The tournament will be held at The Trusts Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, from July 23 to 27 and the two Asian teams will be joined by sides from five OFC member associations – New Caledonia, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Tahiti and Vanuatu.
As this year’s event is not a regional qualifier for the FIFA Futsal World Cup, OFC is able to extend a welcome to teams from other confederations and the invitational nature of the tournament may increase further with the possibility of one more Asian representative taking up the offer.
The teams will be drawn into two groups and each side will compete in a round robin system before a knockout stage involving semi-finals, a play off for third and a final.
OFC Futsal and Beach Soccer Development Officer Paul Toohey is pleased with the expanded format and says the tournament signals a new era for futsal in the region.
“The invitation to teams from AFC is designed to both increase the technical level of the tournament and to create new television and online audiences for what is one of OFC’s most popular competitions,” Toohey says.
“Each of the five Oceania representatives have made excellent progress in their futsal programmes since the last competition two years ago and this tournament represents a significant step in the sides’ FIFA Futsal World Cup 2016 qualification campaign.”
Toohey expects the tournament to feature a new crop of young, specialist futsal players.
“All the teams realise that to have any chance of success you need to think long-term. Solomon Islands are a great example of this, with the bulk of the team having been together since they were twelve years old. Gone are the days of stitching together a side made up of recent converts to futsal from football, you need a vision for the next four to eight years at least, with a youth programme in place to back it up. So I think we’ll see some young, fast and skillful new players on show in all the teams.”
Solomon Islands, whose team is affectionately known as the Kurukuru by its fanatical supporters, are the defending champions of the OFC Futsal Championship and have won the last four titles in a row.
The Kurukuru will make history if they can hang onto their crown yet again as Australia, who left OFC to join the Asian confederation in 2006, are the only other side to have become champions four times.
Fittingly, the Australians will get the chance to prevent that from happening after accepting OFC’s invitation to take part and will be in confident mood after rubbing shoulders with the best players on the planet at the World Cup last year in Thailand. They also experienced success on their previous trip to New Zealand, completing a clean three-match sweep of national team the Futsal Whites to claim the inaugural Trans Tasman Cup last September.
The Kurukuru also took part in Thailand 2012 and wrote themselves into the record books with a thrilling 4-3 win over Guatemala – the first ever victory for a current OFC member at the World Cup.
They are the only nation to have won the OFC championship since Australia’s departure but are likely to face the toughest examination of their credentials yet with the inclusion of the Asian representatives and the continual growth of futsal throughout the Pacific region.

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