FIFA Boosts Oceania Football: New Goals for 2026 & Beyond

To secure the future of the Oceania Football Confederation and its 11 members, FIFA has committed to playing a hands-on role in the region. I'm very happy to be in New Caledonia today. It's a magnificent, beautiful country, but also one of football. It's a country which has produced world champions before, like Christian Carambu, football champions. In 2023, FIFA President Gianni Infantino inaugurated a headquarters for the New Caledonian Football Association, constructed with support from the FIFA Forward Development Programme. Infantino also spent time in nearby Vanuatu and the Cook Islands, committing to infrastructure development and celebrating the 2023 Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand as a tournament for the whole of the Oceania region. We will invest together, we will work together. We need the land, as we were discussing with the Minister, and we will build because we want to give opportunities and chances to all children, all girls and all boys in Vanuatu to have an opportunity to be able to shine. We see there is now a Women's World Cup going on in New Zealand and Australia. This is the World Cup of the whole of Oceania, of the whole of the Pacific, and that's why we are here, we are the official ball of that Women's World Cup, because it has to be an inspiration for all women, but also for all men, for all girls, for all boys, that football is a possibility, is a way, not just for the players, but for everything that is around. In both New Caledonia and Vanuatu, Infantino promoted the launch of the region's OFC Professional League, a vital component in the creation of a football economy. We also want to bring professional football in the Pacific, a Pacific League, of which one club has to be in Vanuatu, which gives, again, opportunities for the talented children of this country to shine, and then maybe, of course, if they are good enough and become even better, to be transferred to some of the top clubs in Europe. When I was elected, one of the most important projects that I wanted to do during my mandate is to create this Professional League in Oceania. I think this is one of the most needed platforms of competition that we need to prepare to be competitive at the international level. This is what I think Oceania needs. In 2019, the Oceania Football Confederation formed a task force to determine the viability of a Professional Football League for the Oceania region. The first attempt in 2021 was aborted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then a second attempt was delayed to 2026. We know the potential in Oceania is huge, but it's very little untapped because we had no this level of competition in Oceania. This is why there is not much attention from the rest of the world that there are good players in Oceania. But we believe that with this competition, there will be more windows showcased about our potential players and there will be chances that they can join other professional clubs in the rest of the world. So this is my ambition. The region is the hardest in the world to establish a competition of this nature. The lack of existing infrastructure, the economies of scale and the start-up costs mean long-term success will require a major financial partnership with FIFA and the governing body's commitment to riding out some early speed humps. Always dream for it is to create this Oceania Confederation become the last professional confederation among the six confederations. It is the only Oceania and we want changes to become professional. And with this professional league ambition, we want to also change the management to become more professional. So these two have to go parallel. If you don't start to put professionalism in Oceania, there will always be some weaknesses in developing professional administration so that it can back up the professional league. So this is what I believe is that the professional league is the main driver project for the whole Oceania. To further embed the OFC within FIFA, delegates from the region and our regular visitors to international gatherings encouraged to return to their member associations and share examples of best practice from around the globe. It is important to be able to make comparisons, to be able to learn from other countries, cultures and organisations, to be able to improve, to see our differences at a technological level, to see what kind of technology we use, what is different, what we can improve, what we can do or not do. That's what is really interesting in fact, is seeing the tools that everyone uses and seeing that if something works in someone else's situation, then why not try it for us. I think one of the key improvements that we've seen is the increase of women in leadership and I think it's a key area to work on. In the past, everybody knows football is a very male-dominated industry, so having women in decision-making really helps to balance the decision-making in that sense. And then it trickles down to women in football and women footballers, so it helps us in a more holistic decision-making process. So if you take the example of looking at other interests in terms of football, so we look at a football player, you may be just looking at their contract, but then women think differently, they think about their personal life, their family, what keeps them happy, so it's kind of like bringing in everything together, so you have men and women both sharing the decision-making, that I feel is a good progress forward. There is no question the OFC is a long way behind the rest of the world. But at the highest level of the game, the building blocks of progress are being laid. With the amount of money circulating in football, some of which can go towards supporting the rise of the OFC, it is surely only a matter of time before this football-mad part of the world becomes another nursery for the next generation of superstars.