The 11 members of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) will soon embark on their journey to potentially becoming one of the 48 teams at the most inclusive FIFA World Cup ever. The preliminary qualifying draw is set to take place on Thursday, 18 July 2024.
Christian Karembeu, a FIFA World Cup 98 winner from France and FIFA Legend born in New Caledonia, will assist Dame Sarai Bareman, FIFA’s Chief Women’s Football Officer, with the draw. The event will be held at the Home of FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland, at 9am CEST (7am GMT/7pm NZST).
Based on the FIFA/Coca-Cola Men’s World Ranking of July 2024, the four lowest-ranked teams – Samoa, Cook Islands, American Samoa, and Tonga – will compete in the first round in a knockout-match format in September 2024. The winner among these teams will join the seven highest-ranked sides in the second round.
The second-round draw will divide these eight countries into three pots, and they will be drawn into two groups of four. The process will start with Pot 3 and move through to Pot 1.
Each team will face every group opponent once in matches staged in October and November 2024. The top two teams from each group will advance to the third round.
In March 2025, the semi-final ties will see Group A winners vs Group B runners-up and Group B winners vs Group A runners-up face off. The winners of these matches will compete for the first-ever guaranteed ticket to a FIFA World Cup for an OFC nation.
All OFC qualification phase matches for the FIFA World Cup 26 will be broadcast worldwide on FIFA+ starting from September 2024.
The runner-up in the final contest will move on to the FIFA Intercontinental Play-off Tournament, where a victory could secure Oceania an historic second FIFA World Cup representative in Canada, Mexico, and the United States in 2026.
Pot allocations for the second preliminary round draw are as follows:
Pot 1:
– New Zealand
– Solomon Islands
Pot 2:
– Fiji
– Tahiti
– New Caledonia
– Vanuatu
Pot 3:
– Papua New Guinea
– Winner of round one