All Whites' Oceania/Asia Confederation Conundrum

It's a pretty short document but the fact it has been implemented is interesting. The main thing I can see is that it provides for possible future competitions between members of the two confederations.

So maybe a joint qualification road to the World Cup?

The subtext would be that it is good news for the Phoenix; good relations between AFC and OFC means AFC must look favourably on OFC teams competing in AFC competitions.

I wonder how much pressure FIFA has brought to bear?

I don't think this is anything to read into. We are the weakest confederation of them all so any agreement (in place of none) just creates ties that's other confederations already have in place. It's the equivalent of Chelsea and the Kingz

Has it been 10 years since Aussie left?  I can understand that it has been good for our junior teams to go to tournaments but fundamentally not sure it has improved NZF at all.  I am firmly in the Asia camp now (understand the practicality, but had been on the fence previously).

Even if NZF wanted us to join Asia (which they don't as they'd rather be a big fish in a small pond, footing it on equal terms with PNG etc), I would be very surprised if Asian Federation wanted a bar of us.  They might if OFC was absorbed and they  got more spaces at the WC, but that is a much more unlikely pipe dream no matter what we think.

Yep, that's what sparked the whole license issue. As part of their condition for leaving Oceania Australia guranteed that there would be a NZ team in their top flight competition for ten years.

time flies when you're having fun

The positives from a 48 team World Cup and retaining an independent Oceania Confederation and having NZ qualify for the World Cup and the Confederations Cup through Oceania seem to be mainly financial (although it's going to be great seeing the All Whites playing in the World Cup Finals every four years):

- Infantino announced a FIFA pay-out of $US 5 million to every member association after every World Cup as his election campaign pledge. Surely this will increase a lot from 2026 now that FIFA have estimated that revenue is predicted to increase to £5.29bn for a 48-team tournament, giving a potential profit rise of £521m. (source: BBC Sport website this week). NZF will gain $US 5 million from each of the next two World Cups even if we don't qualify.

If NZ qualify for the 48 team World Cups from 2026, we will probably earn something like $NZ 20 million or more every time.

- Qualifying for the Confederations Cup every four years from Oceania is also lucrative for NZ (guaranteed a minimum of $US 1.7 million):

http://www.fifa.com/confederationscup/news/y=2016/...

"a total prize pool of USD 20m will be shared among the eight participating teams:

The winner of the final, which will take place in Saint Petersburg on 2 July 2017, will receive USD 4.1m, with the runner-up taking home USD 3.6m.

USD 3m awaits the third-placed team, while the other semi-finalist will receive USD 2.5m. Each of the four teams that do not advance beyond the group stage will receive USD 1.7m."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Problems Other Than The Financial Loss Related To Joining The Asian Confederation:

Things though have just got more complicated recently with the Asian Confederation combining World Cup qualifying games with Asian Cup qualifiers.

Under the new format, most of the smaller Asian countries will play only two competitive matches every four years (in a preliminary round). Yes, two games every four years...

So most Oceania members would not be in favour of Oceania fully joining the AFC if that is what resulted.

Also, AFC just aren't going to be interested in admitting Oceania nations to AFC qualifying any time soon, having just introduced major changes to their qualifying formats recently. Any consideration of Oceania being admitted to AFC qualifying would be many years in the future, if at all...

The Asian Cup for 2019 has been expanded to 24 teams and for the first time, all AFC members were able to enter qualifying (previously only the top 20 teams in AFC competed in qualifying for ten or eleven spots, the remaining spots being claimed by the hosts, the winners of the previous two AFC Challenge Cups and the top three teams at the previous Asian Cup).

New AFC World Cup and Asian Cup qualifying format (combined):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...

First two rounds double as World Cup qualification:

Round One: Teams ranked 35–46 in Asia play home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round.

Round Two:

A total of 40 teams (teams ranked 1–34 and six first round winners) are divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches.

• The eight group winners and the four best group runners-up advance to the third round of FIFA World Cup qualification as well as qualify for the AFC Asian Cup finals.
• The next 16 highest ranked teams (the remaining four group runners-up, the eight third-placed teams and the four best group fourth-placed teams) advance directly to the third round of Asian Cup qualification.
• The remaining 12 teams enter the play-off round to contest the remaining eight spots in the third round of Asian Cup qualification

It would of course be exciting for the All Whites to play in AFC qualifying under this format.

To give some idea of how likely or not it would be that the All Whites could progress through AFC World Cup qualifying to the third round, here are the teams who have already qualified for the third round and directly go to the Asian Cup Finals in 2019:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...

