We need to talk about Oceania.
1. Shambolic Oceania Nations Cup tournament run over one week, on the same sub-standard pitch, in blistering heat. Basically, a lottery.
2. Tahiti concede 24 goals in 3 games at Confeds Cup. Forget the patronising statements about them being 'plucky' and 'having a go' - it's a disgrace. It doesn't do them any good and doesn't do the tournament any good.
3. New Zealand miss Confeds Cup, partly through own incompetence but partly due to Point 1, severely damaging chances of qualifying for World Cup.
Yes, our kids get to qualify for lots of FIFA tournaments, but is that really doing them as much good as qualifying down a more competitive path and then actually being prepared when they get to a tournament?
Yes, the costs of travel in another arrangement might be higher but so might the rewards (TV money for one). Besides, there are probably options to limit the amount of travel other Oceania nations do until the later stages of qualifying, if they ever get there. Also, is there any obligation on us to worry about how the other Oceania nations will cope anyway?
So how do we sort this shit out?
1. Disagree the tournament was "shambolic". The fixture list wasn't good, admittedly, but the tournament itself was well run. The pitch looked worse on TV than it was. The weather - what can you do about that..? It's weather. My view is that nations who want to host tournaments in Oceania have every right to do so and the tournament format has little or nothing to do with them.
Interesting to look back on 1982 qualifying campaign with the quality of the pitch in Singapore panned for its state, yet Mount Smart Stadium itself was abysmal in the first qualifying section.
The OFC Nations Cup 2002 was played in aquatic conditions in Auckland during winter and matches were transferred because of surface water at North Harbour Stadium to Mount Smart Stadium.
I've outlined my views on this a year ago and not really changed my thinking on it a year hence.
2. Tahiti were a shambles and I was disgusted with the way they approached the Confederations Cup. The way they defended in June 1012 and then subsequently throughout the Stage 3 qualifiers, THEN in the OFC Champions League as AS Dragon, was nothing like the dross they served up in Brazil.
It looked to me as if the Tahitian attitude was, "Well, we're going to lose anyway, so to cover up our shortcomings, we're not going to stick by our game plan from the past, instead we'll 'just play' and see what happens." They've been let off the hook by virtue of the civil unrest in Brazil with most locals looking at an amateur side competing "earnestly" and its married up nicely with their beef about expenditure on the FIFA World Cup itself.
In a wider sense, they've emerged from the tournament as a quirky PR feel-good story, the football equivalent of falling into effluent and coming up unsullied clutching a bunch of roses. I don't agree with it myself, but there you have it.
A lot of OFC teams, ourselves included, have got pumped rotten at FIFA events before (Spain U-17 13-0 New Zealand U-17, New Zealand 0-5 Spain, Tahiti U-20 0-8 Spain U-20, New Zealand U-17 0-7 Brazil U-17) and we've survived it in the past, but this Confeds was rank.
3. Blame should be apportioned carefully here. I spoke to a player weeks in advance of the tour to the USA and Solomon Islands and there was concern about undertaking the first leg knowing the conditions that lay in wait in Honiara. The USA preparation was a worthy trip but at the wrong time. The lead-in period would've been better spent preparing and acclimatizing in Brisbane and Honiara. There were plenty of resources and knowledge in New Zealand worth consulting ahead of Honiara about preparing to play up there but sadly that wasn't tapped into.
Youth Tournaments Qualification - This is a reasonable point. An AFC qualification pathway with New Zealand in it, or the OFC shifted into it en masse, might have a different look, its speculative. The political ructions of calibrating an AFC/OFC merger would have a much bigger, broader effect on the entire 'new' Confederation. There would be a lot of issues to work through - we might not get a better outcome, we don't know for certain.
Costs of Travel/TV Money - This is a tricky one because the top ten teams in the AFC fight tooth and nail for the TV money associated with the final stage of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup. Dividing that pie up with an OFC winner (+ an additional AFC side, to make six in each group) would cause a lot of headaches around the negotiating table, for sure. It was mooted back in 2006 for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the AFC members baulked at the concept with the most acceptable scenario based around extending the final stage from 10 to 12 teams, but not during that (or this) World Cup cycle. It may yet materialise for Russia 2018.
The AFC Champions League is not the Promise Land of a cash rich TV cash cow, either. Hyundai A-League participants struggle to break even in this event, the same as Auckland City FC do by taking part in the OFC Champions League (under the old format).
New Zealand deciding to up and leave the OFC behind - This can't happen without the OFC pushing for it at FIFA. The FFA left the OFC because the then OFC President Reynald Temarii wanted Australia gone to further his political position. OFC put the case directly to FIFA and the FFA had all their Christmases come at once.Australia left, New Caledonia were admitted.
Is there a moral obligation to be concerned about the rest of the OFC? Arguably not, no, but it is probably in their interests to work with them rather than against them politically. Any change in the composition of the AFC/OFC qualification pathway needs to be achieved through a collective rather than individual approach. More realistic may be crossing over inter-Confederation playoffs in the final stages of play in senior men's tournaments, instead of the embarrassment of Tahiti in Brazil. That keeps OFC sweet, furthers NZF's interests in the direction they may want things to head and we haven't thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
New Zealand has benefited enormously from being an OFC member and it would be churlish to forget that fact.
Any discussion of splitting up the AFC into East and West is exciting to contemplate but unrealistic at the moment with the vast majority of the Eastern AFC members unlikely to be enamored with a new West AFC-OFC configuration including an away trip to Port Moresby, Honiara and Port Vila perceived as undesirable.
Gordon Glen Watson