You make valid points even if hard ……… Asia pays the Bills ……….. the old Scott saying ………” he who pays the piper calls the tune”…

Also in terms of our broader interests, they lie north not south-east. Australian football is far more likely to be advantaged by an AFC which is strong in its core leagues of Japan, South Korea and the Middle-East, and which focuses on bringing up to scratch the game in China and in one of the larger S-E Asian nations (Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam) with that group of 6 or 7 countries including us forming a high-standard ‘core’ for the confederation. While I hold some affection for our Kiwi neighbours, strategically they are totally insignificant in this picture.

In the end I don’t blame Bin Hammen for doing what he is doing. He’s only looking after the best interest of Asian Football like he is paid to do and removing Wellington Phoenix from A-league will be doing Asian football a favour and just like it’s in the best interest of Asian football to not have OFC to merge with AFC. After all AFC has no obligation to OFC it just has obligation to itself.

However if Oceania Football dies a slow death then I blame FIFA for not doing anything. After all it’s there job to ensure the good of the game is maintain and it’s there job to look after football as a whole and not just for a particular confederation. OFC need to merge with AFC for the good of the game even if it’s detrimental to AFC. There inaction on this matter is rather disapointing.

Unfortunately James, as has been highlighted several times in this discussion, perfect sense rarely enters the thought process in either politics or football – and this issue features both.

b) We won’t give MbH a threat. I was speaking from his perspective, wondering if the thought would enter his mind. We need them more than they need us, but they still benefit from us being in the AFC and MbH knows it. Don’t underestimate the importance of the World Cup Finals spot we are carrying for them, or the fact that when we go to places like Holland and win we are flying the flag for them. I wonder if they would have been able to redevelop the ACL without us as the fourth power in the East? It probably tears MbH’s guts out that we’re on track to qualify for 2010 – but it’d hurt him even more if we took the AFC’s last spot as an OFC rep (like we should have in 1997). So while we won’t go as far as I may have suggested, I’d still like to see us play hardball here and bring FIFA into the equation. I don’t want to see the FFA simply roll over on MbH’s command.

Hopefully the Phoenix will get through the back door as an “Australian” club like we discussed above and any political posturing will be mooted. Either that or a FIFA ruling would be the only way to keep the Phoenix alive. Even if NZ became part of the AFC it wouldn’t be enough because MbH has already stated we can’t have teams from other AFC member nations either.

But there would be a lot of work for them to do to sort out the OFC mess.

But risking sending us back to OFC? No way. NZ aren’t worth that much.

Although I agree that AFC accepting Australia was of mutual benefit. Australia has regular competitions and save us from football isolation and AFC has an extra footballing powerhouse, keep a WC 4.5 spot and help assist professionalising Asian Football. Nevertheless we need AFC more then AFC needs us and they were going pretty fine without us. We should used whatever influence we have to fight for our interest but in the end we have to play ball when the final decision is made whether we like it or not.

I will be pretty shock if we give an ultimatum to Bin Hammen saying “Either let us keep Wellington Phoenix in the A-league or we’ll leave AFC join Oceania”.

Towser – First you say we are not in a position to dictate terms, but then you (correctly) say we are crucial to the AFC’s plans to professionalise Asian football. We are the #1 nation in Asia at the moment, so I think that gives us enough leverage not to be one of MbH’s puppets. I think the FFA should stand their ground here and back the Phoenix. How far will MbH push us? Will he risk letting us go back to the OFC and pinching one of their World Cup spots every four years? Australia’s acceptance into Asia was hardly a selfless act by the AFC. IMO MbH should be more worried about FIFA than we should of him and his agenda.

Some interesting arm wrestles ahead methinks on this subject.
Personally I hope it is sorted quickly one way or another .
Procrastination serves none of the parties involved.

I just believe that FFA should stick up for NZ football and argue it’s case for Wellington to remain in the A League. They should try to convince AFC and FIFA in the merits of a NZ in A-league because I think that is the right and fair thing to do. No one saying that Australia should dictate terms but we should try to argue for our best interest. Obviously if they rules otherwise then we have to respect the ruling but I don’t think we should do nothing and just let NZ football die without even TRYING.

However that may be loophole and a way Wellington Phoenix can get around this. The phoenix will never be allowed into ACL by that regulations and they may be kick out by 2011 if they remain a NZ club. However there are talks by Phoenix that they will turn themselves in an Australian club that is based in Wellington

“We’re in the process of talking with the FFA about transferring the A-League licence from NZ Football to Wellington Phoenix,” club chief executive Tony Pignata said.