NZ would have to be in a weaker Round Two group to have a good chance - but you'd think it wouldn't be so hard to make the next round from some of those groups.

Second Round tables:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...

I think NZ would struggle to make it out of the Third Round to progress to the World Cup Finals under the current 32 team format of the next two World Cups if you look at the current Third Round tables (two groups of six):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_...

We'd be lucky to take third place in a group and make the AFC play-off.

However, an increased 48 team World Cup Finals with a rumoured 8 places for AFC teams changes things in our favour with four teams from each Third Round Group progressing directly to the Finals.

Tony Smith today on Michael Cockerill's proposal to chop the Asian Confederation in half to create two new Confederations, with one including Australia and NZ  as part of an Oceania / East Asia / ASEAN (South East Asia) Confederation.  West Asia and Central Asia would form the other confederation. (Cockerill, the A-League commentator and FFA head of online content, was Christchurch Star football reporter 1980 - 1986 and is a mate of Tony Smith, sports editor of the Press newspaper).

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/884...

"That would roughly give West Asia 25 teams and East Asia-Oceania 32. Each confederation would get a prescribed number of World Cup berths.

The EAO body would include South Korea (ranked 37th in the world), Australia (44th) and Japan (46th) - all regular World Cup qualifiers - plus rising nations such as China and Thailand.

It's a plan worth considering by New Zealand and Oceania because it would ultimately strengthen football in this part of the world. New Zealand would be the fifth-ranked nation in an East Asia-Oceania grouping.

...There would also be a East-Asia Oceania Championships every four years.

....World Cup and East Asia-Oceania championship qualifying could still be held on a regional basis with East Asia, Asean and Oceania preliminary groups leading to confederation finals.

There would thus be better competition year-in year out for New Zealand's senior and youth sides."

Other benefits for NZ would include NZ players no longer being classed as foreigners with regards to Australian A-League clubs. 

"A new confederation might also lead to less obstacle-strewn pathways for New Zealand and Pacific players in professional competitions within the same confederation."

While this makes total sense to any sane person, the financial interest in building Chinese domestic interest in the ACL and Asian Cup would make West Asia very unlikely to want it I would imagine. From the other side, the East Asian teams would still have to travel long distances for games to NZ and maybe Pacific Islands but would lose access to the TV revenue and investment from the oil rich Middle Eastern sides. Follow the money and the only people interested would be OFC I think

A big problem is how you split the World Cup spots. East Asia has the better footballing nations, but West Asia has all the money. Both would think they deserve more places than the other and can justify it.

It'll be an absolute shark fight.

I don't think anyone's got more money than China right now.

NZ basketball are now stuffed financially after their world body disbands Oceania federation and  moves them into Asia:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/basketball/93022599/f...

They now are required to compete in all major Asian competitions at a cost of about $NZ 2 million over the next two years.

A warning as to what could happen to football if the same thing happened?

What crap!! Laos &Cambodia and Yamen do well funding there mens and womens national teams. I think your talking shark about it being a warning - more like you like being in Oceania and stuck in the old ways of football life.

Cambodia doesn't have a women's team, Yemen has one but it's never played a full international, and Laos has one which has only ever played against other Southeast Asian opposition and is currently listed as inactive by FIFA because they haven't played in at least 18 months.

LOL! Well played.

In reality a lot of Asian countries (outside of the wealthy handful) struggle to fund their national team programs.

Guam withdrew after qualifying for the third round of Asian Cup qualification because it couldn't afford to bring its team together or travel.

There's also tremendous corruption and government interference.

Asian Cup 2019 and World Cup 2018 qualifying has been severely disrupted by both Indonesia and Kuwait being kicked out of the qualifying mid-way through with several games left to be played by both countries, after FIFA suspended their FA's for government interference.

Qualifying became very Mickey Mouse with the mediocre Nepal and Macau who had lost and been eliminated in the first round, invited in to make up the numbers to 24 for the third round of qualifying. 

Yemen only played three games in total last year. Laos men's team haven't played at all this year, Cambodia played three games in 2013. These sorts of countries mainly play friendlies against their neighbours and are only more active in years when there are qualifiers for the World Cup or AFC tournaments.

Even Australia have complained about the large costs involved in sending their men's and women's age group sides the huge distances around Asia.

On top of that, Australia's results at age group level in AFC tournaments have been poor in recent years and they've failed to qualify for the last two FIFA u-20 men's world cups. In the qualifying for this year's u-17 world cup Australia lost all their group games and finished bottom of their group, even losing to Kyrgyzstan. 

That's despite the FFA receiving some of the most generous government funding of football in the AFC countries.

