NZ joined AFC in 1964?

that history of the OFC is interesting, Aussie involved as one of the instigators and then after 30 odd years they realise they are the big fish in a very small pond and leave for Asia, leaving NZ to beat up on the minnows. Had NZ stayed in Asia we'd be in a very different place in the football world than we are today.

From memory Oceania used to be a sub group of Asia - so we'd play Aussie and Fiji etc the winner would then play in the next round with the Asian sides.

A useful contact for info on all matters relating to NZ and Oceania football history:

Andre Zlotkowski of Christchurch, a Polish-born Kiwi legal academic and one of our leading football statisticians who is the main NZ contributor to the world's leading football statistics site Rec.Sport Soccer Statistics Foundation:

http://www.rsssf.com/nersssf.html

Archive here:

http://www.rsssf.com/archive.html

Contact Andre here on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/#!/nzfooty

or e-mail him with queries:

nzfooty@hotmail.com

The OFC should be a sub-group of the AFC ASAP.

Bang on - best of both worlds for Oceania and gives Asia the possibilty of a moe straight forward way of securing another WC spot

New Zealand won't be tempted to follow Australia and move away from Oceania after the All Whites' humiliating debacle in the OFC Nations Cup.

Two years after holding Italy to a 1-1 draw at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Ricki Herbert's men crashed 2-0 to unfancied New Caledonia in the semi-finals of the Nations Cup in Honiara, Solomon Islands, and will miss out on a spot in next year's Confederations Cup in Brazil.

The shock loss has raised questions about the wisdom of New Zealand staying in FIFA's smallest confederation and prompted calls for the country to join Asia in order to raise its general standards.

"It is one course of action but at the end of the day we won't panic after just one bad result," New Zealand Football president Frank Van Hattum said.

"The underdogs in football sometimes win and we can take nothing for granted.

"The conditions might have been hot but the islands are improving and they caught us on a bad day, when we were off our game.

Okay, we are not going to the Confederations Cup but it had nothing to do with lack of motivation.

"Every professional player has a huge pride and if he can't get motivated to win the Nations Cup and qualify for a tournament such as the Confederations Cup then he should not be in the game.

"There are more advantages than disadvantages in staying in the Oceania confederation.

"Playing in Asia is not an option for the time being, mainly because it's a long and complicated political process that would take many years.

"We have close ties with Oceania, obviously, so we are not going to be petulant and try to walk away because we lost the Nations Cup.

"When Australia quit Oceania to join Asia in 2006 it left New Zealand behind but if we were to leave that would be fatal for the confederation so it is not something we are considering.

"If Oceania goes, Asia could be split in half (west and east), causing great ruptures within the game.

"What we will certainly consider, however, is whether our World Cup qualifying path in future should be through Asia."

Van Hattum acknowledged that Australia benefitted greatly from joining the Asian Football Confederation but he insisted that New Zealand had valid reasons for not following its trans-Tasman neighbour's lead.
 

"We have no doubt that Australia has raised its standards considerably since joining Asia but our circumstances are different and there are a lot of things to consider," he said.

"Playing in Asia would involve massive travel costs and we can also argue that it is easier for us to qualify for major events like the World Cup and the Olympics by staying in Oceania.

"Oceania still has half a spot in the World Cup at the moment and we should keep taking advantage of that.

"There is an argument for both sides."

New Zealand is still in the running for a place in the World Cup finals in 2014, despite failing in the Nations Cup which doubled as a qualifying tournament for Brazil.

The four semi-finalists – New Zealand, New Caledonia, Solomon Island and eventual winner Tahiti – will engage in a home-and-away round-robin series from September and the winning team will face a team from CONCACAF in a final play-off in November 2013 for a place in the World Cup.

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1110363/New-Zealand-won't-abandon-Oceania

Found it on some Aussie website tonight.

I think New Zealand should join in 2018.

I dont see any point in merging with Asia. We wont be playing any more friendlies than those that we currently play, the only more regular football we'll be seeing is a handful more games from the Asia Cup, if that. And we'll lose those easier paths to tournaments. We wont get any better by just playing a few more games. And Oceania as a whole has more say collectively on FIFA matters than what we would if we moved to Asia.

And what i mean by a 'few' more games is that we'll only be substituting what we already play in the Oceania Cup, with the qualifying and group matches of the Asia Cup, as we wouldnt exactly be guaranteed to get any further than that. Same with the WC, we've currently got 6 games to go until we're there, we may not even get more than that if we're knocked out in Asia group stages.