AFC green light for Australia

Rashaldo

Rashaldo

Ball Boy
#1
Oct 11, 2004
327
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Sydney, Australia
#1
source: www.theworldgame.com.au
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Australia's bid to join the Asian Football Confederation has won the organisation's backing, AFC president Mohamed Bin Hamman has announced.

"The executive committee unanimously endorsed the wishes of Australia to join the AFC," Hamman said after a committee meeting in Malaysia.

The move, which should help the Socceroos World Cup qualification path, will however have to be endorsed by the World governing body FIFA before it can go ahead.

At present, the Oceania winner has to face a South American team in a two-leg playoff while Asia has four automatic qualifying berths and a playoff.

For Australia to play in next year's World Cup finals in Germany it must beat the Solomon Islands and then the yet-to-be-determined fifth-placed South American team.

Despite losing its most influential member, the OFC would, apparently, retain all its rights, including direct entry to all FIFA tournaments (apart from the World Cup), including the Olympics.

The OFC executive committee is to meet to discuss the matter on April 16 in Noumea, the capital New Caledonia.
 
Babak G

Babak G

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#2
Feb 13, 2003
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Big big news.

It should improve the level of football, and Australia may find it difficult joining the I hate grass-rolling club in Asia.

But their influence will surely bring professionalism, and get rid of some of the plagues of Asian football.

Im not delighted, but Im not angry either that they are here.
 
ibrahim

ibrahim

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#3
Oct 20, 2002
1,881
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Sydney
#3
its great news for us that live in australia, it means we can go to more qualifiers here in australia against asian opponents, hope it comes through.
 
Sly

Sly

Elite Member
#4
Oct 18, 2002
28,748
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#4
Oh no...I hope it doesn't come through!!!!

Australia means another contender fighting for the already few WC spots Asia has.

and what do you mean playing against a South American country??? Didn't Oceana already get an automatically free WC spot. I remember Fifa decided that last year! Playing against a south American country must be for their second contender or something! :confused:
 
Rashaldo

Rashaldo

Ball Boy
#5
Oct 11, 2004
327
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Sydney, Australia
#5
Sly said:
Oh no...I hope it doesn't come through!!!!

Australia means another contender fighting for the already few WC spots Asia has.

and what do you mean playing against a South American country??? Didn't Oceana already get an automatically free WC spot. I remember Fifa decided that last year! Playing against a south American country must be for their second contender or something! :confused:
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no , they only have half a place, they had one place for like 2 months about one year ago, but then Blatter took half a place of them mainly because of the horrible results of New Zealand in the Confederations cup, well thats the excuse Blatter gave but it was all about politics from europe and S.America .....

so now they have to play-off against the 5th best S.American side like 4 years ago ...... thats another reason they want to come to Asia, so they won't have to play-off anymore; if they had one place, why would they give it up and come to Asia ???

and there is no more hoping the deal is not done, its a done deal ....... only Aus has to apply for exit out of Ocenia and entry into Asia and FIFA approval, which they will do as AFC want them in their continent .....
 
Sly

Sly

Elite Member
#7
Oct 18, 2002
28,748
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#7
Rashaldo said:
but then Blatter took half a place of them mainly because of the horrible results of New Zealand in the Confederations cup,
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Really?? I guess I missed that! Thanks for the clarification!

Well, I don't know how Fifa and even AFC for that matter can agree to that! How on earth can countries like Iran and all middle eastern countries go to Australia to play a WCQ game?? The players will be dead tired when they get there. That goes to aussies as well!

It just wont work! Except if they divide Asia so that western Asia can qualify for themselves and eastern Asia can qualify with Australia or something. and that will be a bad idea too! :rolleyes:
 
Sly

Sly

Elite Member
#9
Oct 18, 2002
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#9
one more spot, which must mean that Asia should have 5.5 spots (not 5). Because this half a spot with which Asia has to qualify against a north American team, means more or less 5 spots already!
 
Rashaldo

Rashaldo

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#10
Oct 11, 2004
327
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Sydney, Australia
#10
Sly said:
Really?? I guess I missed that! Thanks for the clarification!

How on earth can countries like Iran and all middle eastern countries go to Australia to play a WCQ game?? The players will be dead tired when they get there. That goes to aussies as well!
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well thats the same thing i initially thought; but i guess Australia will proabably qualify through east asia against countries like Indonesia, thialand, Singapore, maybe North and South Korea or even Japan, and then play the middle eastern teams in the next qualifying stage .......

it will be much worse for the aussies actually,cause they have to fly back from Europe to Australia for 4-8 games, while the other countries only once; they austrlian team already has so many troubles with european club bosses tryign to get players back for games, i don't know how they are going to do it for so many games ....

there was also talk recently that Australia can play its WC qualifying in England, as most their players are based in Europe; they have already played numebr of freindlies as home games in England; however that campaign was not successful as the australian public will not see any games, so i don't think that will happen; although it might happen for couple of the games, u never know?

ps. AFC will not get half a more place just because of Australia coming over, unless the whole OFC federation joins into AFC !!!

i tell u people, the only reason Hamman did this to raise his profile so he can have a chance as succedding Blatter for the next FIFA president !!! God help us !!!
 
