OFC Nations Cup

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OFC Nations cup logo

The OFC Nations Cup is the biennial football competition held among the Oceania Football Confederation member nations. It has been held every two years since 1996 by the OFC; before 1996 there were two other tournaments held at irregular intervals, under the name Oceania Nations Cup.

Historically, a very large gulf separated Australia and New Zealand from the smaller island competitors. Little attention is paid to the tournament by the rest of the football world.^{[citation needed]} The competition however has increased in importance due to the fact it now qualifies the winner for the lucrative Confederations Cup.

Australia ceased to be a member of the OFC on January 1, 2006, having elected to join the Asian Football Confederation, and hence will no longer be involved in this competition.

1 History
2 Format
3 Future tournaments
4 Results
5 Total Wins
6 Total Hosts

[edit] History

This tournament began in 1973 as the "Oceania Cup". A second edition took place in 1980, then the tournament was discontinued.

In the early editions non-FIFA members were allowed to participate such as New Hebrides, which became Vanuatu after gaining independence in 1980.

In 1996 it reappeared as the "Oceania Nations Cup" and served as a qualifier for the Confederations Cup, as the Oceania Football Confederation had recently become a separate FIFA confederation.

[edit] Format

For the first three tournaments, Australia and New Zealand were seeded into the tournament automatically, while the remaining ten nations played to qualify. The Polynesian and Melanesian Cups, each played between five nations grouped on a geographical basis, served as qualifications via a round-robin tournament, with the highest ranked two teams in each competition qualifying for the actual OFC Nations Cup, in a six-way round-robin tournament.

With the postponement and then cancellation of the Melanesian Cup, and a similar fate befalling its Polynesian equivalent, the format of the tournament changed in 2002. FIFA rankings determined the seedings of all twelve teams, and the lower six teams played a group stage for two qualifier positions into the main tournament. The Actual 2002 Cup tournament was played with two groups of four teams (again in round-robin style), which led into a 4-way knockout stage, playing for the top four positions.

In 2004, the format changed once again, returning to a format similar to that of the 1996-2000 tournaments, with five teams each playing in two qualifying groups and Australia and New Zealand seeded to the actual tournament, played as a group stage of six, with a home and away Final played between the two highest-placed teams.

[edit] Future tournaments

2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (OFC)

[edit] Results

Year	Host	Winner	result	Runner-up	3rd Place	result	4th Place
1973 Details	New Zealand	New Zealand	2 - 0	Tahiti	New Caledonia	2 - 1	New Hebrides
1980 Details	New Caledonia	Australia	4 - 2	Tahiti	New Caledonia	2 - 1	Fiji
1996 Details	home/away	Australia	6 - 0 5 - 0	Tahiti	New Zealand	no match	Solomon Islands
1998 Details	Australia	New Zealand	1 - 0	Australia	Fiji	4 - 2	Tahiti
2000 Details	Tahiti	Australia	2 - 0	New Zealand	Solomon Islands	2 - 1	Vanuatu
2002 Details	New Zealand	New Zealand	1 - 0	Australia	Tahiti	1 - 0	Vanuatu
2004 Details	Australia (group stage)	Australia	5 - 1 6 - 0	Solomon Islands	New Zealand	no match	Fiji
2008 Details	no host