I do kinda laugh at a lot of the theories here because there is one crucial detail that is missing in all of it:
FIFA will not allow us to leave the confederation and AFC would not take us if we could.
FIFA would not allow NZ to leave because then OFC falls away without a single team to provide any credible performance anywhere. OFC then becomes just a basket case outfit at the bottom of the ocean that gets $10m thrown at it every other year and the members think FIFA has made it rain cash. Ooohhh Fiji won a game, they also conceded how many? Those teams get better playing us and remember, it's very very rare they play anyone outside of OFC let alone friendlies in windows against each other cause they are poor.
What do we bring to AFC? Another mouth to feed, talent that is not superior in anyway other than 2-3 players at the pointy end, another 3 hours to the far reach of that confederation and more importantly, no revenue stream in any form. TV money? Sky pay a dollar and six pence for the Phoenix games!
I get that right now, across some of our teams, we are a bit shark. The 20s are failing to show us the future, the 17s are a managerial shambles and our men's side has a TBC over them. That said, in our current state, we are still head and shoulders above other sides in our region and that's not saying a lot.
One last salvo - so everything mystically happens and we get to leave. Most likely OFC would be absorbed, redrawn with AFC and we would be back with the same basket cases people say we should escape from. Oh and throw in Australia and a couple of other pacific rim entities. Explain how that would help us or be any different than we have now?
There is no solution or quick fix. We are where we are in this part of the world and we just like have to take it. A simple "we should leave OFC and join AFC" is exactly that, simple and should be equally dismissed. Martin talks a good game in the press about making noises about leaving. Let's see how that's goes...
