By Andrew Warshaw
April 9 – Oceania football chief David Chung, who abruptly resigned last week, did so after an audit of his confederation found “potential irregularities” on a $20 million building project and funding was cut to the region by FIFA, it has been revealed.
By Andrew Warshaw and Paul Nicholson
April 6 – David Chung, president of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) and one of FIFA’s highest ranking officials, has resigned after seven years in the job. A short statement from the OFC said Chung, FIFA’s senior vice-president and an important ally in Gianni Infantino’s 2016 presidential election victory, took the decision “after much deliberation, citing personal reasons.”
November 8 – The New Zealand Professional Footballers Association has become one of the first national governing bodies to publicly state it is looking to achieve a single collective agreement with its players, providing equal conditions for men and women.
October 25 – FIFA is not the only football body to face problems with a flooded pitch. But in India FIFA could switch venue and city for its U17 World Cup semi-final between Brazil and England. In Kiribati they don’t have that luxury.
By Paul Nicholson
September 7 – David Chung, president of the Oceania Football Confederation and the second highest official at FIFA as senior vice president, is under increasing pressure from football stakeholders in his home country Papua New Guinea, where a breakaway group of top clubs is running its own league and development programmes already with greater numbers and participation than Chung’s FIFA-backed organisation.
By Paul Nicholson
May 21 – Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) president David Chung has responded to accusations that he rigged his re-election to the Papua New Guinea FA presidency via a statement saying that the election was held according to the statutes. He also refutes allegations that he used FIFA funds to incentivise votes for his candidacy.
By Paul Nicholson
May 19 – David Chung, president of the Oceania Football Confederation as well as the Papua New Guinea FA, is facing a revolution in his home country where a rival faction has established its own federation, is playing its own matches and has more members than the FIFA-recognised federation Chung leads.
April 20 – New Zealand club side Wellington Phoenix have signed what they claim is the largest sponsorship deal in New Zealand football history with China’s Huawei. The deal is estimated to be worth $2 million a season, though no official figure was given.
August 25 – The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) has adjourned an appeal by New Zealand over their under-23 men’s team’s expulsion from the Olympic qualifying tournament final last month in Papua New Guinea.
By David Owen
July 8 – Football is generally a low-scoring game, but it is not invariably so. Arbroath 36 Bon Accord 0 in September 1885 in the Scottish Cup is one well-known counter-example that springs to mind. Australia 31 American Samoa 0 in April 2001 in a World Cup qualifier is another.
April 14 – Australia has given a lukewarm response to the idea of co-hosting the World Cup with New Zealand. Oceania is the only Continent still to stage the tournament and the Kiwis are apparently eyeing up the possibility of sharing the tournament with their neighbour.
January 7 – Oceania Football Confederation President David Chung says obtaining direct entry into the World Cup instead of his region being forced every time into an intercontinental playoff will be a major priority after he was re-elected unopposed to run FIFA’s smallest regional bloc, in terms of footballing stature at least.
August 6 – With so much competition at home, another British coach plying his trade overseas to make a name for himself is moving up the international ladder.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 5 – The Oceania Footbball Confederation will make no comment over its alleged role into how Qatar won the right to stage the 2022 World Cup until FIFA’s ethics committee investigator has completed his inquiries.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 29 – Oceania, by far the weakest confederation in world football and predominantly made up of tiny island nations, wants to give itself a better chance of World Cup qualification by combining its playoff pathway with that of the Asian Football Confederation. The AFC is currently allocated four automatic qualifying slots, with the fifth-placed Asian team going into an intercontinental playoff. Oceania, by contrast, has no direct route to the finals,