship qualifiers, World Cup Qualifiers, etc. UEFA has dozens of nations (and is still expanding as countries in the former U.S.S.R. and the Baltic region continue to disintegrate) and they´ve managed to find a format that suits them. One more thing Iraq has faced both Japan and Australia, has eliminated both, and has even managed to both qualify for a World Cup and land 3rd place in an olympics. I doubt they could handle Australia now, but there isn´t much of a difference between the lower level teams of Asia and Oceania.
As a supporter of Iran I can say I definitely appreciate Australia's presence in the Asian international scene. The 'big four' is now a big five and that means tighter competition for WC qualification, even at the very top. Also, seeing as the top WC qualifier from the Oceanic confederation still has to play the fourth-placed Asian team to make it, there's almost no chance of a mediocre team from Oceania benefitting significantly from Australia's absence.
From memory it was the Maldives and was I think 20-0. A world record until Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 using a second string team. Archie Thompson scored 13 goals in that one, I believe that was a world record too.
I think it is also worth merit mentioning who was in fact the second best Oceania team at the last WCQ, the Soloman Islands. Now this is a team that is regularly beaten by both Australia & New Zealand by scores of 8-0, 10-0, etc. I believe it was a fluke they did better than New Zealand but imagine if they repeated the success on a direct qualification and made the world cup. Add to that they are then put into a group at the WCC that included Brazil for example. THEY WOULD BE SLAUGHTERED!!!!!! As they are technically the second best Oceania team at the moment from previous qualification (dont know ranking to compare) to have them at a tournament of this calibre would make a mockery of the tournament and would be an embrassament to the country.
That may be true, however I was distinctly commenting about the distance between facing most of the countries you would ever encounter being in the group stages of any of those events. Comparing a 2-3 hour flight from France to Germany is nothing compared to a 14 hour flight (non-stop), from Iraq to Australia, or even a 10 hour flight from Australia to Japan.
Becasue Australia were the only country in Oceania who were ever really capable of reaching the level required to compete at a World Cup. If Oceania had one full place it would effectively be a free pass for Australia. Simple.
Do you mean New Zealand for every year in the foreseeable future? It will start to be a cake walk for them, and soon they will demand a place in Asia. Getting rid of Australia solves no problems at all.
Incorrect. New Zealand certainly were capable of reaching the World Cup (specifically in 1982, for instance), and I'm sure given due time and passage other teams could have come into the foray, hence the next point... New Zealand are by no means without opposition. It was only a few years ago that the Solomon Islands ousted New Zealand and Australia had to play them in the regional playoff to earn their .5 spot.
Since 1982, no Oceania entrant has been eliminated in the first round of the WC! The only confederation with that distinction.
If you want to call what New Zealand did at the 1982 world cup 'competing' then I think we have quite different definitions of the word. And this point is supposed to support the point that New Zealand are or can be good enough for the world cup? If the Soloman Islands were put into UEFA qualifying, they would never even get near to challenging for qualification.
Well yeah... that's the only slight hiccup... it's ignoring the fact that no Oceania team actually qualified for the world cup in 24 years until Australia did it in 2006.
Then while we're at it I suggest we remove Liechtenstein, Malta, Luxembourg and a host of other smaller UEFA nations, considering they'll never challenge for qualification either. Oh, and while we're at it we'll also remove half of Africa's teams, because hey, they won't contend either. Now that Africa, CONCACAF and Asia's been cut in half, not to mention a few chunks out of CONMEBOL and UEFA, do you think football would still be able to call itself a world game if it denotes that some parts of the world don't deserve the same treatment as other parts?
The point is that you don't give Lichtenstein a freebie into the World Cup do you? That the Soloman Islands could challenge for qualification is proof that OFC cannot justify having a full qualifying place.
Who said anything about removing teams? As it stands all nations compete in the world cup competition, regardless of what level they're at. How the 32 places at WC finals are allocated among confederations has to be based to a large extent of the strength and depth of each confederation. It is insane to suggest that Oceania should be treated exactly the same as a confederation like UEFA because there are far more countries and far more people in Europe than Oceania. Many teams who are far better than New Zealand and the Soloman Islands will miss out of the WC in UEFA every time. Giving a full place to Oceania would have been stupid becasue it would have been giving Australia a free pass every time. Personally, I think the fairest thing to do would be to split the world up into 4 regions (Europe, Africa, Asia + Oceania, North + Central + South America + Caribbean) each with just over 50 countries within them. Then you could directly compare the strength of each region and allocate places accordingly. I realise people have geographical issues with this but I think it would be a good and fair idea.
Liechtenstein did not reach the last cup final of their confederation's official championship either.... Solomon Islands did however!
Where would New Zealand be if it's in AFC? Challenge Japan, Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Australia for a World Cup spot? Or about as good as China, UAE, Qatar?