Sly

Sly

Elite Member
#11
Oct 18, 2002
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878
#11
Rashaldo said:
well thats the same thing i initially thought; but i guess Australia will proabably qualify through east asia against countries like Indonesia, thialand, Singapore, maybe North and South Korea or even Japan, and then play the middle eastern teams in the next qualifying stage .......
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Well that's what I'm affraid of. That would also mean Iran playing only against middle eastern countries until the second stage!! :rolleyes:

Rashaldo said:
it will be much worse for the aussies actually,cause they have to fly back from Europe to Australia for 4-8 games, while the other countries only once; they austrlian team already has so many troubles with european club bosses tryign to get players back for games, i don't know how they are going to do it for so many games ....
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Yeah...but it will get easier for them for the away games. Their european based players don't have to travel so far! ;)
 
ibrahim

ibrahim

Bench Warmer
#12
Oct 20, 2002
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#12
New Zealand is waiting to see the outcome of FIFA's decision, it they say yay to Australia, they are going to put a bid in to join AFC also, then Oceania will be dissolved all together.
 
Zir Taaghi

Zir Taaghi

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#13
May 22, 2004
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#13
what's gonna happen to the rest of the oceania teams?

this is not only about australia, it's interesting to see what other countries from that region have to say about this.

fifa should just merge the two continents entirely for good.
 
Payandeh Iran

Payandeh Iran

Elite Member
#14
Feb 4, 2005
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#14
Hi everyone. I have been a very active visitor of this forum since 2003 but never posted anything. Here is the first one. I think they should let the teams from Oceania play the preliminary games as they have done in the past among them and the winner (e.g Australia this year) to join the second stage of Asian qualifications and be put in a group with 4 Asian teams. The other group should include the other 4 Asian teams. Then the best two of each group plus the third team from the group of 5 (Australia included) advance directly to World Cup.
 
J

JazzedUp

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#15
Dec 1, 2002
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#15
I think Oceania will eventually dissovle and we'll see a new confederation which is Asia and Oceania combined. As I had posted before one option would be after that to split Asia into two federations so there will be a Western Asian federation from India to Iran and the other one will be Eastern Asia and Oceania but it's a very unlikely scenario as a lot of countries in Asia are against it. So the more likely option is all the oceania teams will create a pool and the top team or teams will qualify for the next stage of WCQ. So sort of similar to what is now except there will be an extra pool.

In terms of travelling it's not that much more going to Australia when teams like Iran travel to Japan or Indonesia or vice versa. Travelling is an issue already so nothing new will be added.

In the end, I quite like the idea of Australia joining up since I think it will raise the level of football in Asia. Aussies in general are very competitve in sports so they will challenge all the good teams in Asia and they'll get better so hopefully that will help Asian teams to keep up with them.
 
C

Chief

Banned
#16
Jan 29, 2004
2,735
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#16
Iran should welcome having Australia in AFC.
Iran, and in general most teams from west asia, have a better history against the Aussies than teams like China, Japan and Korea. Aussies dominate those teams physically but they can not do that against the middle eastern teams. So it should be good for Iran to have them in AFC.

In fact, Iran has a 3-2-1 all time record against Australia with a 7-6 GD. The only team in Asia with a winning record against them :D
 
Babr

Babr

Banned
#17
Nov 24, 2002
27,860
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#17
it is great it create more compitition and is good for asia but the bad side is the distance ..! it kills man ..!
 
Rashaldo

Rashaldo

Ball Boy
#18
Oct 11, 2004
327
0
Sydney, Australia
#18
Chief said:
In fact, Iran has a 3-2-1 all time record against Australia with a 7-6 GD. The only team in Asia with a winning record against them :D
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are u sure? i actually think they have a horrible record against the east asian nations !!! all i remember from previous games is losses to Japan and S.Korea !!!
 
pessarrekhob

pessarrekhob

Ball Boy
#19
Oct 16, 2004
61
0
California
#19
its not a good news for iran, this means 12 hour flights and playing in hostile enviroment, kind of like playing japan. it will make it harder for iran and other west asian teams to make it to wc.
 
biAzar

biAzar

Coach
#20
Oct 18, 2002
14,471
5
Antelope Valley,California
#20
I agree with payande Iran. That is the most practical suggestion.

In fact imagine current 8 team qualifiers to second round of asia WCQ, add two of china /oman/jordan and 2 teams from oceania. that would make a dandy 12 team competition. form 3 groups of 4. group winners qualify automatically. Best second finisher also qualifies automatically. the other two second place finishers will play it off for the 5th spot.
and hopefully, there will be a half spot of for the sixth team to play a north/central american team!
 
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