He's banking on WC money. With qualification almost a given, NZF will use that money to fund games.
Even if we somehow managed not to qualify directly, there is a good opportunity to make $ from subsequent play off games.
That with the fact NZF is doing ok financially as it is probably gives him the confidence to make such statements.
Even if we somehow managed not to qualify directly, there is a good opportunity to make $ from subsequent play off games.
That with the fact NZF is doing ok financially as it is probably gives him the confidence to make such statements.
Yes OFC gets 1.5 spots at Word Cup 2026.
But that 0.5 spot (so team finishing 2nd in OFC) will enter a playoff tournament somewhere in the World (North America?) with 5 other teams.
Similar I guess to how NZ (Hamilton?) is going host a pre WWC qualifying tourney to decide final few teams next year.
So 2 legged Playoffs with a game at home are dead & buried. So has ended big match, high stakes, meaningful games in NZ for the AWs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup
It includes an intercontinental playoff tournament involving six teams to decide the last two FIFA World Cup spots, making it a 1⁄3 spot in finals for a place in intercontinental play-offs.[26] But in fact, the 2 high-ranked teams have each 1⁄2 spot and the other 4 teams only have each 1⁄4 spot.