Football in Oceania begins to march towards professionalism

Oceania Football Confederaton (OFC) is the only continental confederation where football is not professional and it needs to change in order to develop the sport in the region. There is a big gap between other confederations and OFC and making football a professional sport in Oceania will surely help to reduce this gap.

Vanuatu Football Federation (VFF) and OFC president Lambert Maltock revealed in an exclusive interview with Oceania Football Center that one of his plans for Vanuatu is a feasibility to set a task for initiating professional football platform in the country along with OFC in 2021 which means – at least in theory – that the march towards professionalism has started and they want it to happen in the whole OFC region.

According to abc.net, Papua New Guinea Football Association (PNGFA) president John Kapi Natto says plans to turn football a professional sport at the highest level in the country are on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fiji Football Association (FFA) chief executive officer Mohammed Yusuf revealed that the first professional men’s football league is likely to kick-off in 2021 – “We are getting help from experts running the A-League (Australia’s highest level of professional football league) and also FIFA is backing us on this,” he said.

Despite being well structured – football clubs in New Zealand are not considered professional. However lots of things related to the sport are going to change in the country as a new football structure is set to connect ISPS Handa Premiership to the regional leagues from 2021 on – which is going to bring some relevant changes for football in New Zealand.

There are not reliable sources about this process in some nations like Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Tahiti. The Telekom S-League – the national football league from Solomon Islands – still struggle to have a better league due to lack of facilities while New Caledonia and Tahiti have better structured leagues as they are French territories and have the help of French Football Federation, but local clubs face the same difficulties that the other nations in Oceania.

Some other nations are still far away from this reality like American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga, but these nations are probably going to have a strong help from the confederation in order to strengthen their local leagues.

Having professional clubs is something really important to increase the level of the sport as football players will finally be able to focus on the sport without the necessity of having another job like the seasonal workers – but it is not enough: It is necessary to improve local facilities and provide good conditions for players’ development.

It is also important to understand that technology, science and football are walking together in the 21st century. Most countries in Oceania are still struggling to understand the importance of getting rid of old and wrong habits that prevent them to improve.

Oceania has a long way to go when it comes to football as they are some steps behind the rest of the world. Now it is time to keep up with their projects and check if professionalism will finally become a reality in OFC.