By David Owen
March 17 – The head of Asian football has given his support to a modification to the World Cup qualifying system that would see the fifth-placed team in Asian qualifying play off against the top team in Oceania for a place in FIFA’s flagship tournament.
Under current arrangements, Asia has four automatic places plus a berth in a play-off tie, while Oceania, much the weakest confederation in world football, is allotted just a single play-off berth for its regional champion.
In qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, both of these play-off representatives – Jordan and New Zealand – came up against opponents from the Americas – Uruguay and Mexico – and were beaten soundly.
The results mean that Oceania will have no representative in Brazil, even though its entrant at the previous World Cup in 2010 in South Africa, once again New Zealand, exited the competition undefeated.
Looking ahead to a meeting with Oceania next month, Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, President of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), said: “I think we can agree on having the play-offs…played between the two confederations”, Asia and Oceania. This would, he said, be “easier for us, instead of playing in South America or Central and North America”.
Shaikh Salman appeared less enthusiastic about the Oceania champion joining Asian qualifying at an earlier stage. “The only issue is the logistical part,” he said. “Asia is such a huge continent. To have another country which is God knows how many hours’ flight to get there, and [allowing also for] the difference of time, logistics-wise would be difficult.”
Shaikh Salman is also lobbying for more Asian World Cup slots, even though no Asian team is currently ranked in the world’s Top 40; Iran is the highest-ranked Asian team at 42. “By getting an extra slot it probably will encourage countries to put more effort and more investment in the game,” the Shaikh argued.
He recognised that the Asian contingent at Brazil 2014 is faced with a tough draw, in particular Australia, which is bracketed with Spain and the Netherlands, both 2010 World Cup finalists, as well as highly-regarded Chile.
Even so, he felt that Japan (grouped with Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire and Greece) and South Korea (Belgium, Algeria and Russia) had a good chance of qualifying.
The fourth Asian qualifier is Iran, who face Lionel Messi’s Argentina, a revitalised Nigeria and World Cup debutants Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“In football anything can happen,” he said.
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