OFC Auckland, 14 Nov 2003: The Acting OFC president, Mr Tautulu Roebeck, and OFC honorary president and Oceania ambassador, Mr Charles Dempsey, returned from Europe today pleased at the outcome of meetings with FIFA president, Mr Joseph Blatter and UEFA (Europe) president, Lennart Johansson this week. The delegation also met with FIFA vice president and Chairman of the FIFA Committee for Legal Matters, Mr David Will.
According to Mr Roebeck, the trip had been worthwhile and invaluable in improving Oceania’s position and international relations.
“The trip was a success and we were pleased to have the support of FIFA and UEFA on a number of OFC initiatives,” said Mr Roebeck.
Discussions on the subject of 2006 World Cup qualification also proved promising after the non-acceptance of the initial proposal for a four-way playoff tournament between the confederations with half berths. Mr Roebeck explained that the four-way playoff was not possible because the proposed dates did not fit in with the FIFA Coordinated International Match Calendar. The difficulty in releasing players for this proposed tournament was also an issue.
However, Mr Roebeck was optimistic that Oceania would be granted a favourable route to the FIFA World Cup in 2006 when the official draw is announced in Frankfurt, Germany on 5 December 2003.
“We made mention for consideration of our 2006 World Cup qualifying proposal based on geographical position which would mean the Oceania champion playing the Asia qualifier and the CONCACAF (North, Central American & Caribbean) qualifier playing South American’s qualifier.”
“We would be hopeful this proposal will gain the necessary support for it to be approved in December and failing that, we are confident the alternative option the OFC will be pushing for would be to hold a random draw between the four confederations with half berths.”
Mr Roebeck added the proposal based on geographical position represented a fairer pathway given the advantage the other confederations had in terms of qualification.
“Our proposal is in the interest of fair play and is the logical choice,” he remarked.
“The other confederations already have a number of direct entries for their teams, for example both AFC (Asia) and CONMEBOL (South America) have four full berths each and CONCACAF (North, Central America & Caribbean) have three full berths, but Oceania remains without a single direct berth. Therefore our case for a fairer pathway should deserve recognition based on this anomaly and fair play.”
Mr Dempsey joined the acting president in hailing the European visit as a success.
“Oceania is in a much better position on a number of fronts than we were in the last few weeks and I must thank Mr Blatter, Mr Johansson and Mr Will for their positive input during our meetings with them. It was a most successful trip and Oceania will benefit greatly from it,” said Mr Dempsey.