In 2008 the FFA was receiving $AU 16 million from the government every four years and then this was increased by an extra $AU 16 million for two years to give women's football a boost etc. So the FFA received $AU 32 million in government funding 2008-2012.

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/budget/publishin...

By comparison, government funding of football in NZ is minimal and almost exclusively targets the women's national team.

NZ Football's total income in their 2016 financial report was merely $153,387

http://www.nzfootball.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/201...

They have cash reserves of $NZ 4.27 million from which everything is funded. Most of these reserves came from the play-offs vs. Mexico for the last world Cup and money left from qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.

Qualifying for the Confederations Cup this year in Russia earned NZ Football  $US 1.7 million from FIFA (minimum payout for participating).

This sort of revenue which NZ Football is so dependent on would dry up if we joined the AFC.

Things though have just got more complicated recently with the Asian Confederation combining World Cup qualifying games with Asian Cup qualifiers.

Under the new format, most of the smaller Asian countries will play only two competitive matches every four years (in a preliminary round). Yes, two games every four years...

So most Oceania members would not be in favour of Oceania fully joining the AFC if that is what resulted.

NZ would no doubt achieve a higher ranking in Asia than the Pacific Island nations and so play more games, both at youth and senior level, but at a greatly increased financial cost.

Only a handful of countries in Asian benefit from large amounts of TV rights money (Japan, South Korea, Australia etc.)

The FFA in Australia in a good year operates with an income of about $AU 90 - 100 million mostly from TV revenue (the generous deal with Fox and Asian rights to internationals and Asian Champions League etc.) .

NZ would never achieve that sort of revenue stream from TV money.

Currently we have been earning big TV rights money only from the World Cup inter-continental play-off every four years. Last time it was huge from the two games vs. Mexico. Enough to finance our football in NZ for four years at a good basic level.

The Asian Cup for 2019 has been expanded to 24 teams and for the first time, all AFC members were able to enter qualifying (previously only the top 20 teams in AFC competed in qualifying for ten or eleven spots, the remaining spots being claimed by the hosts, the winners of the previous two AFC Challenge Cups and the top three teams at the previous Asian Cup).

New AFC World Cup and Asian Cup qualifying format (combined):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...

First two rounds double as World Cup qualification:

Round One: Teams ranked 35–46 in Asia play home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round.

Round Two:

A total of 40 teams (teams ranked 1–34 and six first round winners) are divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches.

Yemen is the poorest country in Middle East region, ie no oil - and in is the midst of a tragic civil war, with famine etc. Playing & funding football would not be on the list of their immediate priorities

We need to stay out of the AFC from every stand point unless FIFA come calling and force the OFC hand.

No youth teams at world cups no AWs at WCs have to play OFC group games in the middle east in 40C.

Given OFC now has direct entry to the WC, the only benefit I can see of moving to AFC now would be Aussie having a reason to play us.

I wouldn't be surprised if Aussie try to come back to OFC at some point in the future, now there's direct entry to the WC and given that the move to Asia hasn't really delivered as much as they were promised in terms of increased exposure to lucrative markets

I doubt the Oz public would be happy with that. Playing some island teams and winning by big margins is not something I would want.

Besides, you are not going to improve by playing teams that are a lot weaker.

I can't see that happening.

doubt the A-League clubs would want to give up access to the Asian Champions League either

The ACL costs participating A League clubs a lot of money 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/may/19/a...

The FFA might be tempted to revert back to OFC. Their age group teams do struggle now to make U17 & U20 world cups. Senior men's team are also in some danger of not qualifying for WC 2018. That would be a massive shock, and setback to football in Oz.

However Asia's WC slots will increase to 8 (or is it 7) from 2026, so that pretty much makes WC qualification a given for Australia from 2026. Can't see Socceroos never being in the best 7-8 Asian sides. 

Plus yes FFA want as many high profile Socceroo games, in Oztralyia each year as they can get. Hence invitation to Argentina & Brazil to play in Melbourne/Sydney next month.

Both FFA and the fans would not be keen on going back to playing very low profile OFC sides, and 12-0 scorelines.

With Oceania getting direct entry to the WCup and all the money that comes with that, there is zero chance of NZ going to Asia. Its a dead issue.

So far us fans go there is probably no chance of ever again seeing the AW's play any meaningful games at home against decent sides. We might get WC warmup games but they would just be friendlies.

I understand why everyone is excited by direct WC entry but I personally would have loved to see NZ playoff in the final Asian qualifying round. The prospect of at least five home games against sides like Japan, Korea, Australia Iran etc would have been great for the profile of NZ football domestically.

