Photo Credit: Harold Cunningham FIFA
- The Oceania Preliminary Qualifying draw for the FIFA World Cup 26™ has taken place at FIFA HQ in Zurich.
- OFC has an unprecedented guaranteed qualifying spot with a further place available via the FIFA Intercontinental Play-off Tournament
- The road to Canada, Mexico and the United States will begin for four Oceania Nations with match day one and two in Samoa in September.
The Oceania Football Confederation’s (OFC) 11 full member nations have discovered the road that could lead to them being one of the 48 teams at the most inclusive FIFA World Cup™ ever.
France’s FIFA World Cup 98™ winner and FIFA Legend Christian Karembeu, who was born in New Caledonia, assisted Dame Sarai Bareman, FIFA’s Chief Women’s Football Officer, with the draw held at the Home of FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland.
Based on the men’s FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking ™ of July 2024, the four lowest-ranked teams – Samoa, Cook Islands, American Samoa and Tonga – will compete in round one’s knockout-match format in September in Apia to decide which of the quartet joins the seven highest-ranked sides in the second round.
The 8th ranked Cook Islands will face the 11th ranked Tonga and the 9th ranked American Samoa will play 10th ranked Samoa with the winners to meet three days later to determine which team progresses to the Group stage, for match day three, four and five.
New Zealand, who have represented Oceania at the 1982 and 2010 FIFA World Cups™, has been drawn in Group B alongside Tahiti, Vanuatu and the winner of round one.
The Solomon Islands are the top ranked team in Group A and will play Fiji, New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea.
Each country will play every opponent in the group once in matches staged in October and November with the top two teams from each group progressing to semi-final ties in March 2025.
The Group A winners will play the Group B runners-up and Group B winners will play the Group A runners-up. The victors of those matches will then go head-to-head for the first-ever guaranteed ticket to a FIFA World Cup™ for an OFC nation.
The runner-up in that contest will progress to the FIFA Intercontinental Play-off Tournament and a chance to give Oceania an historic second FIFA World Cup™ representative in Canada, Mexico and the United States in 2026.
The host venues for match day three, four, five, six and seven and match schedule will follow.