Australia is in AFC and it currently has little effect travel wise on SE Asian heavyweights Japan, China & Sth Korea.
This 4 year WC cycle Japan & China have each travelled once to Oz, Sth Korea not all.
The issue could be yes be having the smaller OFC teams (with their limited travel connections, far flung spread) in early stage AFC WC/Asian Cup qualifying.
Like the Blue Samurai wouldn't be keen at all to have say Tahiti & the Solomons both in their pool early stage qualifying.
So for those early stages (1st year of the cycle) you have seperate geographic qualifying ie OFC groups and SE Asian groups.
Top 8 teams - 2.5 OFC & 6.5 SEA - go into the final stage of qualifying (2nd & 3rd years of the WC cycle). The 0.5 spot from OFC plays the 0.5 spot from SEA to find the final 8th team.
4 or 5 teams from the final stage qualify for the World Cup, or whatever allocation FIFA decides.
All the OFC & SEA smaller nations who are knocked out at 1st stage qualifying can have their own little Nations Cup type tourney 2nd & 3rd years.
What you would end up with is something a little bit like CONCACAF and it's qualifying pathways. 4-5 dominant teams, who would nearly always qualify.
For Mexico, Canada, USA, Panama & Costa Rica - think Sth Korea, Japan, Australia, NZ and say one of China/Nth Korea/Thailand/Indonesia.
Plus with CONCACAF you actually have 3 member countries in Sth America in Guyana, Suriname & French Guiana. So similar in a way to having OFC members in a predominantly SE Asian qualifying region.
This 4 year WC cycle Japan & China have each travelled once to Oz, Sth Korea not all.
The issue could be yes be having the smaller OFC teams (with their limited travel connections, far flung spread) in early stage AFC WC/Asian Cup qualifying.
Like the Blue Samurai wouldn't be keen at all to have say Tahiti & the Solomons both in their pool early stage qualifying.
So for those early stages (1st year of the cycle) you have seperate geographic qualifying ie OFC groups and SE Asian groups.
Top 8 teams - 2.5 OFC & 6.5 SEA - go into the final stage of qualifying (2nd & 3rd years of the WC cycle). The 0.5 spot from OFC plays the 0.5 spot from SEA to find the final 8th team.
4 or 5 teams from the final stage qualify for the World Cup, or whatever allocation FIFA decides.
All the OFC & SEA smaller nations who are knocked out at 1st stage qualifying can have their own little Nations Cup type tourney 2nd & 3rd years.
What you would end up with is something a little bit like CONCACAF and it's qualifying pathways. 4-5 dominant teams, who would nearly always qualify.
For Mexico, Canada, USA, Panama & Costa Rica - think Sth Korea, Japan, Australia, NZ and say one of China/Nth Korea/Thailand/Indonesia.
Plus with CONCACAF you actually have 3 member countries in Sth America in Guyana, Suriname & French Guiana. So similar in a way to having OFC members in a predominantly SE Asian qualifying region.