Now we will get 2 WC games every four years and have to put up with the dross of Oceania for the rest of the time. The AW's playing at home is now at a  dead end. No matter how much you promote WC qualifiers in Oceania, they will never engage anyone.

So much this. The dross of Oceania indeed

It's all swings and roundabouts though, playing regularly at the World Cup might increase our attractiveness for higher profile friendlies, and might make the public more generally engaged with the AWs so more interested in games against OFC sides. Obviously the ideal would have been OFC being merged with AFC in some form (AFC split in 2 or whatever) but failing that this is not a bad outcome. 

Who knows, we might even co-host a WC with Aussie in the future and have a group or two based here! ;)

Australia returning to Oceania would also require OFC approval - and I highly doubt that would ever happen...

So the Phoenix should be careful what they wish for when it comes to Asian Champs League participation unless they would be happy with losing $200,000 per campaign.

Losing a lot of money on the Asian Champions League is part of the wider picture of all A-League clubs being a financial drain on the FFA.

All of the clubs run at a loss.

Here's a fascinating Guardian article which goes in some depth into the FFA and A-League finances:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/may/16/w...

So many complications. The new A-League TV deal sounds great at $AU 346 million over six years ($AU 58 million per season) but in fact the FFA needed  $AU 70 million per season for the A-League to break even.

It costs a lot of money to run a professional league in a country only partially interested in football. 

That's the wrong way around, the clubs are subsidising the FFA, not vice versa. The FFA is taking TV money generated by the A League and spending it elsewhere while A League owners run at losses each year. I don't know how you can say the A League clubs are a drain on the FFA when they generate more revenue for the FFA then the FFA gives back.

Yeah, it says in that article that the A-League makes up 80% of the FFAs revenue. So, despite threatening to kick the Phoenix out it's actually the Phoenix who are subsidising the FFA.

I wonder if the expansion teams would still be keen to join with the lower than forecasted distribution of revenue. I also think they should do something like F1 where new teams aren't eligible for TV revenue until they've been in the competition for a couple of years.

F1 is the last place sports leagues should look for a stable financial model. The lack of TV money for new teams, coupled with the highly skewed prize money, is why new teams find it next to impossible to exist, let alone compete. The last thing the FFA needs is another expansion team to go bust and such a rule would be playing Russian Roulette.

Sure, when they are eligible for money the distribution is really insane (for those who don't know, the first place team gets the most, the last place team gets nothing, and teams like Ferrari gets a lot of money just to show up, and Williams and Mclaren get extra money for being old.).

But, new teams aren't eligible for funds until something like 2 years. They also used to have to pay a hundred million dollar bond that was only returned to them when they were three years old. These are just to ensure that new F1 teams are serious and aren't the sort of dodgy underworld figures that the sport tends to attract.

If there are teams who are keen to get into the competition and the competition can't afford them until they begin to bring in revenue then why not say come in, but you have to pay your own way for two years. Nathan Tinkler paid $5 million to the FFA for the Newcastle Jets license so it's not out of the question.

Fritz's thread has well and truly got off topic. Guilty as charged.

Did find skant goggling around, but there are a few interesting articles on how AFC came to be and has worked out for FFA & Socceroos.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/goal-at-last-australia-joining-asia-20050311-gdkwk4.html

"Lowy and O'Neill have been lobbying the various parties for the past four months, and the breakthrough came early this year when Asia's marketing partners, the World Sports Group, was convinced that Australia could add value to Asia's sponsorship and television deals, some of which are up for renewal in the next 12 months."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sport_Group

This Singapore based company, sounds like it basically negotiate AFC's TV deals.

"World Sport Group was the exclusive marketing partner of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the ASEAN Football Federation(AFF)."

Could NZF (if they wanted to) convince this mob they would add commercial value to the AFC? Unlikely you would think. Would almost have to be an undertaking that high profile players like Wood & Reid would play so many games. Thomas from PSV. Impossible to gtee. 

I think the only way AFC would be interested is NZF taking an automatic WC qualification from OFC (leaving 0.5 spot), and bringing that extra spot into AFC's automatic 8.5 spots (from 2026 WC).

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/03/socceroos-finally-get-a-naming-rights-sponsor-as-caltex-strike-deal-with-ffa

This article touches on some of the sponsorship restrictions that AFC imposes on it's member countries.

Attracting brand interest has been a massive headache for the governing body (FFA), and something Gallop described last year as one of their biggest challenges. Part of the reluctance to buy the naming rights was put down to the limited commercial opportunities with players, who are based at clubs all over the world.

And while the Socceroos are currently in the middle of their 2018 World Cup qualifiers, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) who run them enforce rigid restrictions on the use of branding, as they did for the 2015 Asian Cup.

