You've got to be kidding

Just remind me has this whole argument not come about because  Blatter has said its way past time that Oceania put a decent team into the CWC and if the situation wasnt rectified then they will loose there spot.At this stage i dont think Phoenix has any right to play in it either but it just staggers me the head in the sand attitude of many here who seem to blame the Phoenix and forget who it was who made the statement about improving the team sent. Have heard little in the way of solutions put forward so can only guess most of you are more than happy to see the money just go completely.

Shoot Blatter?

I think its called cutting off your nose to spite your face

Btw The nix's players are registered to play in the A-league and does not require an international clearance as agreed with the FFA, NZF and FIFA for an NZ side to play in another country league for full professional purposes. It's essentially been flagged and hence it is possible for them to play in O-league if it is OK with OFC.

The AFC has made the ACL competition as Asian clubs only, the nix is not one of those clubs aas they have said that any New Zealander players are actually foreign players and there is only allow four foreign players per Asian club team participating in AFC competition. This restricts the nix as a club as they are not invited by the FFA to play in the ACL if they won it and restricts NZ players for any A-league club that participate in ACL or any Asian competition.

Because they are an NZ club, even though they play in an Australia competition, they should be allow to play in the O-league with OFC blessings because of their right as the only professional oceania club or be given the right to complete to represent as Oceania's best football team.

As the only professional club in Oceania, they should be given first round byes in the O-league and go straight to the playoffs like it is in some of the other competitions around the world and this should be OFC decision and not NZF, FIFA or FFA.

If they beat the Oceania pool winners in an home and away matches, there would no debate as in who is the best team to represent Oceania. If one of the pool winners were to be an NZFC club, then it is OK for that club to have the selection of the available other NZFC players to boaster their team in the playoffs. The winner of the playoffs are deserved winners. All teams should just get down to work under the condition changes.

There are pro clubs in Tahiti so you cant keep using the only pro team in Oceania arguement
Maybe Seatter has been so into getting the Phoenix into O-League and then maybe CWC
because of the debt of NZF and a lot of the money from a Phoenix appearence at CWC would of found its way to NZF and not the NZFC clubs and Phoenix as he says?

That's a bit of conjecture about Seatter and the debt and is not warranted on this as there are plenty of sources saying there the money would still go to NZFC Clubs.



The reality is that if the Phoenix were able to win a CWC game then that is reinstating OFC in the CWC and also gaining more prize money. We do want the best team to represent OFC, if that team is the Phoenix, . . . then so be it.

Forgotten about the pro teams in tahiti. . .

As for the tahiti pro team, well you have them playing already in this years O-league in pool play.

However. . . the Nix were not able to play in O-league pool play and so as a short gap measure they would have to be introduced in this season's playoffs and then next season's O-league, the Nix would enter into pool play automatically as the only OFC club in the A-league competition without any contenders by default. The NZFC clubs had a pre-contractual clause to accept the inclusion of the Phoenix in the O-League in the future.

The onus is with the OFC not with the NZF as the Phoenix can be an New Zealand rep from the A-league competition despite not being in the NZFC.

It's all OFC decision for this O-League season and NZF has secured the future inclusion of New Zealand Rep from the A-League competition and this would have been with full consultation with OFC for that clause to be included in the NZFC contracts for O-League.

So with the very strong threat of withdrawing OFC participation in the CWC altogether, it maybe that the OFC (who has the vice-president in FIFA) wanted the Phoenix participation in the 0-League and looking to force NZFC clubs hand to make concessions to that.

Its all about getting professional clubs only for the CWC it is proven that the amateur clubs are not up to champion football standard. The truth is that amateur clubs are not up to professional because there is not enough time to train and not enough games to be competitive enough especially with the champion professional sides.

If it be professional sides only, then only the Phoenix and the Tahiti sides would complete for the CWC. It would not be much of a competition. Since the NZFC amateur sides were able to beat the Tahiti sides still.

I can only guess that there is a FIFA push for OFC and the Oceania nations to turn professional if they can. And that the reality is that FIFA, OFC has indicated to NZF that a NZ A-league team should be included for the O-League for the CWC tournament. NZF always wanted the best NZ side to be included and without the NZ's A-League team it would have been an injustice to the football public.

FIFA does not mind the inclusion, OFC does not mind the inclusion, NZF does not mind the inclusion, FFA always knew that phoenix is not an Asian but an Oceania side

... the only hurdle is the NZFC clubs and as long they are able to be included to complete in the O-League as well as being on an even playing field. That is, balancing out the inclusion of foreign player policy for both sides. I could only see that NZF has to be careful about change this policy in face of the transfer policy, because of the two club limit of a player in year. At the moment, Phoenix are allow four overseas players and unlimited Australians for their A-league squad and the NZFC sides are only allow three overseas player in the NZFC.

I would imagine that NZF would have to change the NZFC foreign player policy and make it similar to A-League foreign player policy and so change from three imports to four imports and then allow unlimited Australians.

This would be a short term problem for NZFC. But overtime NZF has to expand the NZFC teams and allow this type of professionalism to improve the NZFC and allow an unbalanced competition like over in the EPL where the richest clubs would have lots of foreign players and the poorer clubs would have to homegrown players to complete against the foreign players and thus improving the overall domestic game. Because that what has happen when the Division one turned into the EPL, it allow the restriction of foreign players to be lifted.

I still believe there should be some foreign player restriction but allow unlimited Australians to lift the game up for the short term at least. This also means that we have to expand the NZFC teams to include more new Zealanders instead until we have a bit of gap between the richer clubs and the poorer clubs. I sort of believe that it is an necessary evil until we could have better domestic players on par with foreign players. It would improve the NZFC standard significantly and it would need some monitoring.

shooting Blatter ....what a waste of a good bullet...

You could shoot, stab, strangle, poison, or even decapitate Blatter all you want, but it won't solve the problems that NZ football is facing, and will continue to face until some people get their heads out of the sand.