“If that happens we would effectively become an Aussie club that lives in New Zealand and whether New Zealand becomes part of Asia or not would be less relevant to us.

I wonder if that will work and will AFC buy that . Would that means that NZ players will be considered foreign players to play for Wellington?

Have been searching to find as I said yesterday who holds sway on this matter(ie Phoenix in or out). No real luck in finding a clear cut answer. However have found the regulations for the AFC Champions League(above), from which it is absolutely clear that the Phoenix can never(whilst Oceania exists as a seperate confederation) participate.
So MBH was emphatic on SBS about the Phoenix & their use by date. Even if FIFA are able to overule the AFC on this why would they? Lets go back to the fact that if we want to progress as a Football nation we are shackled to the AFC. Some people in Australia may wish to believe that somehow we can dictate terms in this relationship. “Yer Dreamin”.
So MBH & the AFC have their masterplan to professionalise Football in Asia. We are one of the few nations with the economy to support a professional League so will be a major part of the AFC’s plans. Part of the criteria to obtain more spots in the ACL is an increase in teams. Yet looking at it from the AFC’s perspective again, say we have a 12 team league perhaps the minimum required to allow 4 Australian teams. yet one of those is the Phoenix. Not to hard to imagine MBH & Co saying our rules state that your only allowed 4 teams if all clubs in the A-League are Australian.
MBH then puts this to FIFA in relation to the AFC’s master plan & says the FFA are blocking our expansion plans(of which they are part) by continuing to accomadate the Phoenix.
No brainer FIFA will applaud the AFC’s initiative & support them all the way.

THe issue of whether NZ & Oceania generally should be a part of the AFC is another matter entirely, but on the above subject FIFA will back MBH all the way.

Killing off Wellington Phoenix may not remove the threat of NZ for this WCQ but it will remove the threat of NZ in WCQ for 2014, 2018 and any later World Cup.

Letting Oceania bleed to death is a lot more easier then letting OFC joining them. The biggest advantage of OFC joining Asia is the extra half a spot for the World Cup. However it’s far more easier getting that 1/2 if you kill off the competition and ensure that the best Oceania side is uncompetitive (I expect New Zealand to lose badly to the 5th best Asian side). So AFC get’s the 1/2 a spot anyway and they don’t have to spend money and resorces in developing the region in Oceania.

It’s a win win scenario for AFC.

Both dasliva and I mentioned Australian teams playing in the Singapore league – back when we were still in the OFC. As I also referenced, you now have Mexican teams (from CONCACAF) playing in the Copa Libertadores, the CONMEBOL championship. This would be like inviting Chelsea and Man United to play in the ACL, which would be ridiculous, yet FIFA have endorsed it. You also have the crazy case of South Africa playing World Cup qualifiers despite the fact that they’ve already qualified as host nation! So I don’t think it is such a stretch for us to have a team from the OFC in our league.

I think the obvious way for MbH to protect Asia’s interests is to dissolve the OFC and bring it into the AFC. It’s a pity we didn’t try to do that when Sepp Blatter handed the OFC the automatic World Cup Finals spot – before taking it back when CONMEBOL threw a tantrum. The AFC would have drooled over pinching that extra spot from CONMEBOL and would have paid a price as hefty as taking over the OFC to get it, and once in the hands of a more powerful body like the AFC it probably would not have been as easy for Sepp to reverse the decision. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing though. Right now if the AFC wants to eliminate the OFC’s threat to its WC spots (at all levels) it has two choices – get the OFC to join up, or let the OFC bleed to death. Unfortunately it seems to have picked the latter.

Secondly, the complete irrationality of the position of the Phoenix is summarized by them being the only club in world football without a pathway to the Club World Cup: as a team based in New Zealand they are not allowed to represent the A-League in the ACL, and nor can they qualify for the O-League, as they do not play in an Oceania competition. (Incidentally, they recently beat Waitakere United 7-0 in a match that was meant to help prepare the Auckland club for the upcoming Club World Cup – this pretty much says it all about the standard of club soccer in Oceania.)

Thirdly, we all know that Oceania was a basket case even before Australia left it, so now it is just a total nut-job. Why can’t someone put it out of its misery? The All Whites have very little identity because they so rarely play meaningful opposition. They would benefit even more from being in Asia than Australia has.

Finally, those who read Jesse’s postings would have gained an insight into the strange (for us) world of Asian football politics. One has to ask: what is Bin Hammam really getting at with his comments? There is obviously a little bit of apprehension that because of the Phoenix playing in the A-League, New Zealand will be more competitive in their playoff with Asia’s 5th-placed team for a spot in South Africa. But I suspect this is a minor issue. If the Phoenix didn’t exist, then the best NZ players in it (e.g. Shane Smeltz, Tony Lockhead) would without doubt be playing at either another A-League club or a professional club elsewhere in the world. So it’s debatable whether the Phoenix raise the standard of the All Whites.