Fifa rules also prohibit national teams from carrying sponsor branding on their strip, but all training and other kit will now be branded as the Caltex Socceroos. Gallop added that the players themselves would also benefit, as would the grassroots game.

You would think joining AFC would open up more sponsorship opportunities for NZF, but tricky as above.

And lastly this recent March 2019 article from The Roar. Pretty weak. But some of the comments underneath caught my eye.

https://www.theroar.com.au/2019/03/14/should-new-zealand-join-the-afc/

[/quote=coochiee]

For sure it's great having all our age group (and FFs) teams qualify direct for World Cups through the weak OFC path.

But just bear in mind, many of that talented U20 squad will now barely set foot in NZ, to play again. That's if we stay in the OFC.

Will most likely get worse post 2022 (at least we still have a high stakes inter continental home playoff game in March 2022), with OFC having automatic WC qualification (1.5 spots) for USA 2026 & beyond.

Just 4-6 low quality home games against the OFC minnows in the last 1-2 years of a World Cup cycle. European players deciding to skip games, because well an A League/domestic based AWs should still win the home OFC qualifiers - some of which may early on in the qualification phase become dull dead rubbers. Probably hardly a game through 2023-2024 (much less any games at home).

You'll just be watching all that playing talent, on your TV or computer screen. That's the future reality.

From post Brazil 2014 to start of Russia 2018. Australia played 45 internationals from my maths (so about 11 per year).

20 were at home (so 5 games per year), 19 away, and 6 at neutral venues (2017 Confed Cup & friendlies pre Russia 2018).

Inflated somewhat by hosting 2015 Asian Cup (6 games at home). Note in 2018 they didn't play a home game until post the WC in Russia.

So they play a fair amount at home (certainly a shark load more than we see the AWs) - almost all AFC qualifiers, either Asian Cup or World Cup. Some high profile like Japan, others taken to Canberra like Tajikistan

Apart from  2 games against Greece and one game against Brazil - they struggled to attract any teams to Australia for friendlies. Though Brazil did play Argentina in Melbourne also.

I would really hope that over the years some NZF staffer/bean counter has dedicated a lot of time to weighing up pros & cons (financial and non financial) of looking at the AFC, and stress testing it all. Plus spoken in depth to their FFA counterparts etc.

But sadly being the NZF don't have a lot of faith that exercise as ever been done. A few staff there I'm sure, would hate the thought of missing out on free FIFA paid junkets to Uruguay, Poland, France, Brazil etc. 

But yeah is AFC really an impossible goal, or is it actually a bit of self perpetrating narrative that it can't be done without delving into the matter in huge depth.

Be a great Masters thesis for some marketing student football nut.

Interesting that Syria & Iraq two tragic war torn countries, who can't play home games, manage to still function in AFC. I guess they get a truck load of FIFA's money to compensate, or in Syria's case Putin cash.

Should add that post Russia 2018, Socceroos have played 10 games and AWs nada.

Huge $US4bn commercial rights deal for Asian football (Chinese cash). Mostly focused on club football - but sounds like in "2nd cycle" (so last 4 years of the 8 year deal??), some new tournaments. Maybe an AFC Nations League??

Anyway sounds all about China.

http://www.sportspromedia.com/analysis/afc-ddmc-fortis-commercial-rights-champions-league-asian-cup-feature

And if recent history is anything to go by, demand for the AFC’s content is at an all-time high. This year’s Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) saw a record 836.6 million fans engage with the governing body’s digital platforms throughout the tournament, representing almost double the 434 million TV viewers recorded during the 2015 edition held in Australia.

Even more eyeballs will turn to the region in 2022 when Qatar hosts the Fifa World Cup, and Murphy is intent on ensuring that Asian soccer is able to capitalise on a period that could well be pivotal for its growth.

“In very simple terms what we’d like to see is a building of the national game in Asia, more participation ultimately in a World Cup, that would be the 2026 World Cup,” says Murphy. “We are expecting the calendar in the second cycle to evolve quite a bit, so we’ll be very much looking forward to working with AFC to shape that and to make that really interesting for the customers.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/113844331/fifa-world-cup-australia-indonesia-hold-talks-for-joint-2034-bid

So being in the OFC, it seems we miss out on any chance of being part of a downunder World Cup. 

Closer flying distance than Indonesia (excluding Perth & Darwin) to Australia. 

Enough stadiums, to host say at least three pools of 3 teams (9 games in total) in a 48 team world cup of 16 pools. 

I presume Westpac and Forsyth Barr are big enough for FIFA requirements.

Just join the Asian confederation and solve a lot of issues.