AUCKLAND – At its meeting last Sunday, 16 March 2003, the OFC Executive Committee confirmed that the OFC Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament will be deferred to January, 2004.
The OFC Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament was supposed to be held in June this year, but the busy competition schedules this time of the year for many of the participating teams meant it was appropriate to defer to the tournament. New Zealand will be involved in the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup in France while many of the island nations will be involved in the 2003 South Pacific Games in Fiji.
The 2004 OFC Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament will involve two groups of five teams as follows:
Group A
Australia
Samoa
Papua New Guinea
Solomon Islands
Fiji
Group B
New Zealand
Cook Islands
American Samoa
Tonga
Vanuatu
The Group A tournament is to be hosted by Australia and the Group B tournament is to be hosted by New Zealand. The winner of each group will play off home and away to find the qualifying team that will represent the OFC at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.
It is proposed that the tournament be held in the last two weeks of January 2004, the exact dates will be confirmed to the national associations shortly.