The Oceania Football Confederation is one of the six continental confederations of international association football. Its members consisting of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and several Pacific Island countries. It promotes the game in Oceania and allows the member nations to qualify for the FIFA World Cup. OFC is predominantly made up of island nations where association football is not the most popular sport. Consequently, the OFC has little influence in the wider football world, either in terms of international competition or as a source of players for high-profile club competitions. OFC is the only confederation to have not had at least one international title, the best result being Australia making the final of the 1997 Confederations Cup. In 2006, the OFC's largest and most successful nation, Australia, left to join the Asian Football Confederation, leaving New Zealand as the largest federation within the OFC. David Chung has been the President of OFC until April 2018. Rajesh Patel is the Senior Vice President, Lee Harmon is the Vice-President while Tai Nicholas is the General Secretary.
History
The confederation formed in 1966 with the following as founding members:
Australia resigned as an OFC member in 1972 to pursue membership with the Asian Football Confederation, but rejoined the OFC in 1978. Chinese Taipei was an OFC member from 1975 to 1989. In 1996, FIFA confirmed OFC as a full confederation and granted it a seat on the FIFA executive. In 1998 the OFC unveiled a new logo and an official magazine, entitled The Wave. On 24 May 2004, New Caledonia became the 12th member of the OFC. On 1 January 2006, Australia left the OFC again and joined the Asian Football Confederation. In 2008, an associate member, the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association, also left the OFC and in 2009 joined the AFC as an associate member. In late 2009, the Palau Football Association, geographically a part of Oceania but with no official ties to the OFC, also applied for the same status with the AFC as the Northern Mariana Islands association but was not successful.
Presidents
Member nations
Current members
OFC is made up of 11 full member associations and 3 associate members. Those three are associate members of the OFC, but are not FIFA members.
Israel entered OFC World Cup qualification in 1986 and 1990 due to political reasons, though it never became a formal OFC member.
Non-members
Several sovereign states and dependencies in Oceania have national teams with no affiliation. All play infrequently and may have been inactive for several years. There are also some which do not have a national team.
There are four independent Oceanic states, each a member of the United Nations, that have national teams that are not affiliated with OFC or FIFA
has sent representatives to the FIFA World Cup four times: Australia in 1974 and 2006, and New Zealand in 1982 and 2010. Neither Australia in 1974 nor New Zealand in 1982 and 2010 progressed beyond the first round. Of the four teams, only Australia in 2006 advanced to the second round. The OFC is the only FIFA confederation that does not have a guaranteed spot in the World Cup finals. Between 1966 and 1982, OFC teams joined the Asian zone qualification tournament, while from 1986 onwards, the winners of the Oceanian zone qualification tournament have to enter the intercontinental play-offs against teams from other confederations in order to gain a spot in the FIFA World Cup finals.
OFC play-off record
1970 AFC–OFC Final Round 1974 AFC–OFC Final Round 1986 UEFA–OFC play-off 1990 CONMEBOL–OFC play-off Israel played in the OFC zone for political reasons. 1994 CONCACAF–OFC play-off 1994 CONMEBOL–OFC play-off 1998 AFC–OFC play-off 2002 CONMEBOL–OFC play-off 2006 CONMEBOL–OFC play-off 2010 AFC–OFC play-off 2014 CONCACAF–OFC play-off 2018 CONMEBOL–OFC play-off