What I suspect Bin Hammam is really getting at is Oceania’s place in the scheme of things. Those who have recently followed the women’s U17 WCs, U20 WCs and Olympics will have noticed that NZ was at all three, while other leading Asian teams did not qualify (e.g. Australia was not at any of these). Especially with Australia now out of Oceania, it is being noticed that an Oceania team is taking a spot at these WCs (often out of just 16 spots in all), and that that spot might otherwise go to Asia if Oceania did not exist.

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KB

We should support the absorption of Oceania into the Asian Confederation. Because with two thirds of the world now living in the Asian region and the added South Pacific region, we will gain more voting power for Asia…

This would mean that we in Asia could win every FIFA world cup bid forthwith, which would mean Australia the only country in the region apart from Japan and Korea in the Asian Confederation would dominate the FIFA world cup tournaments like UEFA have done in the past… Can you see it laddie; a world cup in Australia every 12 years.?.. Now I would like to see that….

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KB

Agreed

I would like A-league to eventually incorporate teams from SE asia in the near future.

Also if we do have a second division. We definitely need more teams than just Australian clubs to fill it.

I guess I’m just used to Australian referring to Adelaide with a population of 1.2 million to be considered a “minor city’ that 350k must be really minor.

As for Canberra, just because I am for Wellington being in the A-League doesn’t mean I think that Aussie cities should miss out in their place. I spoke in my post above that I felt having Wellington (and perhaps another one or two Kiwi teams) would help us make a larger league than we’d be able to on our own. I believe we will struggle to expand the A-League beyond 12 clubs if we have only Aussie teams. So, which would we rather have – a 12 team league with only Aussie teams, or a 16+ team league with clubs from NZ, SE Asia, etc? This is not Europe, we need to think outside of the square if we want a quality professional league system here. Hopefully MbH will be succeeded by a more open-minded president.

On the one hand, the WCQ playoff structure (where the 5th best team in Asia plays the OFC team for entry to the WC) means that we are direct confederation level competitors to NZ. On that basis we have no interest in helping them.

On the other hand we have an obligation, and also a general interest in the talent and standards of football in the south western pacific.

Short of the proposed OFC-AFC merge (and I agree if this happened the AFC would need to split into conferences to manage itself) I think Fozzie’s suggestion that our obligation is changed to something like each HAL club having an Oceania player in their structure, perhaps with some salary cap relief to compensate. Structurally the continued existence of the Phoenix is untenable in my view and I see the basic point that MBH is making.

On a final note, it is incorrect to call Canberra a minor city. It is a city of 350000 people (counting Queanbeyan as part of it) and growing; most definitely on par with Wollongong, Newcastle, Townsville etc. Many European cities boasting famous football clubs are based in cities with similar kinds of population. This is not to indicate some kind of particular support for the Canberra bid, but lets not underplay the importance of that city in Australia guys.

From what I heard I think the only obstacle for Canberra is the amount of guarantee memberships as the financial backing was covered. I think only recently they have got past the minimum required of members for an A-league bid. in anycase good luck to canberra. It’s nice to have extra team in the A-league and football a long with rugby will be one of the few leagues to have canberra.

Yes Australia isn’t the only country to have not the most prominant city as a capital. So I guess it isn’t that unique. However I would still say that Canberra is a more minor city in respective to Australia then all of the other city you mention. Canberra is the 8th most populous city in Australia and has only 300 k living there. Canberra is very very small for a capital city even compared to other countries that have “minor city” as capital.

My only point is that due to Canberra being a minor city the league doesn’t need to have a capital city to be credible unlike other countries such as UK , Spain, Italy etc.

having a minor city as our capital is not unique to Australia. Take a look at the following countries, and you would be hard pressed to say that the nations capital is the pre-eminent city in that nation.

USA – Washington
Brazil – Brasilia
Canada – Ottawa
NZ – Wellington

Anyway, from what I have read, Canberra have already secured a stack of funding, including $2.5 from ACT Government and $2m from investors – should be a walk in the park to get admitted.

Personally I believe there is not the back up for yours & dasilvas statement that FIFA will overule MBH. If FIFA did this to UEFA there would be problems. Dont have time today but will check this out further tomorrow to see who holds sway on this.

Dasilva

On Canberra. Disagree with you completely for the reasons I gave. So we’ll have to part ways on this.